eight. audio & spam. funnyman, gotta try to be something wonderful.

[indispensible]

James Stark is in a coma.

[She sounds completely unmoved by this. Entirely. (She shouldn't have used his first name. He'd be upset.)]

[She almost hangs up, then:]

Does anyone want to spar?

warden filter

. . . What do you do? When this happens. How do you . . .

[Not go crazy. Not feel guilty.]

What do you do?

open spam } CES

[For anyone who wants to spar, Vin will be in the CES, having Clifford throw large objects into the air for her to fling coins at and shatter out of recognition. The air is full of falling ash, mist curling under her feet, but the trees and the land are green. She doesn't know what to make of it, and therefore doesn't think about it.]

Comments

[warden filter]

[routemistress]

When it 'appened to Vic I 'ad 'im parked in my bed and slept on 'im. Least then they can't disappear without you knowing.

[warden filter]

[indispensible]

I'll go crazy if I stay still for that long. And he wouldn't want to -

[She sighs.]

He wouldn't want me to take him out of his room.

[warden filter]

[routemistress]

Well, I didn't sleep the 'ole time 'e was down. But I work in me room a fair bit. Did the same when Dean was down and all. Didn't cramp me style too much.

You going to draw on 'im? That can 'elp pass the time.

[And relieve one's feelings about people who go into comas when you want them awake and around.]

[warden filter]

[indispensible]

Draw on him. Pictures. I heard about people doing that.

He'd be angry.

[But it would be satisfying.]

What did you draw?

[private]

[routemistress]

Vic's too 'airy to do a good job; plus 'e were still a dog for some of it. But I 'ad Babs and Cain both down in comas at the same time a while back. That were bad. I put me soul into 'em both. I don't do gods, you understand. But that particular coma, it were a bit like praying.

[She took a lot of photographs, but there are only a couple she shows people. One is a cropped still of Barbara's arm and shoulder, lying limp among her bedclothes: she's decorated with a lithely spotted junglecat climbing down her shoulder among a bright scatter of parrots and junglefowl.

The other picture is Cain's arm, with Iris' white tiger print bedspread under it. He's covered from shoulder to wrist in vibrant flowering vines, much more stylised and formal than Barbara's fauna, the thorns and tendrils evoking both fractal mathematics and Gallifreyan script. Around his wrist there coils a sleeping dragon wreathed in thorny rose vines.]

'Course, them two were a special effort. But it did 'elp pass the time.