Day 61: Greenhouse

[dualistic]

While Harvey never really enjoyed having to babysit one of the newer patients, he had to admit that Barnaby had been pretty easy to deal with. He'd been composed, quiet, and focused, which was a lot better than some of the other patients who only gave confused looks or had over-the-top reactions to everything they heard.

The point was, that conversation had almost been enjoyable, which was strange for Harvey to admit. He didn't know how Barnaby was going to manage in this place in the long run, but he wouldn't be surprised if he found his feet eventually and then did decently well for himself. It wasn't Harvey's job to care either way, but the close quarters they were kept in meant he'd probably end up finding out anyway.

Unfortunately, a positive note could only last for so long. As usual, it was a nurse who ruined it by insisting that he should go to the greenhouse for the last shift of the day. "Mr. Eckhart, it's not cold in there, so it shouldn't be any strain on you. It might be nice to help something grow, don't you think?"

He didn't dignify any of that with a response and instead resigned himself to his fate. He was one of the first people to make it into the muggy greenhouse, and he realized that he wasn't a fan of being cold or being hot. He fanned the air in front of his face for a few seconds and then went to find somewhere to sit down.

All the plants were lined up in pots; it almost felt like they were staring at him, waiting for him to do something about it. Well, that wasn't gonna happen.

[For Peter Parker.]

Comments

[lighthearted]

Occult and horror? That was not the sort of response that Sora had been expecting. Stories about going on grand adventures and defeating the bad guys were more appealing to him. They had to deal with horrific things on a daily basis here, although maybe that hadn't been the case for Seishin before arriving. Maybe stories like that had been his escape from a more normal life.

"Do you think you'll write any more while you're here?" he asked with a tilt of his head, genuinely curious. There wasn't much time to do things like that, but that wouldn't stop some people from trying.

As for games, there were a variety of different answers that he could have given, but in the end he decided to focus on the stuff that was accessible here. "Well, in the Game Room they have this thing called a Game Boy. You play a game on a little screen, and they have a few different ones to pick from. It's really fun!" It didn't really compared to the games he'd played on Space Paranoids, but he'd take what he could get.

[unpriest]

Seishin shook his head at the question. "Unfortunately, I don't think I'll have much of an opportunity to sit down and write while I'm here," he answered. Had Sora-kun voiced his opinion regarding the sort of stories he tended to write, Seishin wouldn't have been surprised. His novels hadn't been very popular for a reason, after all. But that was fine, he had always written more for himself than for anyone else -- though Tsubara-sama, his editor, had always supported him to publish his works.

But as they were now, the circumstances were hardly suitable to get his creative juices flowing. Sunako would have liked Shiki to be published, wouldn't she?

Seishin recalled seeing several gaming consoles in the game room, but Seishin couldn't say he had ever tried anything of the sort. He wasn't very good with machines, after all -- though he had tried writing on a laptop, he ended up donating it to his bedridden father.

"I'm sure it is," he answered, "Though I can't say I've tried the myself."

[lighthearted]

In the end, Sora couldn't argue against that. Writing a book or a short story or something like that took a lot of concentration, probably. They weren't given much time to themselves, here. Either the nurses were bugging you or there was another patient to talk to. Even during dinner, there were roommates, and while Sora liked that he didn't have to be on his own before night, it did mean that there was no such thing as alone time here.

"You should give it a try sometime," Sora suggested when Seishin explained that he hadn't had a chance to check out any of the games. "Most of the time it's pretty self-explanatory, but I'm sure any other patient -- or even a nurse -- could help you.

"There are also board games and stuff, too, if that's more what you're used to," he added.