Creases had formed on the forearms of Mr. Runner. It had been 32 visits since the sweating had stopped. 20 since the the shaking stopped. 13 since he'd had to use the buzzer at the entrance to the visitors area, they knew his face now. Case Runner had been in this room filled with worried family members so many times, all of them leaning on their own tables, and still the weight of the room itself bent its creases.
His soul had formed callouses months, even years ago, but those dents lain into his arms couldn't be defended against by some passive function of the flesh. The light of his life was dying. The sun in his sky was fading, not due to some celestial inevitability, or a planetary incursion creating a blinding illusion, but by her own hands.
Case tapped his side in an involuntary gear check to find his keys were missing. A nano second of anxiety passed when his eyes met the blue corn-plastic bin resting in the administrators office. They took anything that could be used to cause self harm upon entry, as the patients of this particular ward were hell bent on leaving it any way they could. While Case knew his machine was old and metal, a grav bound Mercedes that spit poloution what could choke a factory crow, the thought of his toothy key being used as an instrument of death seemed barbaric, ancient. Everytime he loosed them into the tray, hearing the slap of six mag-chips and the ring of one aluminum key, he couldnt help but think of his girl violently dragging its edge across her wrist, over and over, trying to free the red fuel that kept her bound to this plane. Smelling the tears of desperation as she clawed helplessly against her skin with the key.
Case shook his head and snapped back into the cold room. The wood print vinyl looked up at him from the round cafeteria table he patiently leant on.
'Uhg' He thought. ' How many plastic trees had to die for you?'. Runner had to jest to keep from snatching that key and taking a note from the guards warnings.
"Mr. Runner?" A tall nurse called from the entryway to the visitors room. He was the same man who ushered Sheena in every time. Handsome in his own way and made more appealing to the eyes by the lack of beauty he was surrounded by. He stood about six foot but gained a couple inches as he was rail thin. 'Hutz' was etched into his badge. Case guessed this was his last name based upon his common sense knowledge of name tag protocol. Sheena had mentioned a man fitting his description who she had learned to trust in her time here, but never referred to him by name. Case knew this was him, and despised the man for the time he was allowed, but couldn't help but be thankful for his loves comfort.
"Right here," Case said lifting his arm slowly and turning. 'You know its me you fuck.' he thought.
Hutz stepped back, pushing the door behind him with the ridge of his shoulders. He looked to his right, down the corridor and let loose a slight but knowing smile. He stepped out and all that was left was the back of his left hand holding the door opened.
Sheena stepped through, not yet looking into the room but up at a now invisible Hutz, returning his smile. His hand slid to the edge of the door and he was gone. The weight of the door now came to rest on the frail, stark white hand of the object of Case's affection, love, and worry. Sheena.
This girl had eyes that could tear a hole in an oribiters hull, weld it shut again, then hop inside and steal every molecule of oxygen scrubbed for consumption. Though she was sick and without colour, there was still some radiance, not some youthful beauty, or warmth, but the glow of the moon on a plasteel walkway. Stepped on and sad, but unyielding. It always looked as though she had just finished crying. The rims of her eyes were red and inflamed. Her lips were wet and pink, recently licked and refreshed. Her pale red hair was braided and tossed over her right shoulder. The girls in the ward had very little to do, and as Sheena had explained, took to braiding one anothers damaged and broken hair several times a day. The freckles Case had loved so truley, and counted hundreds of times had faded yet still remained. Faint but still present as if they had begun to recede into the girl, feeling her withdraw from the world and following suit.
Sheena took the same nine steps she always had to the round plastic stool beside Case. Her slippers sliding across the once smooth Lino, now marked by stool leg indentions. She gently laid her hand on the table top and lowered herself onto the stool.
"Hey" She said smiling big and tugging her braid. Her turquoise robe settle on the floor and she crossed her legs. Loose fitting sweatpants met silently. Left over right.
"Ive missed you so much, im sorry I couldn't call yesterday. I was stuck without my phone and didnt make it home." Case said sliding his hand across the table to meet her fingertips.
"Its ok, I understand." She replied pushing her fingers over his just has far as the index cuticle. There wasnt supposed to be any contact in the visiting room to ensure nothing was being passed back and forth and to make sure the other visitors weren't made uncomfortable.
"How have you been, I cant believe its been a week since ive seen you already. You've been in here so long the wednesdays kindof, I dont know, push up against each other. Everything else is just filler." Case said pushing his index finger further beneath hers and sliding his ring finger atop hers.
"Ive been alright. I kindof lost it the other day though. They were making us all go to group therapy twice in one day and everyone was pissed. It basically meant that our time to do what we wanted was cut down to an hour as opposed to 3. When you have that little time alone it gets to you, someone taking it away you know?" Sheena said adjusting herself on the uncomfortable stool.
