Will The Light Still Be On?

Participants:

brynn_icon.gif

Scene Title Will the Light Still Be On?
Synopsis If it doesn't define you, why are you so scared?
Date July 9, 2020

Hospital, Canada somewhere


Sitting in the middle of her bed, Brynn has her knee up on a pillow. It's requiring ice here and there. She's refused most painkillers — her ribs hurt like a wicked bitch, but sleeping isn't helping them either. It's just making her feel decidedly dopey.

The nurse brought her a sketch pad when she'd asked for one, and now she's contenting herself with sketches of her family from memory. She knows her brothers and sisters, the lines that make up their expressions. The pencil isn't charcoal but the graphite is soft enough to let her smudge it the way she wants.

Drawing in black and white isn't new to her. But putting her fingertip on the paper and tracing across those lines to bring her siblings' faces to to life and getting nothing leaves a strange kind of emptiness.

Brynn's never really thought about her ability much. It's just there. It enhances her art, makes it simpler sometimes because she can create the whole image in her head to the last detail and sweep that image onto the surface she's working… but it doesn't define it. The better she herself for at art, the better she was simply able to direct the images in her head through her ability.

And yet… now… Who is she? Not all of the Lighthouse Kids had abilities. But the vast majority did. And now she doesn't. Are her siblings going to treat her differently? It seems like a silly question — she's deaf and they don't treat her differently. So why would they start now?

But for the first time in her life, she's realizing that while her ability doesn't define her art, it does in some way define her. Her place in the world, her place in her family … that was all predicated on the fact that she had an ability, no matter how mundane it might be. She wouldn't even have this family without it. Who is she if she's not one of the Lighthouse Kids anymore?

Stupid. Brynn can almost see Joe chiding her with the sign. Losing her ability doesn't make her less of a Lighthouse Kid. And it's not like anyone relies on her ability anyway. Much. Her current jobs are going to have to be done the slow way, but that's doable.

She puts her pencil down as a tear splashes into the pencil marks on the paper. She puts it aside carefully and pulls her pillow around into her chest to bury her face in it. She has no way to know the heartbroken sounds can be heard by the nurse who quietly closes the door to give her what little privacy is available.


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