Once finished unpacking, Duncan takes a seat in the common room and begins glancing through old research papers he brought with him, idlly tapping a foot to the music. He only glances up when Miss Cavallería returns from her exercise, but doesn’t say anything to disturb her rest.
Eventually he yawns and addresses the other patients, “indulge me, if you all will, it seems my friend is studying a certain type of bad sleep if I am anything to go on. Do the rest of you suffer from a traumatic event too? I highly doubt he is studying people who sleep perfectly fine, and insomnia for all different reasons would make little sense to me either.”
The nurse’s shoulders slump slightly. “Again? These old buildings, I swear to heaven… I think it’s the cold, ma’am, bringing everything inside to plague us. The cleaners were here just this morning, would you believe? I’ll speak to them. No need for you to dirty your hands - I’m sure you should be resting.” She gives a rueful grin and heads towards the door.
The rhythm of circling up one way, down the other, absently counting steps, brings Antonella a measure of calm. This, she can control. The unspoken numbers fall into orderly sequence in her mind. Through the mesh fence, each floor rises into view steadily, then sinks. It has a pleasant near-hypnotic feel, and by the time she returns to the common room, she feels more at ease with the place.
@Abubu and indeed everyone - did I actually give you the character descriptions of your sleeping issues???
There’s a certain amount of looking at each other. After a minute, Rowe speaks up. "No, nothing of the kind - just nervous strain. Overwork, you know. "
“I can’t think of anything,” chimes in Barry Lambert. “Thorne says it’s lack of sleep, and if we can break the cycle I may recover. Here’s hoping.”
Newton just shakes his head briefly. Doesn’t seem a very communicative fellow.
Celia looks up from her book. “Something like that, yes.”
Roll me some Body Language, anyone who’s in the room.
McQueen is used to this; his eye for these details is what makes his work sing. Rowe does a reasonable imitation of a stiff upper lip - probably an asset in his line of work - but there’s something about his posture on the last few words, the slight clenching of fingers, that says uncertainty and fear. The world of finance doesn’t have much room for people who can’t hack it…
Lambert seems relaxed, and more open than when you saw him at work. Perhaps relief at finding some fellow-travellers.
Newton… ah, Newton. At first he seemed not to have much self-control, inclined to outbursts. You’re not so sure now. He made a visible effort to unclench his jaw, and his fists - but you have the feeling that if you could see into his soul, its knuckles would be white. He feels like a man grimly hanging onto himself, without much to spare for social niceties, clamping down on a seething frustration that still breaks through like steam from a pressure-valve. You have a suspicion that the man in fact has a will of steel.
Celia has a guarded expression, but there’s a sort of eye-rolling beneath it. Between this and her earlier behaviour, you get the sense she’s humouring this experiment rather than committed to it. She’s looking with interest at the exhausted Antonella.
Mrs Gill hasn’t spoken up. Now that you think about it, she did the same when you were all talking earlier. She seems a bit hesitant - perhaps she feels out of place in this company.
Aurore never met an awkward silence that she didn’t want to fill. She laughs at Duncan. ‘Well, really, Mr. Howard! I think it’s a little early in the day for us all to be baring our souls! Especially without some cocktails to hand!’
She walks over to the gramaphone and picks the cheeriest bit of jazz she can find from the dismal selection. ‘I don’t think any of us came here for the decor… but now that we are here, lets try to enjoy ourselves. And please, no more talk of traumatic events. We all have our reasons.’ This last is very polite, but very firm.
“Indeed”, says McQueen, “plenty of time for baring our souls later if we need to.” Then he goes off into a distracting story about the perils of coming back from an offshore party boat when you’ve been on the “gin” all evening.
Feel free to chat more - whenever you’re all happy to press on, you will have an adequate meal and then gather for a group discussion, where you will learn more about everyone’s ailments.
Under cover of the ‘cheery’ jazz, Stella shoots Duncan a sympathetic look and a friendly shrug. She thought he had asked an excellent question. Although, she won’t deny it’s also fun watching McQueen and Aurore play an expert game of “Hide the Elephant in the Room”.
I’m ready to move on to dinner and group discussion when everyone else is .
@Abubu asked for a die roll:
Antonella smiles a little bit at Aurore’s change of subject as she withdraws the hand she had placed protectively over her heart. She supposes it’s a little morbid, but she wishes she had a traumatic reason to be here, an explanation for the horrors she sees in her dreams. If would certainly help allay the fears that she’s losing her mind.
Once the music changes, she sub-vocally whistles along with the saxophone. She’s certain she’s never heard this song before, but the music seems to naturally drive forward as she taps one foot to the beat. She’s almost ready to be social again as she resigns herself to the fact that she cannot keep hiding behind her idiosyncrasies forever but just a few more minutes of blessed silence she promises herself.
@Abubu When Antonella eventually opens her eyes, she notices Celia glancing at her with interest. She seems fairly shy overall, but gives a crooked smile when you catch her eye. You see her mouth the word “stairs?” and mime walking down stairs with two fingers.
