New Story: The Adjusters #41

Here is June's installment of The Adjusters, “The Craven-Wilford Institute”, wherein we reconnect with Jennifer Hansen.

As usual, comments welcome.

I'll also remind you that we have a Speculation Thread available for general discussion. (A thread which I read but do not comment on.)


BOOK IV — RUNNING TO STAND STILL

The Adjusters #41 - The Craven-Wilford Institute

Richard Sanderson donned his uniform, trying to relax. His first day of his first job out of college—some anxiety was not only understandable, but expected. He had a few nursing internships under his belt, of course, like everyone else, but internships were different. One was mentored, supervised.

But this was the real thing. He was alone, left to his own devices. Sink or swim. So this is what independence feels like, he thought.

He looked at himself in the mirror in the employees’ lounge, which was lined up with lockers on one side, and a couch, a few tables, and a small bookshelf on the others. A large window against one wall let light in and offered a view of a pleasantly wooden area—filled swampland, he had been told. He practiced making relaxed friendly faces even as he checked to make sure his shirt was buttoned correctly. Focusing on details had always been his trick to control anxiety at exams and public functions throughout his life. And this is what it felt like—an exam, doubled with a quasi-public function.

He looked again at his blonde hair, unable to quite get used to how short it was, the shortest he had ever worn it. It looked good, he agreed with the hairdresser he had seen just the day before, who had suggested the new length as a way to mark his starting the new phase of his life. His shoulder-length locks had fallen ominously around him while she worked, like a rain washing away the past. He wondered again, as he had for the past day, how Felicity would have reacted at seeing his hair. She had loved his long curls.


Continue reading...


Next month: “Aware”.