Winter Blossoms

He'd adjusted to his new home just as well as he'd hoped he would. The level of comfort afforded to the charges here seemed almost ridiculous. Almost all the rooms had double beds.His was warm and cosy – the staff had pushed the bed up against the radiator under the window so he had room to shimmy into his wheelchair. He'd taken to snuggling up against the gentle heat of the radiator at night, and peering out of the window in the morning.

It could get a little noisy, especially when the younger children had their lunch break and thundered through the hallways. But it was a wonderful kind of noise. Isaiah still expected to wake up and be back in the cold hospital room, plugged up, drugged up and only half conscious.

A carer knocked at around 9:30am, as was standard for new arrivals, or arrivals that needed the extra rest. She helped Isaiah dress – sweatpants, shirt and hoodie, and a fluffy set of slippers – came up with breakfast and chatted a good half hour away. Caught up in the conversation he barely noticed how odd the sound of his voice seemed to him.

She mentioned, lightly, that someone was coming around from outside the Institute to see him. They weren't a normal person like he had been seeing regularly, and it was okay to ask questions as long as they were not intrusive. Isaiah nodded as he was wheeled out of his room and down the hallway. He saw the visitor in question a few seconds after entering the downstairs lobby.

They looked almost too friendly to be real, even with the impressive horn. The nurse squeezed his shoulder and waved over to the kirin, dressed cosy in a sweater. Immediately he felt under dressed, but he only wore what the Institute had at their disposal. Most of their clothes were meant for lazing around in, with the odd shirt and pair of jeans from donations. He bolted upright in his seat and looked at the odd figure sat down in the lobby. “Hey,” he managed, stuttering a few times. “Isaiah.” Obviously communicating was not a strong point for him.

He saw them stare like everyone did and forgave them for it. Not right away. For the duration that they kept their eyes trained on him, examining and processing the sight of a cyborg sat leaden in a wheelchair, he thought of them with a vague contempt, unrelated to the fact he had also eyed them up in a similar fashion.

Behind the cheerful voice and sweet smile he could sense their regret. Having played into the liberty of staring for so long they understood that it felt horrible. It was that atmosphere that soothed most of Isaiah nerves, his fingers easing up from their grip around the wheelchairs arm rest. They were harmless, even lovely, in the sense a parent might be. Ones he realised in that moment he'd never see again. He'd been so overwhelmed by the new surroundings the people he'd left behind have been the after thoughts of afterthoughts, the second rain after a storm.

With the strength he had he could muster a smile. He committed the kirins name to memory. The nurse patted him on the shoulder and went to her other duties.

He'd not yet seen the gardens up close, his room had a view of the back expanse, but unless he leaned far out he couldn't see much of the shrubs and flowers. Going out the back hadn't occurred to him. “That would be nice,” Isaiah replied, in the stiff, awkward way he possessed. “There weren't many flowers back home.” As drab as it had been, how glorious virtual reality had made itself, he wished he'd not wasted so much time. He grabbed the wheels and rolled himself forward a little, mostly to prove to himself that he could.