ArchivedLogs:Vignette - (Un)Focus

Vignette - (Un)Focus
Dramatis Personae Jax
In Absentia	2014-07-17 '
Location <NYC> Inkline Studios - Lower East Side
The front room of Inkline Studio is small, and does not, particularly, look like a tattoo parlor at all. Framed surrealist oil paintings line the walls instead of the typical flash ink, although interspersed are a handful of tasteful, artistic photographs of various people displaying their tattoos that might give away the nature of this business. Black leather armchairs cluster around a low glass coffee table; large black binders that sit on the table contain portfolios of the past work done in the studio. A glass counter stretches along the length of one wall, a plethora of various body jewelry on display; the 'front desk' sits at the far end of the counter, computer and cash register and large file cabinet making up the work space. The piercing and tattoo rooms are in the back, brightly lit and sterile, with doors closeable for privacy. Taptaptap, taptaptap; there's a jittery /bounce/ in Jax's leg that won't quiet, a wired energy that won't go away. Summer sunlight brings a /charge/ with it, vibrant (edgy) lively (restless) -- -- it escapes him right now, the last time he slept. One week, two? The thought presses his lips together (disappointed?) though it's a fleeting motion, an echoed expression picked up from someone else's -- /Quiet/. It's quiet in here, an hour yet before the studio even opens, half again that before his first appointment will be here. Spencer safely dropped at camp and no summer classes to /teach/ on Thursdays and so there's time to focus on the passing siren outside; it draws a reflexive tension through him before he's even aware but no it's not slowing just passing on so there's time again to focus on the buzzbuzzbuzz of his phone; Flicker is checking in about today's training schedule, Joshua is checking /out/ because he's been called in for a double, okay, note that in the roster and there's time now to focus on the message flashing on the screen of his computer (the screen won't sit /still/, bouncebouncebounce, taptaptap; he tries to hold /himself/ still to make reading easier but that vibrant summer charge won't leave); down at the Clinic Doris's replacement has not yet showed who can he call to take over in Control? But okay, a phone call later there's time now to focus on the emails cluttering his inbox, there are plenty he /needs/ to read and they're there, somewhere, buried amid a pile of vitriol; this person is promising to take his /other/ eye and that person is detailing how they're going to fillet his children to make sandwiches and this one explaining (rather eloquently, really) the reasons why his entire race needs to be shipped off to camps and this one promising to end mutantkind himself and there's one particularly explicit message that puts a tight clench somewhere deep down (at the edges of the room shadows are curling up in half-formed shapes reminiscent of his family) and possibly some of these should be forwarded to the police but instead he clears them all off to a folder of their own and /now/ there's time to focus on the images flashing unbidden into his mind, Spencer drenched in blood and Shane's teeth all pulled out and B half-starved locked in a cage and bullet holes riddling Micah and the jitter-bounce of his restless (energy) agitation slides the laptop straight off his lap; having to hastily catch it before it spills to the floor pulls his mind back into focus on the thick ropy scars bared once more on Hive's fresh-shorn head and the empty sleeve hanging at Flicker's side and the hollow empty sockets of Dusk's eyes and fangs sinking into his neck and a monitor strapped now around Dusk's ankle (and B's tears dampening Micah's shirt) -- no, focus; there's email to answer, a campaign push to raise money for those being hit by fines for not registering and there's mail to send and requests to sort and he needs to /focus/ on Sera growing sicker and the heaviness hanging around Spencer's name in dreams lately and a lab quieted all in one burst, cages holding nothing but corpses and police in body armor pulling him away for questioning on a string of murders he knows nothing about (and Malthus's serene face and Micah's teary one) right, no, there's an interview request, Mayor Carruthers' new freak squad Mutant Incident Division coming into being just coincidentally with a wave of citations on unregistered people and would he like to come talk about the effects this is having because this segment of the show is going to focus on Liam's eyes lit by candleglow and a burning shelter of living wood folding in around him as the building erupts into flame and a van full of the sounds and smells of the dying and Hive's furious voice ripping through their minds (and pressed-thin lips and disappointment) and the stabbing wrench of pain throbbing through his head is at least enough to pull him back, a moment; he never used to like pills but there's little to /do/ right now with so much to get through except dig a bottle out of his bag and down probably more Aleve than is strictly healthy in hopes that it will chase back at least /some/ of the excess-sunlight-agony long enough to let him focus on the scarred faces of his old teammates who still have enough fight in them (enough loyalty) to trek in from around the country when he says there's a meeting on the scarred faces of the old teammates long since stiff and cold with so many raids over the years gone sour on the Commons full of the tense apprehensive faces of those who don't quite know yet how to fit back into the world (on Micah's tears dampening /his/ shoulder) his fingers have lifted almost without thinking about it to brush against the twisting scars alongside his face but he drops his hand again quickly. Takes a deep breath to try and quell the jittery energy (searing burning he'd get rid of it if he /could/, when /was/ the last time he slept?) and his hands move to the keys of his laptop, freezing there a long time. The jangling in his head is loud (always loud; how many times has Hive complained?) and it isn't quite /clearing/ so much as shifting to clamour with only one voice. Telling him to be calm, listen to their child's feelings instead of turning it into another fight about society, try and /actually/ help his eye has closed and somewhere through the (disappointed) throb of headache and (not home) fire of toomuchenergy and (/less than/) weight of /exhaustion/ (trespassing) that lies (don't think there is) underneath he is picturing (don't know that we can) quiet. A mind unclouded with the constant flux of energy that he /can't/ shut off, a life where he /could/ just simply be too stubborn to sleep rather than /incapable/ of it, a future where maybe there is a place to be normal fit in be /better/ have some focus. His fingers finally move, when he opens his eye again. Slow; he has never been a speedy typer, pecking at the keys. www.beginagain.com. A silent prayer runs through his mind, (exhausted) (pleading) hopeful in its focus just before he hits enter.