Boredom

Raphael

Raphael was bored. Really, really bored. He was bored enough to go and check in on Leo's meditation session. He was bored enough to go and bug Mikey while he was cooking lunch. And listening to annoying kid pop music in the mix. He was bored enough to go and sit with Don while he was doing who knows what with who knows what that to him consisted of a sheet of thin metal, two wires and a couple of screws. He was even bored enough to ask what the doodad does and actually sat through the long-winded, rambling explanation. He didn't take much of it in, but hey, he actually listened. He even nodded and asked a few questions here and there.

He couldn't remember ever being this bored in his whole life!

T.V didn't do anything. Working on his bike was no go. Listening to music, spending time online, looking through the movie collection. Nothing. Nada. Zip. In desperation, he finally started looking over the books that lined some shelves in the living room. Books, for a very long time, were hard to come by and were treated like gold when found in good condition. But Raph, with few exceptions, was not much of a reader. Now, he was willing to try anything to kill some time. Grabbing a book at random, he flung himself on the couch and started reading absently.

"Call me Ishmael."
"Huh, what kind of name is dat?" Raph wondered, and for a moment, he was curious enough about the guy with the dumb name to finish the page. Then he read the next one. And slowly read the next. By the time he finished the first chapter, he was too engrossed in the tale of the captain versus the white whale to notice his brothers staring at him with various degrees of shock.

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Leonardo

Leonardo was bored. Not just a little bored. He was completely, and totally out of his mind bored. He was not kind of person who got bored easily. His training took up a great deal of his time. When he wasn't training, he found meditation very relaxing and spent a fair bit of time at that. And when he wasn't doing that, there was always reading, chess, and the occasional movie. He even tried to teach himself how to cook semi-occasionally. Why his brothers would look on in horror when he tried to enter the kitchen for anything but tea, he had no idea.

But now, with his leg in the cast, he could not train. Meditating was not easily accomplished when you could not sit properly. He was sick of reading, and the movies waned a long time ago. Especially the monster ones, Mikey tried to make him watch. And now, with his brothers on patrol, he couldn't even lull the time with a game of chess with Donnie. Master Splinter was taking a well-deserved nap, and Leo felt the time hang heavily on his hands.

Sighing, he idly flipped through the channels.

"The typical sound of an approaching jetter was enough to warn the inhab.."
Click

"Hey, boys and girls! What time is it?"
Click

"I could never love anyone like I love my sisters."

Click

"Captain Ryan! We are doomed!"

Click.

Leo blinked and turned the channel back stared at the screen, at the bridge of what used to be his favorite show. Shell, it's been years! He was in love with this show. Aww, shell. What would it hurt to see an episode again? Maybe he'll find out why he liked it before.

What he didn't know was it was a marathon. By the time his brothers came wearily home from patrol, Leo had seen several episodes, and once more, couldn't wait for the next one.

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Michelangelo


Bored. Bored. Bored bored bored! Mikey was going crazy with boredom! He tried playing with Klunk, but the kitty would have nothing to do with him, being far too intent with catching a mouse than showing interest in that. Mikey decided not to mention that to Splinter anytime soon.

He tried to read a comic, but he read all of them ten times at least! He tried watching t.v., but Leo was hogging it. Ditto with games then, the t.v. hog. He tried pestering Raph, but he was emoing without any help, and Mikey was not so bored that he wanted to learn what happens after you die. He tried bugging Donnie, but the dude in purple was so focused on his work, that a nuke blown up in the lair wouldn't get so much as a blink from him. You know, before he was, like, vaporized and stuff.

He tried cooking. He cleaned a little. He tried to work on a drawing. He tried to paint something. He tried to paint his shell. He considered painting Raph's shell but decided he still wasn't ready to find out what happens after death. He tried reading a book. He tried reading an encyclopedia! He tried reading a dictionary! He even tried to meditate with Splinter. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

He was just at the point that he might actually want to learn what it was like to die after all when he saw something curious. Raph's yarn and knitting needles were on the couch. Mikey stared at them for a while, with his head cocked to the side. It always seemed funny that the most butch of them got stuck with knitting as punishment. It was even funnier when he started taking it up without it being a punishment. But now, Mikey was just bored enough that he was willing to give 'twirling yarn around sticks' a try.