"Yeah I can imagine..." Case started. He had thought about her plight in this place more when she was first admitted, but not witnessing it first hand. It had become an imaginary routine that flashed by in the instant of a fleeting day dream. Overshadowed by his own dreams of being with her outside again."Thats bullshit. What do you mean by 'Lost it?'".
"Yelling throwing shit. Im embarrassed about it. But The nurses were cool about it and everything. I calmed down eventually." Sheena said leaning forward and smiling again.
Case tried not to be jealous of some nurse, as they were trying to save the love of his life, but he couldnt help but feel some envy for someone who could do what he couldnt. Someone who was allowed to help. Fucking Hutz. More and more the thought of the man bothered him. Some fucking saint helping his girl calm down in his absence. Case wanted to help. He thought he could. He tried for years. Eventually there came a point when he was proven wrong and it killed him. That gangle fuck was saving his girl while all he got was 15 minutes on the phone a day and 30 minutes a week in person, in a room of a fucking crying mothers, stoic fathers. It would be wrong to say anything, to ask if she felt for him, for Hutz.
"So, have you made any new friends?" Case asked. 'Godamnit, why do I have to ask, why do I have to torture myself? Shes not going to mention him'.
"No no one new has come in since last time." She replied. " Good news though..." She started.
"Ya? what?" Case said grabbing her hand full and tight. This was unacceptable contact but the notion of good news was overwhelming when you spend your days with nothing but the bad.
"If I do well this week I get a pass to go outside next time you visit!" She said squeezing back. Her head shot to the side, whipping her braid into the air. She looked over her shoulder to the room guard/nurse and let go. He didn't see but she had to make sure.
"No shit! thats amazing!" Case exclaimed. This was good news. He hadnt held the girl in months. Hadnt kissed the girl in almost a year. He needed it. They needed it. The want for contact had grown beyond a point of merely wanting. It was a need and he was on the verge of losing his mind over it. It wasnt just wanting sex, it was wanting any form of physical affection. Not to say that Case didnt desire her whole body. He thought of it constantly. Before Sheena had fallen into her depression they had made love with the consistency of the moonrise. They had fucked with the frequency of a string of summer power outages. They lived for the sound of hips clapping together, the sound so loud it would almost make your ears ring.
Case could still recall the shape of her hips as she bent and arched her back. Her smooth white skin reflecting the sharp blue neon from the street. The way she would pull herself away from him only to push back fast enough to break both their bones, but with the fluid grace roboticists have pined for for centuries. The feeling of his hand at first cupping, and then grasping tightly the back of her neck where her hair grew fine and her spine shook chills to her shoulders- down her arms to her finger tips-down her back-around her hip bones to her stomach- up to her chest- a wave over her breast making the skin taught and sensitive- from her hips to her thighs and up between her legs where he could feel her shiver and surround him, tight inside of her- down to her knees tensing and bending-down the back of her calves and around her ankles to twist and wash across the bottoms of her feet to meet curling toes. Case could remember not with his mind but with his body how his shoulders would ache and swell, using every ounce of energy inisde him to pull Sheena by her gentle waist to meet his front. Her soft tissue pillowing against his waist as he travelled deeper into her. He could see that blue neon striking the sweat that studded their bodies, entering each drop only to twist- distort and release itself into their eyes. The room would always grow hot and humid. The sheets once neatly drawn across their Nano-cushion bed now pulled from every corner and bundled beneath Sheenas stomach, between her knees and elbows. He could imagine perfectly the creases on the pillow as she pressed the side of her face into the thing- her hair now wet- her cheecks red- mouth open. He could see her tongue moving back and forth across the back of her teeth and her eyes open just enough to shine a slit of un spent tears. Finally , almost like clock work but without monotony, she would release her last deep, heaving breath and exchange it for the whistle of air being drawn through tightly clenched teeth. Over and over. Every muscle tightened from jaw to shoulders, from arms to legs, from stomach to back, and from inside to out. Case would take the cue as if there were some kind of choice and let go, still moving but without any inward impetus. She would shake and go limp. He would fall to her side. The blue neon would lose its edge, and the night would have its way, drenching their minds, and bodies, with its dark shawl.
"Thats so great." Case said resting his head in a cupped hand and arm propped on the table. The sex was one thing, but what they both needed now was some faint reminder they were still alive. Still in love.
The idle conversation of a hospital visiting room ran its course and Hutz re entered. Time was up.
"Times up." Hutz spat without feeling. Fucker.
"Ill call you tonight when im off work. Be good. Lets get you out of here." Case said standing.
The two exchanged a platonicly masked hug and Sheena as ushered out with the others. Hutz Lingered untill the last of them exited and shot Case a glance.
"Nice girl, Sheena." He said smirking.
"Ya." Case replied clenching a fist. 'Cant hit em.' he thought. 'Cant do it. dont do it.'
