Leaking
Leaking
The bathroom faucet is leaking again. Do they make diapers for faucets? I'd ask my son, if I could remember his phone number.
My room shrank today. It's not the first time. In another month I won't fit in it. The ladies who take care of us keep telling me not to worry. They'll move me to a bigger room. Are they speaking the truth? I'd ask my son, if I could remember his phone number.
We had a fire drill yesterday. I think it was yesterday. It could have been today. I don't think it was tomorrow. I trudged along the hall, the wheel on my walker squeaking like a mouse with it's tail in a trap trying to get loose. Maybe the squeak wasn't from a mouse, or the walker. Maybe it was someone pleading to go home.
Ellen hooked her fingers around my arm on the way back to our rooms. She's my neighbor. Ellen scares me. This place scares me. The fact I can't remember my son's phone number scares me.
[A slightly different version of this story originally was published at Thickjam in 2013. I learned yesterday the site has been shut down.]
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Author's Note
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I liked this a lot, maybe because my dad lives in a facility like you're describing. Getting old is a bitch.*
This piece scares me, it's so damned real. *****
There's something to be said for dying young.
*affecting.
Thank you, Gentlemen.
Sad piece with some very touching and realistic touches. "*"
Shrinking world. Touching. *
* Jim. So sad, but you have captured with fine writing how the onset of dementia begins to add potholes and detours to mind's knowledge highways.
Oh man, Jim. Another heartbreaker. I used to work with Alzheimer's patients and you have captured so well in so few words that frightening phase of the illness where the person is aware that something's wrong. Great work. *
This poem scares me, the possibility I could end up in a similar place, something I am sure we all fear.
Thanks for reading and commenting Kyle, John, David, Kathy and Samuel.
Hmmmm. . . . don't wanna go to that scary, faucet-leaking place. Nice piece, nonetheless!
Thanks for reading and commenting, Ed.