Jacobs strolls over to the door and opens it. The new arrival is a short, stocky man with a neat moustache and a cane. He exchanges a few quiet words, then enters the room with a heavy limp, and looks quietly around.
@Suz You recognise Sergeant Green - you’ve never met, but you saw him through a hospital door, unconscious with fever, when you were trying to look into the Strong case.
Stella is a little freaked out by this turn of events. For the past few minutes, Duncan’s musings on the link between certain cases of sleep disorder and trauma had started rattling around in her head with her earlier research on Charles Fort and the collective unconsciousness. And then Sergeant Green, of all people, walks through the door.
When Stella gets freaked out, she has to do something. So she goes over and introduces herself, her feet starting to kick into gear even before her brain does.
“Sergeant Green?” Stella holds out her hand for a hand shake (left or right, depending on which side Green is holding his cane). “I was Bennington Post’s lead reporter on last summer’s kidnapping. This is a very unexpected first meeting …but it’s so good to see you back on your feet. I’m not exaggerating when I say I think about Jane’s rescue, day and night.”
Green scans your face, and a memory visibly clicks into place. “Stella Clairmont, isnt it? I’ve seen you talking to the Captain.” He gives you a left-handed shake, enough pressure to be friendly, and holds it for a moment. “I take it you aren’t here, er… professionally? No, thought not.”
“Back on one foot, at least,” he gives a wry smile. “I shouldn’t complain. Some good men didn’t make it out of there. I recall your articles; guess the boys weren’t opening their mouths much. At least that poor kid got back home to her family.”
No roll is needed to tell he’s disconcerted at seeing you here; the wry manner looks like his instinctive response to being on the back foot, one you’ve seen in plenty of cops. Both you and Vincent will realise Green must be the other patient Thorne mentioned, who walks with a limp.
@EliScrubbs Body Language gives you pretty much what I told Roger, with the added sense that both McQueen and Aurore are sensitive on the subject.
As a medical man, Duncan is familiar with the difficulties of getting a really good pool of subjects, and with control groups - either could explain the discrepancy you seem to see here.
Antonella is a bit distracted, but she gets the gist - Celia clearly has some kind of trauma in her past, and perhaps Aurore. The others seem honest, if disinclined to chat.
Stella nods in agreement and returns Green’s friendly hand shake. She’s as much caught off guard as he is on this occasion. Her gut feeling is that they share in common a whole bunch of unsatisfactorily answered questions… despite their different professional allegiances.
Antonella’s face lights up for the first time since she arrived here and she quickly crosses the common room to sit near Celia. She dramatically scans the room before leaning in.
“Can’t have sleeping problems if you’re too tired to stay awake,” she whispers with a smirk before continuing in a normal voice, “Of course it doesn’t work quite as well as you would think, but doing something feels better than floundering I suppose.”
She fidgets for a moment before offering a hand and an apologetic smile. “As I said earlier I’m Ant, owner of Alley Antiques off of Main Street. If you’re looking for items older than the sum of everyone’s ages here, I’m your girl. Still not entirely sure how I convinced myself to participate in… whatever this is, but here we are.”
She’s really not used to this, a genuine conversation with another person. So much of her life has been spent with a nose in a book or the clinical interactions one has with their customers and vendors. It’s not that she didn’t want to make friends or socialize, she simply never had time (or if she was really honest with herself, never made time). She could recite ten different ways to validate a signature from a famous artist or author, but in small talk she was very much out of her depth.
“Would you tell me a little bit about yourself Miss Celia? As a new patient I would also be very interested in any insights you can give regarding what we can expect during our time here.”
((Happy to continue this conversation at dinner if everyone’s ready))
Celia giggles at the dramatic performance and Antonella senses some ice cracking. She gives a warm handshake. “Celia James. I’m a student, although I think I’m the one being studied now. I do know that feeling - although it was more my parents doing the convincing, in my case.”
Around this time, a nurse comes to tell you dinner is ready, and you traipse downstairs. Green finds it slow going, but declines assistance. Antonella notices Celia absently counting the stairs under her breath as she descends.
Body Language for more @Abubu Physician to evaluate Green @EliScrubbs
The food is fine. Not in the “Fine Arts” sense, alas, but the sort of adequate fare you’d get at a commercial hotel. The forced proximity prompts some more conversation and everyone seems a little more relaxed in each others’ company.
Dr Howard ends up seated with Mrs Gill. After some initial tentative remarks, she asks him what it’s like being a doctor. “Would you believe, doctor, this is my first time in a hospital. It’s all rather new to me.”
Body Language or Psychology @EliScrubbs and optionally Diplomacy.
Anyone else got anything specific you’d like to talk about? Dr Thorne isn’t here, just you patients. After this there will be the opening group session where you will be asked to share something about your cases and discuss the topic of sleep and your feelings around it.
McQueen continues to provide entertainment by anecdote etc. Depending on how you feel about him, you might think that he’s trying to get all the attention, or to draw it away from the people who really don’t want it.
.