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what_she_saw2009-10-12 08:17 pm
memorysdaughter.livejournal.com) wrote in what_she_saw2009-10-12 08:17 pm
Love is an Ability, prompt #49 (disability)
Title: Love is an Ability
Summary: Allison thinks about words.
Prompt: #49 (disability)
Author: Sarah-Beth (memorysdaughter)
Rating: G
Character(s): Allison
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 402
Love is an Ability
Allison looked up disability once – in the dictionary, on a rainy afternoon when it seemed like nothing was going her way. It was a gray late winter day, the kind of day that could make it seem like you were always going to be alone, even if, on other days, you had love and support and friends.
It was shortly after she had gone to work for Devalos, and directly after several other new employees were hired. Unlike Allison they had nothing to do with the legal aspects of the office. They were the new janitors.
They had been hired, Devalos told her, from a firm that employed people with disabilities. The firm was run by the father of one of the employees, a bright-eyed young man with Down syndrome. The janitors were always clean and happy and personable in their blue polo shirts, and they had a smile for every employee in the office.
It was hard not to be charmed by them. Two of the workers, a ruddy-faced girl with thick glasses and hearing aids, and a chubby young man with Down syndrome, were dating, and they would often stop to tell Allison about their dates. The dates were so simple that she sometimes wanted to cry when she heard about them – a visit to a local park to feed the birds, watching a DVD in the living room of their group home, going out to Denny’s for breakfast with her parents. They were so very obviously in love with each other that it hurt.
Another employee used a wheelchair to get around, and he always wore his hair in a high, spiked Mohawk; he wanted to be called “Spike,” although Gabriel was his name. He liked to use the big push-broom to sweep the floors late in the day, when almost everyone had gone home. It was his dream to see Aerosmith in concert. Once he had brought Allison a carnation.
“Disability” was there in the dictionary, but for some reason it seemed useless to Allison. It was just a word, just like any other word, that could be twisted and abused and forced to be something entirely different. It wasn’t representative of the people who lived under its strictures. It was not the be-all end-all – it was so many different forms, refracted and crystallized like light through a prism.
Like “psychic,” she thought, and she closed the book.
Summary: Allison thinks about words.
Prompt: #49 (disability)
Author: Sarah-Beth (memorysdaughter)
Rating: G
Character(s): Allison
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 402
Love is an Ability
Allison looked up disability once – in the dictionary, on a rainy afternoon when it seemed like nothing was going her way. It was a gray late winter day, the kind of day that could make it seem like you were always going to be alone, even if, on other days, you had love and support and friends.
It was shortly after she had gone to work for Devalos, and directly after several other new employees were hired. Unlike Allison they had nothing to do with the legal aspects of the office. They were the new janitors.
They had been hired, Devalos told her, from a firm that employed people with disabilities. The firm was run by the father of one of the employees, a bright-eyed young man with Down syndrome. The janitors were always clean and happy and personable in their blue polo shirts, and they had a smile for every employee in the office.
It was hard not to be charmed by them. Two of the workers, a ruddy-faced girl with thick glasses and hearing aids, and a chubby young man with Down syndrome, were dating, and they would often stop to tell Allison about their dates. The dates were so simple that she sometimes wanted to cry when she heard about them – a visit to a local park to feed the birds, watching a DVD in the living room of their group home, going out to Denny’s for breakfast with her parents. They were so very obviously in love with each other that it hurt.
Another employee used a wheelchair to get around, and he always wore his hair in a high, spiked Mohawk; he wanted to be called “Spike,” although Gabriel was his name. He liked to use the big push-broom to sweep the floors late in the day, when almost everyone had gone home. It was his dream to see Aerosmith in concert. Once he had brought Allison a carnation.
“Disability” was there in the dictionary, but for some reason it seemed useless to Allison. It was just a word, just like any other word, that could be twisted and abused and forced to be something entirely different. It wasn’t representative of the people who lived under its strictures. It was not the be-all end-all – it was so many different forms, refracted and crystallized like light through a prism.
Like “psychic,” she thought, and she closed the book.