Astrid Magnussen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
white_oleander) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhighdorms2018-05-13 06:26 am
white_oleander) wrote in fandomhighdorms2018-05-13 06:26 am
Entry tags:
First Floor Lobby; Sunday [05/13].
There was a certain irony in the fact that the day after Astrid left home was Mother's Day, although Mother's Day was always a tumultuous affair for her to begin with, another game in which she had absolutely no way of winning. If she did do something for her mother, proudly pasting together a card with a floral bouquet on the front out of construction paper in the classroom or saving up found change to buy a box of chocolates, Ingrid would scoff and disparage it, toss it in the garbage and rant at Astrid about falling into the traps of commercialism and emotional manipulation. And if Astrid didn't do something for her mother, the day would be spent full of sighs and lingering bitter looks, subtle jabs and passive aggressive comments, punctuated by the furious writing of poems that were filled with tragic symbolism.
Needless to say, Astrid felt extremely relieved to not be in California that morning, where she'd be loaded up into a bus and taken to a facility quite different than this one, to be marched through security, to sit on a plastic picnic table and awkwardly talk with her mother in the prison yard. Being here, all she really needed to do was make a phone call.
Since her case worker told that the mobile he'd given her was for emergencies only, she went down to the lobby of the dorms where she thought she saw a payphone, a bunch of quarters ready in her pocket. She brushed some dust off of one (they didn't get much use, did they?), counted out her money, and fished the card with the prison's number scribbled on it by her case worker.
~Doo doo doo! We're sorry. Your call cannot be completed at the time. Please hang up and try again later.
Astrid frowned, double checking the number, put in more quarters, and tried again.
~Doo doo doo! We're sorry. Your call cannot be completed at the time. Please hang up and try again later.
Was that a 4 or a 9? Her case worker should have been a doctor with that chicken scratch. She tried again.
~Doo doo d--
Astrid slammed the receiver back into the cradle with an angry glare, then moved the coins around in her palm with a frown. "I'm going to run out of quarters soon..."
Maybe at least the payphone hates me would finally be a valid excuse.
[[ I figured they'd have accommodations for the pre-cellular-revolution crowd. Open!]]
Needless to say, Astrid felt extremely relieved to not be in California that morning, where she'd be loaded up into a bus and taken to a facility quite different than this one, to be marched through security, to sit on a plastic picnic table and awkwardly talk with her mother in the prison yard. Being here, all she really needed to do was make a phone call.
Since her case worker told that the mobile he'd given her was for emergencies only, she went down to the lobby of the dorms where she thought she saw a payphone, a bunch of quarters ready in her pocket. She brushed some dust off of one (they didn't get much use, did they?), counted out her money, and fished the card with the prison's number scribbled on it by her case worker.
~Doo doo doo! We're sorry. Your call cannot be completed at the time. Please hang up and try again later.
Astrid frowned, double checking the number, put in more quarters, and tried again.
~Doo doo doo! We're sorry. Your call cannot be completed at the time. Please hang up and try again later.
Was that a 4 or a 9? Her case worker should have been a doctor with that chicken scratch. She tried again.
~Doo doo d--
Astrid slammed the receiver back into the cradle with an angry glare, then moved the coins around in her palm with a frown. "I'm going to run out of quarters soon..."
Maybe at least the payphone hates me would finally be a valid excuse.
[[ I figured they'd have accommodations for the pre-cellular-revolution crowd. Open!]]