tests that were just puzzles: playing chess problems, doing crosswords, stacking oddly shaped blocks. The word tests were plenty tough, but when it came to stacking blocks she was a whiz. Apparently her geometric modeling skills had increased by about 15 percent. Much of this result was improved reaction time, but some of it seemed to be genuine neoneuronal integration, according to the emission results. When she’d paged through this medical prognosis, she grew very proud of her achievement, and firmly decided she would do less talking from now on and just look at pictures more. Play to her cognitive strengths. Maybe even draw some pictures, or take some photographs, or model in clay or virtuality. There were so many fabulous possibilities.
After they gave her some plasticine, she had a stroke of insight and did the hamster. She put a lot of cunning effort into the rodent’s portrayal. When they saw the results, they were delighted with her, just as she had firmly suspected they would be. They said that it would soon be time for her to be released and continue the convalescence at her newly remodeled apartment.
She’d been suspecting the truth for quite a while, but she now fully realized that the people guarding her were as dumb as bricks. It would be fairly elementary to get out from under their thumbs and go someplace else where she could pursue other activities—something a lot more interesting than hanging around eating medicated mush with a hamster. This prospect was very enticing. Her only regret was that one of the male support people was really good-looking, and she had fallen for him a little bit. It was just as well, though. Even if she’d asked him to kiss her, it would only have been one of those severe medical ethical standards things. He’d never even make it to second base.
She was answering to “Mia” all the time now. She even did some of Mia’s work. There was a trick to it, like throwing your eyes out of focus. She would relax deep inside and let the Mia feeling come up, and then she could do quite a few useful things, type a lot faster, enter passwords back in the LEL-SF Assessment Collaboratory, collate spreadsheets, examine her flowware, sign the Mia name even. She came to recognize that the Mia thing didn’t want to hurt her. The Mia wasn’t jealous, and didn’t mean her any harm at all. The Mia thing was meek and obliging and accommodating, and not very interesting. The Mia seemed to be really tired and didn’t care very much about anything. The Mia was nothing but a bundle of habits.
She’d learned to get along a lot better by talking less, just by listening and watching. It was amazing how much people revealed to you, if you carefully watched their faces and what they did with their hands. Most of the time whatpeople were really thinking had nothing to do with the words coming out of their mouths. Men especially. All you had to do was just wriggle in the chair a little bit, and nod and smile nicely, and give them a kind of sidelong glitter of the eyes, and they just knew in their male heart of hearts that you must be perfectly okay.
Women weren’t so easy to fool that way, but even women would get all impressed if you just seemed perfectly happy and confident. Most women were very far from perfectly happy and confident. Most women really needed to complain. If you just coaxed them to complain at you, and nodded a lot, and said Oh-poor-dear and I’d-have-done-just-the-same-thing, then they would unload all sorts of things on you. They’d become all emotionally close to you and grateful. The women would go away knowing that you must be perfectly okay.
They made a big deal about her going home for convalescence. There was even press coverage—a net reporter asked her questions. He was a good-looking guy, and she started flirting with him a little bit during the interview, and he got all flustered and touched. She took the hamster home to Parnassus Avenue with her, along with the
After they gave her some plasticine, she had a stroke of insight and did the hamster. She put a lot of cunning effort into the rodent’s portrayal. When they saw the results, they were delighted with her, just as she had firmly suspected they would be. They said that it would soon be time for her to be released and continue the convalescence at her newly remodeled apartment.
She’d been suspecting the truth for quite a while, but she now fully realized that the people guarding her were as dumb as bricks. It would be fairly elementary to get out from under their thumbs and go someplace else where she could pursue other activities—something a lot more interesting than hanging around eating medicated mush with a hamster. This prospect was very enticing. Her only regret was that one of the male support people was really good-looking, and she had fallen for him a little bit. It was just as well, though. Even if she’d asked him to kiss her, it would only have been one of those severe medical ethical standards things. He’d never even make it to second base.
She was answering to “Mia” all the time now. She even did some of Mia’s work. There was a trick to it, like throwing your eyes out of focus. She would relax deep inside and let the Mia feeling come up, and then she could do quite a few useful things, type a lot faster, enter passwords back in the LEL-SF Assessment Collaboratory, collate spreadsheets, examine her flowware, sign the Mia name even. She came to recognize that the Mia thing didn’t want to hurt her. The Mia wasn’t jealous, and didn’t mean her any harm at all. The Mia thing was meek and obliging and accommodating, and not very interesting. The Mia seemed to be really tired and didn’t care very much about anything. The Mia was nothing but a bundle of habits.
She’d learned to get along a lot better by talking less, just by listening and watching. It was amazing how much people revealed to you, if you carefully watched their faces and what they did with their hands. Most of the time whatpeople were really thinking had nothing to do with the words coming out of their mouths. Men especially. All you had to do was just wriggle in the chair a little bit, and nod and smile nicely, and give them a kind of sidelong glitter of the eyes, and they just knew in their male heart of hearts that you must be perfectly okay.
Women weren’t so easy to fool that way, but even women would get all impressed if you just seemed perfectly happy and confident. Most women were very far from perfectly happy and confident. Most women really needed to complain. If you just coaxed them to complain at you, and nodded a lot, and said Oh-poor-dear and I’d-have-done-just-the-same-thing, then they would unload all sorts of things on you. They’d become all emotionally close to you and grateful. The women would go away knowing that you must be perfectly okay.
They made a big deal about her going home for convalescence. There was even press coverage—a net reporter asked her questions. He was a good-looking guy, and she started flirting with him a little bit during the interview, and he got all flustered and touched. She took the hamster home to Parnassus Avenue with her, along with the
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