He sat down and carefully started. Then he swore under his breath and tried again. Then he tried a third time. Then he dug Donnie's discarded laptop from his lab and looked up knitting. He found a video on youtube and watched it. Then another. Then another.

Donnie dragged himself out of his lab with a prodigious yawn. He stumbled blearily to the stairs, but the light from the living room caught his attention. He blinked, and rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Mikey, the only turtle who never seems to sit still for more than a nanosecond, was perched on the couch. HIs tongue was poking out between his teeth, and his eyes glued to his hands, which were the only things moving on him. Between his fingers, knitting needles flashed. A ball of yarn rolled around his feet, a kitten watching it with the same complete attention as it's master. From the look of the material flowing from the needles, Mikey had been at it for some time now. Donnie blinked, rubbed his eyes again, then went to bed, telling himself that he had to lay off the coffee. He was seeing things.

He was less sure of that theory when he got up the next day, only to find a new, and rather, um, holey, scarf waiting for him at his door. A pink scarf was waiting for him at his door...with more holes than material.

"Um….okay?"

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Donatello


It was not often that Donnie got bored. Normally, there was just too much for him to do. It seemed like everything electronic demanded his constant attention to keep running. The security grid needed constant tune-ups. When he had a free moment, a thousand ideas for inventions and experiments, a thousand books to be read and absorbed and literally thousands upon thousands new facts and lessons demanded his attention. Add training to the mix, and you have a very put-upon turtle. He simply had no time to be bored.

But a muscle can be worked out only so long before it gets strained. And when Donnie's brain gets strained, it simply locks up. He has a hard time focusing on anything. Leo claimed that he would sometimes go into the lab, and know Donnie was too stressed because he would see him try to stack bolts. He even had a hard time processing a page from a book.

In those times, he got bored. Nothing was going in. And heaven knows nothing was going out. But he was so used to doing, it was hard for him to just rest and do nothing. It was simply not in his nature.

The last time it happened, Raph was the only one there to observe his behavior. He was doing reps with his hand weights, and watching Donnie. It was somewhat amusing and very worrying, he later told Leo, watching his younger brother repeatedly get up from the chair he was sitting on, go to a bookshelf, and pull out a book. Then he would sit down again, open it, and stare at it for a minute. Then he would get up, and put it back. This repeated over and over.

"Cut it out." he snapped at last, "Before I throw this thing at you!"

Donnie turned blank eyes to stare at him. Raph felt a shiver go down his spine. The stare was creeping him out.

"I can't keep still." Donnie sighed, his flat, glazed gaze creeping Raph out even more than any yelling or angry fit could have. "I can't think."

"Well, what do you do when you get that way?" Raph asked, trying hard to be patient.

"I don't know." With a shrug.
"Geesh. You're worse than Mikey in this state! What helps you think clearer?"
"Anytime?"
"Yes, fine! Anytime."
"I don't know. Make a list?"
Raph said no more. He got up and left the room. Donnie took the book off the shelf again. Then went to sit down. Then got up again. He was about to put the book back on the shelf for the hundredth time when it was snatched away. Donnie looked up in surprise, to encounter green eyes filled with concern. Raph didn't say a word. He just put a notepad in one hand a pen in the other. Then he not too roughly shoved him back to the couch. "Here," he said, at last, forcing Donnie to sit down. "Write a list. Just stop acting like a creep in a loop."

Donnie stared at the notepad blankly. He finally took the pen and wrote, almost mindlessly. But something in the act seemed to sooth him. Soon the pen fell from his fingers and his head slumped forward as sleep overtook him. HIs brothers later found him and Leo put him to bed. Only Raph read what was written.

Stuck on a wheel

stuck in constant motion

Don't know how I feel

Doing what I do with no control

Where am I going

What am I doing

My thoughts running in a circle

If I do one thing

Crash and burn

If I do something else

Nowhere else to turn

So stuck on a wheel

Can't stop to think

Can't stop to feel

And nowhere to go from here