Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [1]
Again, my hand flashes out and I seize the sausages. Jumping from my chair, I laugh.
“The line between hunger and anger is a thin line.”
Then, my dragon in one hand, the sausages in the other, I dart away. I finish my breakfast in the ladies’ room, carefully washing my hands after. I am finger-combing my hair into order when the five-minute bell buzzes.
Seizing Betwixt and Between, I scamper to the sewing workshop. Ali and Francis will not follow me there. By evening, they will have forgotten—I hope.
I am ruining a zig-zag stitch seam when a group of people come into the workshop. Nani, the workshop moderator, rises from the machine where she is sewing a fine seam and goes to meet them.
I immediately recognize Dr. Wu, who supervises my Wing at the Home, but the woman accompanying him is a stranger. She is tall and curvaceous, with golden hair and a sunscreen-pale complexion.
The buzz of conversation from those patients closer to the front alerts me that something interesting is going on. I stop my machine and remove the shirt I am sewing. Picking up my ripper, I begin methodically removing what I have sewn, all the while stretching my ears to hear what the visitors are saying.
“I think you are distorting the definition of functional, Dr. Haas,” Dr. Wu is saying angrily. “Yes, some of these patients can walk and feed themselves after a fashion—if someone supplies the food—but they are not fit for mainstream society.”
“Come now,” Dr. Haas says in measured, reasonable tones that make me shiver. “Certainly you are being over-cautious in your diagnosis. I see nearly twenty adults in here, all busily working. If they can work, they can get credits; with credits, food can be found.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Nani snaps. “Work such as these patients are doing here has been done solely by machines for centuries. There is no market for these skills. What we make here is cycled back into the Home to help defray costs.”
Dr. Haas’s cool smile turns predatory. “Cost is the bottom line here. The beds are needed to take care of completely nonfunctional patients. Those you are coddling will be reclassified and discharged. Perhaps some of the borderline cases can be given work as orderlies.”
Their progress through the room has brought them up beside my table. Trembling inside, I quickly feed the shirt fabric back into the machine. Dr. Haas pats me on the shoulder, but her attention is for Dr. Wu.
“Tell me what’s wrong with this lovely child,” she purrs.
“Sarah was diagnosed initially as autistic. She is hardly a ‘child’ either. Her records list her as nearly thirty. That innocent expression you mistook for youth reflects her utter inability to relate to her environment.”
“She does not show the withdrawal characteristic of autistics,” Dr. Haas challenges.
“No,” Dr. Wu hesitates. “That was the initial diagnosis. In the past five years, she has become more responsive to external stimuli, but hardly in a constructive fashion.”
Dr. Haas interrupts him and turns directly to me. I shrink away from her bright green eyes, cuddling Betwixt and Between for comfort.
Baring perfect teeth at me, Dr. Haas asks, “How are you today, Sarah?”
I stare blankly.
“‘Sarah’—That’s your name, isn’t it?”
“What’s in a name?” I manage.
The golden eyebrows shoot up as Dr. Haas turns accusingly to Dr. Wu. “Shakespeare?”
“Sarah shares a trait common to autistics in that she has a nearly perfect memory for the oddest things. We had a patient here several years ago who read a wide variety of works—especially Shakespeare and other literary classics—to Sarah for hours on end. Sarah appears to have retained a great deal of what she heard.”
“Can she communicate, then?” Dr. Haas seems anxious.
Nani replies, “Poorly, after a fashion. If she attaches importance to some phrase, she will recycle it.”
Something in her posture tells me that she is already defeated, despite the brave smile she gives me.
Dr. Haas’s smile is broad, but