The Mental Conversation

MistWeaver: Okay, bad pun. But I couldn't resist.
Voice In The Mist: I take it that you mean mental as in mind, not mental as in insane?
MW: Precisely. More specifically, I mean my running mental commentary on all that happened after rehearsal today... Ryan's house, and Youth Group.
VITM: Ah, yes. Wednesday. Always an interesting day. Do tell.
MW: You should know first off that Ryan's sick. And when I say sick, I mean really sick. And not sick in the head, either. I mean the kind of sick that keeps you in bed with pain and doesn't let you eat and makes people want to cuddle you and make you better.
VITM: It's times like these that I wish I could raise an eyebrow at the last comment.
MW: I fall victim to strange motherly urges. They are often activated by sickness. I feel these really really strong urges to take care of them and make them feel better.
VitM: So have you turned these urges on Ryan as of yet?
MW: I've been tempted... boy, have I been tempted... But let me start at the beginning.

After rehearsal today, I was going to be picked up as usual and driven to either Youth or Ryan's, depending on whether or not he was well enough to go. I called him up and he said that he was still sick and not going anywhere, so I wanted to go over to his house and bring him some get well stuff. He claimed that he already had Gatorade though, and since I had fallen asleep while finishing up my Broken Wings Yoko Edition the night before, and wasn't done it, that pretty much eliminated all the other things I could think of. Specially since he won't drink tea on his own and his parents were there, so I couldn't work my magic on him.

Let's skip ahead to getting out of the car. This is basically where my internal running commentary kicks in.

I get out of the car, thinking "Uh oh, I hope he's well enough to answer the door." Then thinking, "On second thought, no! Don't answer the door! It will cause you pain to get up and make effort!"

He answered the door, to my combined relief and regret.

Boy, did that boy look a lot better than I do when sick. His eyes and nose weren't a different colour, and his hair was unbrushed and unruly, but not the horrible fright that mine would have been, all flat on the sides and standing straight up on top. He was wearing PJs, but they only looked wrinkly, not like they'd been rolling in bad things. Tired, moving kinda stiffly, voice all nasal... There was no doubt that he was sick. Just not unattractively sick. The bastard.

So I follow him in, suddenly at a loss for what to do. He sits on one couch, I sit on the other and drop my stuff... ask him the usual questions... You know, "Feeling any better?" "Have you figured out what's wrong?" "Have any strange body parts turned funny colours and fallen off?"... and then am at a complete loss of what to do.

Normally, I have my own special love and care for sicklings. It involves giving them the proper care they deserve. You see, I have this thing about taking care of people. As in, you SHOULD. How the hell are you supposed to get better if you have to tuck yourself in, make yourself tea and soup, hold your own dick when you pee...

VITM: Okay, I think you're going just a teeny bit too far.
MW: Perhaps you're right. But still, you get the picture.

In any case, I have a habit of trying making the sick as stress-less and effort-less as possible. But I can't do things like that if I don't have the power to do so. Within my own home, I do. Hell, even at other people's houses, if we're alone, I have that power. Unfortunately, I didn't there, because his parents were home. Oh, well.

Anyways, so we're sitting and talking. Inwardly, I'm thinking about how uncomfortable this is, how he should really be resting, not expending energy to be nice to me... But at teh same time, I don't want to leave. I mean, just hanging out with Ryan is always a blast, and I only see him once a week, usually.

So we end up talking about Zelda. Hey, fine with me. Zelda's teh best game in the flipping world. And then he suddenly jumps up (or as close to jumping as he was gonna get) and runs downstairs, warning me not to follow him and that he had somethign to show me.

I obeyed him and sat there on the couch. He probably shouldn't have been running up and down stairs, but if he was well enough to manage it, it could only be a good thing. Besides, it wasn't like there was much I could do about it.

He came back clutching one of those Canada notebooks everyone has used at some point in their lives. It turned out to be an old picture-journal from when he was little. All about... guess what!... ZELDA!'

Awww... It was so adorable... He couldn't spell