Case reclaimed his "dangerous" belongings and walked down the fluorescent sewer of a hallway. The elevator bell rang.
'Goodbye.'
His soul had formed callouses months, even years ago, but those dents lain into his arms couldn't be defended against by some passive function of the flesh. The light of his life was dying. The sun in his sky was fading, not due to some celestial inevitability, or a planetary incursion creating a blinding illusion, but by her own hands.
Case tapped his side in an involuntary gear check to find his keys were missing. A nano second of anxiety passed when his eyes met the blue corn-plastic bin resting in the administrators office. They took anything that could be used to cause self harm upon entry, as the patients of this particular ward were hell bent on leaving it any way they could. While Case knew his machine was old and metal, a grav bound Mercedes that spit poloution what could choke a factory crow, the thought of his toothy key being used as an instrument of death seemed barbaric, ancient. Everytime he loosed them into the tray, hearing the slap of six mag-chips and the ring of one aluminum key, he couldnt help but think of his girl violently dragging its edge across her wrist, over and over, trying to free the red fuel that kept her bound to this plane. Smelling the tears of desperation as she clawed helplessly against her skin with the key.
Case shook his head and snapped back into the cold room. The wood print vinyl looked up at him from the round cafeteria table he patiently leant on.
'Uhg' He thought. ' How many plastic trees had to die for you?'. Runner had to jest to keep from snatching that key and taking a note from the guards warnings.
"Mr. Runner?" A tall nurse called from the entryway to the visitors room. He was the same man who ushered Sheena in every time. Handsome in his own way and made more appealing to the eyes by the lack of beauty he was surrounded by. He stood about six foot but gained a couple inches as he was rail thin. 'Hutz' was etched into his badge. Case guessed this was his last name based upon his common sense knowledge of name tag protocol. Sheena had mentioned a man fitting his description who she had learned to trust in her time here, but never referred to him by name. Case knew this was him, and despised the man for the time he was allowed, but couldn't help but be thankful for his loves comfort.
"Right here," Case said lifting his arm slowly and turning. 'You know its me you fuck.' he thought.
Hutz stepped back, pushing the door behind him with the ridge of his shoulders. He looked to his right, down the corridor and let loose a slight but knowing smile. He stepped out and all that was left was the back of his left hand holding the door opened.
Sheena stepped through, not yet looking into the room but up at a now invisible Hutz, returning his smile. His hand slid to the edge of the door and he was gone. The weight of the door now came to rest on the frail, stark white hand of the object of Case's affection, love, and worry. Sheena.
This girl had eyes that could tear a hole in an oribiters hull, weld it shut again, then hop inside and steal every molecule of oxygen scrubbed for consumption. Though she was sick and without colour, there was still some radiance, not some youthful beauty, or warmth, but the glow of the moon on a plasteel walkway. Stepped on and sad, but unyielding. It always looked as though she had just finished crying. The rims of her eyes were red and inflamed. Her lips were wet and pink, recently licked and refreshed. Her pale red hair was braided and tossed over her right shoulder. The girls in the ward had very little to do, and as Sheena had explained, took to braiding one anothers damaged and broken hair several times a day. The freckles Case had loved so truley, and counted hundreds of times had faded yet still remained. Faint but still present as if they had begun to recede into the girl, feeling her withdraw from the world and following suit.
Sheena took the same nine steps she always had to the round plastic stool beside Case. Her slippers sliding across the once smooth Lino, now marked by stool leg indentions. She gently laid her hand on the table top and lowered herself onto the stool.
"Hey" She said smiling big and tugging her braid. Her turquoise robe settle on the floor and she crossed her legs. Loose fitting sweatpants met silently. Left over right.
"Ive missed you so much, im sorry I couldn't call yesterday. I was stuck without my phone and didnt make it home." Case said sliding his hand across the table to meet her fingertips.
"Its ok, I understand." She replied pushing her fingers over his just has far as the index cuticle. There wasnt supposed to be any contact in the visiting room to ensure nothing was being passed back and forth and to make sure the other visitors weren't made uncomfortable.
"How have you been, I cant believe its been a week since ive seen you already. You've been in here so long the wednesdays kindof, I dont know, push up against each other. Everything else is just filler." Case said pushing his index finger further beneath hers and sliding his ring finger atop hers.
"Ive been alright. I kindof lost it the other day though. They were making us all go to group therapy twice in one day and everyone was pissed. It basically meant that our time to do what we wanted was cut down to an hour as opposed to 3. When you have that little time alone it gets to you, someone taking it away you know?" Sheena said adjusting herself on the uncomfortable stool.
"Yeah I can imagine..." Case started. He had thought about her plight in this place more when she was first admitted, but not witnessing it first hand. It had become an imaginary routine that flashed by in the instant of a fleeting day dream. Overshadowed by his own dreams of being with her outside again."Thats bullshit. What do you mean by 'Lost it?'".
