In the sun, his eyes saw a brighter color than the one inside, a hue more yellow and white instead of gray. That was another reason he liked the bright summer, when the light was this bright, he could see dim blurry shapes. He craned his head up to look above him. A wobble in the solid color told him he must be looking at her face. He touched a finger to her face and felt the curve of her smile before she put him into the van.
S-A-N-D-Y was one of the people who looked after him. The others were mostly fine, though sometimes they came and went so quickly that he never had a chance to really get to know the texture of their hair. Hair had such nuance, sometimes. The complexity of how it felt near the scalp, still warm from its closeness to skin, then cooled as it reached out from the head, and the butterfly wing edges of where it was cut. Three separate and distinct stages that told him more about a person than the letters they clumsily finger spelled into his palm.
The van slowed to a stop, pulling him away from his thoughts on hair. He felt the shift as she got out. Hot air whooshed in when she opened the door beside him. The smells were different here. More overtones of brick and sickness. He began to feel uneasy. Breezes brushed his cheeks as people hurried by, walking to either side of them. He put his hands to the wheels of his chair, skidding to a halt. He signed, “No, no, no, no, no, no,” over and over again. He remembered now what the sign earlier meant. It had meant this place. “Home,” he signed.
S-A-N-D-Y took his hand and held it in her warm palm. It was what she did when she wanted him to know that it was okay. “Doctor,” she signed into his hand.
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