"It's A Reasonably Bearable Existence..."

"It's A Reasonably Bearable Existence..." Part I...

"It's a Reasonably Bearable Existence..."

Summary: The Powers That Be have had it with Sheldon...And have decided he needs a little Xmas...

Disclaimer: It's all Chuck's...But nothing for Joss Whedon on this one.

(Just a note...To learn more about Amy's rather bipolar, beautiful, and somewhat tragic sister and her Sheldon Cooper obsession, you'll want to read "Gran Mag")

Part I...

Leonard and Sheldon's apartment, that good day of the good year as mentioned, Christmas Eve...

Some might have called it a reasonably cheery apartment, a comfortable sofa, a nice wide-screen TV and unusually complex-looking stereo system...A closer inspection indicating a fine gaming system...Perhaps less attention to décor than many an apartment but not bad for one housing two bachelors. Neither much of the worldly persuasion...

On a shelfboard, pictures...But generally featuring but of one of the roommates, namely Leonard Hofstadter, experimental physicist and all-around nice fellow, many featuring him with his girlfriend, Penny. A lovely, tall, warm-hearted girl smitten with the acting bug and lured to California from her home in Nebraska by the siren call of the West Coast film and television industry... In a number of photos, the said Leonard's beloved friends, for Leonard was of the warm persuasion himself, and having known the sadness of a lack of warmth maternally in his childhood, was eager to reach out and embrace Humanity...So long as it accepted the embrace without trying to mock or depants him. Those beloved friends including his fellow scientist Rajesh Koothrapali, Howard Wolowitz, astronaut and engineer, Howard's wife Bernadette Rostenkowski, a brilliant microbiologist, and a later, but increasingly beloved addition to the group, Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler, of whom I have made you aware previously. And, in a very few carefully sneaked photos, Leonard's roommate partner of many years, Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper. Who in contrast to the others displayed a considerable lack of appreciation for being included in such frivolity as group or single pictures. To Sheldon, photographs were solely a means of identification for security purposes or following the statistically inevitable disaster sure to befall himself and the others of Leonard's circle one day. Despite his acknowledgement of the status of "boyfriend" in his relations with Dr. Fowler, no warmly glowing picture of he and Amy stood on the mantel...Only that of Amy, alone...Beaming at her beloved with devotion and sufferance...

Some who'd never met the roommates would confuse the names, calling Sheldon, Sheldon, and sometimes Leonard but Sheldon answered to both names, it was all the same to him... Then after determining the information was of no direct interest to him, he scornfully corrected the mistaken and now hapless questioner...

Oh, but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone of knowledge, Sheldon...To his own conceit, hard and sharp as a flint from which no steel had ever struck generous fire...A man solitary and self-contained as an oyster...

(Really?...Penelope stared at the pictures... "If that skinny fellow's my lad, he doesn't seem all that...Hard and sharp." "He likes to think so...Mind if I continue?" Joseph, annoyed tone. "Certainly, sorry...Say...Is that my descendant, the current Penelope? My word, she's my spitting image...Allowing for the costume...Is that some courtesan she's performing as? Oh, I knew one of my descendants would make it on the stage..."

Hmmph...

"Sorry, Joseph...Pray go on...")

As I was saying...

The cold within him froze his young features, made his gait awkward ("Well, that's his excuse..."), made his eyes narrow, his thin lips blue, and spoke out in his rather annoying nasal whine...

("So typical..." Penelope noted. "Clarence read me a story about a fellow just like this one..."

"Are you going to listen or do you prefer to chat through my time?"

"Sorry..." Geesh...Eye roll...Clarence was sure right about him...)

External heat and cold had no internal influence on Sheldon. No blissful Californian spring could warm, no Bozeman, Montana winter chill his soul...Though as to his behooties, he much preferred sunny CA...

No wind that blew was more scornful and bitter than he, no falling snow more intently focused, no pelting rain less open to entreaty... The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, but the arrogant Sheldon Cooper never did...

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "Hey Sheldon, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place of Sheldon. Even the blind persons' dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts...Excepting when he carried hot dogs on his person, in which case, if they were big blind men's dogs, passersby were afforded some amusement of him...

But what did Sheldon care?...It was the very thing he'd liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Sheldon...

("What a sad, pathetic wretch? How'd he ever hook up with? Uh, sorry, Joseph...? What is her name again? No, wait...Amy, right?" Nod to Joseph's sigh.)

On this day, Sheldon sat contentedly keeping the world at bay in his favorite spot on the living room sofa... A spot ideally located both in relation to the heat source in the winter and a cross breeze in the summer. Originally it had faced the television at a direct angle allowing him to immerse himself in entertainment or game play without being subjected to conversation. In his one concession to a common Humanity, it now faces the television at an angle that neither direct so that it would discourage conversations nor one that would cause a parallax distortion...

("Huh?...Clarence has a favorite chair in the tavern. And at home we both do...But..."

"Just something you should know...Kinda sums the boy up in a nutshell..."

"I think I know what a television is but is this 'parallax distortion' important?"

Oh, if only Claire had been able to come along...He's much better at such natural philosophy things. Still, he gave it his all...)