"Yelling throwing shit. Im embarrassed about it. But The nurses were cool about it and everything. I calmed down eventually." Sheena said leaning forward and smiling again.
Case tried not to be jealous of some nurse, as they were trying to save the love of his life, but he couldnt help but feel some envy for someone who could do what he couldnt. Someone who was allowed to help. Fucking Hutz. More and more the thought of the man bothered him. Some fucking saint helping his girl calm down in his absence. Case wanted to help. He thought he could. He tried for years. Eventually there came a point when he was proven wrong and it killed him. That gangle fuck was saving his girl while all he got was 15 minutes on the phone a day and 30 minutes a week in person, in a room of a fucking crying mothers, stoic fathers. It would be wrong to say anything, to ask if she felt for him, for Hutz.
"So, have you made any new friends?" Case asked. 'Godamnit, why do I have to ask, why do I have to torture myself? Shes not going to mention him'.
"No no one new has come in since last time." She replied. " Good news though..." She started.
"Ya? what?" Case said grabbing her hand full and tight. This was unacceptable contact but the notion of good news was overwhelming when you spend your days with nothing but the bad.
"If I do well this week I get a pass to go outside next time you visit!" She said squeezing back. Her head shot to the side, whipping her braid into the air. She looked over her shoulder to the room guard/nurse and let go. He didn't see but she had to make sure.
"No shit! thats amazing!" Case exclaimed. This was good news. He hadnt held the girl in months. Hadnt kissed the girl in almost a year. He needed it. They needed it. The want for contact had grown beyond a point of merely wanting. It was a need and he was on the verge of losing his mind over it. It wasnt just wanting sex, it was wanting any form of physical affection. Not to say that Case didnt desire her whole body. He thought of it constantly. Before Sheena had fallen into her depression they had made love with the consistency of the moonrise. They had fucked with the frequency of a string of summer power outages. They lived for the sound of hips clapping together, the sound so loud it would almost make your ears ring.
Case could still recall the shape of her hips as she bent and arched her back. Her smooth white skin reflecting the sharp blue neon from the street. The way she would pull herself away from him only to push back fast enough to break both their bones, but with the fluid grace roboticists have pined for for centuries. The feeling of his hand at first cupping, and then grasping tightly the back of her neck where her hair grew fine and her spine shook chills to her shoulders- down her arms to her finger tips-down her back-around her hip bones to her stomach- up to her chest- a wave over her breast making the skin taught and sensitive- from her hips to her thighs and up between her legs where he could feel her shiver and surround him, tight inside of her- down to her knees tensing and bending-down the back of her calves and around her ankles to twist and wash across the bottoms of her feet to meet curling toes. Case could remember not with his mind but with his body how his shoulders would ache and swell, using every ounce of energy inisde him to pull Sheena by her gentle waist to meet his front. Her soft tissue pillowing against his waist as he travelled deeper into her. He could see that blue neon striking the sweat that studded their bodies, entering each drop only to twist- distort and release itself into their eyes. The room would always grow hot and humid. The sheets once neatly drawn across their Nano-cushion bed now pulled from every corner and bundled beneath Sheenas stomach, between her knees and elbows. He could imagine perfectly the creases on the pillow as she pressed the side of her face into the thing- her hair now wet- her cheecks red- mouth open. He could see her tongue moving back and forth across the back of her teeth and her eyes open just enough to shine a slit of un spent tears. Finally , almost like clock work but without monotony, she would release her last deep, heaving breath and exchange it for the whistle of air being drawn through tightly clenched teeth. Over and over. Every muscle tightened from jaw to shoulders, from arms to legs, from stomach to back, and from inside to out. Case would take the cue as if there were some kind of choice and let go, still moving but without any inward impetus. She would shake and go limp. He would fall to her side. The blue neon would lose its edge, and the night would have its way, drenching their minds, and bodies, with its dark shawl.
"Thats so great." Case said resting his head in a cupped hand and arm propped on the table. The sex was one thing, but what they both needed now was some faint reminder they were still alive. Still in love.
The idle conversation of a hospital visiting room ran its course and Hutz re entered. Time was up.
"Times up." Hutz spat without feeling. Fucker.
"Ill call you tonight when im off work. Be good. Lets get you out of here." Case said standing.
The two exchanged a platonicly masked hug and Sheena as ushered out with the others. Hutz Lingered untill the last of them exited and shot Case a glance.
"Nice girl, Sheena." He said smirking.
"Ya." Case replied clenching a fist. 'Cant hit em.' he thought. 'Cant do it. dont do it.'
Case reclaimed his "dangerous" belongings and walked down the fluorescent sewer of a hallway. The elevator bell rang.
'Goodbye.'
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