"You're serious?" Boris asked, his jaw slightly ajar as he stood in front of Whittle in the main room. She was smiling, as she got his meds together in the little paper cups.
"Yep, it's all final, you've got Hendersons room, you move in later," she said, handing him the tiny cup, which he gleefully took and downed in an instant. "This is fantastic!" he said, laughing, "Oh god, finally some good news. You have no idea how badly I needed a win lately...thank you for getting this approved, it really means a lot." "It's no problem, Boris, really," Whittle said, "I gotta get these to everyone, I'll catch you later." Whittle turned and headed off to give everyone their own little paper cups while Boris sat and looked out the nearby window. The world seemed brighter when you win, and he'd so rarely won that this wasn't a feeling he got to feel often enough. He didn't want it to ever go away. Suddenly he felt a presence beside his chair and looked up to see Burt standing there, drinking a glass of orange juice. "What?" Boris asked, "Can't you see I was enjoying all the absence of you?" "What's got you so happy?" "I get a new room," Boris said, "Hendersons old room." "But he DIED in there, it's gonna be haunted," Burt said, finishing his drink. "Don't say that! You're going to jinx the whole thing!" Boris said, rubbing his face, "Besides Burt, if you die after that long, why would you haunt the fuckin' nursing home you died in? That's stupid. You'd wanna go anywhere else but here." "I'm just saying, you're going to have a ghost roommate," Burt said, and just then they heard the front doors open and a man walked in. He appeared to be a priest, and he headed straight to the front desk to quietly speak to one of the men standing behind it. Boris and Burt were watching this closely when Carol walked up. "What's going on?" she asked. "We don't know," Boris said, "This guy just walked in. Priests never come here unless someone is about to bite it." "God I hope it's Jacoby. I've had him on my pool for weeks now," Carol said. The priest and the man behind the counter exchanged a few bits of words before politely exiting into the hall together. Boris stood up and headed after them, cautiously so as not to be seen, Carol and Burt right behind him. They peered into the hallway and saw the priest stop at a door at the very end of the hall with the man, and after a moment, the man opened the door for the priest and the priest entered, the man shutting the door after he entered before heading back to the main desk. "Corey, what's a priest doing here?" Carol asked as the man, Corey, headed past them and back to the front desk. "Miss Price isn't expected to make it through the night," Corey said, stopping to speak to them, one hand on his hip, his other hand rubbing the back of his head, ruffling his hair, "She requested a while ago that she have a priest come speak to her before she dies, read her her last rights." "I didn't even know Bella was sick," Carol said, hand to her mouth, clearly somewhat upset, "God...every single day you lose someone important to you." "Just go about your day, you guys, he won't be here too long," Corey said, continuing back to the front desk, leaving the three of them alone together. Carol didn't say a word, she just turned and waved a hand at the guys, heading off to be alone. Burt put his hands in his pants pockets and sighed as Boris glanced back down at the hall. "This is hell," Burt said, "This is actually hell. Forget what the Bible says. THIS existence is what hell really is. Put in a home you have no control over, no way of leaving, nobody visits and you die alone, so many dreams unfulfilled." "I'll see you later," Boris said, heading down the hallway, leaving a confused Burt there. As Boris approached the door, he knocked gently before entering and seeing the priest sitting on a stool next to the bed, reading from a book. Miss Price looked completely unconscious, but she was definitely still breathing. "Hey, father," Boris said, waving casually as he entered and shut the door. "Hello," the priest said, smiling, his short, scruffy brown hair and his piercing blue eyes surprising Boris, "Can I help you? Are you a friend of-" "Not really," Boris said, pulling a chair from a nearby desk and sitting on the other side of the bed, across from the priest, "My name's Boris." "Hello Boris, I'm father Kricket," he said, "It's nice to meet you." "Yeah, you too...so, how often do you have to do this? Come and read last rights and stuff? It has to be a kind of bummer, right? Seeing so many people near death," Boris asked and Father Kricket just smiled and shook his head. "Actually, I like knowing I can give someone that scared, that close to nothing, some comfort." "That close to nothing? That doesn't sound very religious." "I'm not particularly religious, as much as I compassionate. I want to help other people. Sure, when I became a priest I was much more, what's the word...gullible? No, that's rude. Open to belief. But these days, who knows what lays beyond. All I know is that death is terrifying, and these people need something, someone, to tell them it's all going to be okay. So many people don't have family at this point. No friends. That's where they need me." "...that's really kind of you," Boris said, "...I haven't been to church in years, to be honest. Um...can I talk to you about something while you're doing...this?" "Of course, Boris." "Okay well, my daughter had an accident when she was little, and she's...she hasn't been able to walk ever since. She's spent most of her life in a wheelchair. Well, now she's having this surgery to give her these 3D printed legs, right? So she can walk again? Anyway, I'm happy for her, but...is it wrong that I sometimes-" "Feel guilty? Of course not, guilt is-" "No, not guilty. No, I've accepted that I'm guilty. No, I feel bad because sometimes I wish she'd died. I wish that she had just...died so she wouldn't have had her life be this challenging. I know, I know, that's so mean of me, like disabled people can do anything they put their mind to, but it HAS to be frustrating on some level, and I sometimes wish she didn't have to suffer like that. I wish...I wish she could've died so she wouldn't have been hurt." "...you feel that by extending her life, it's only made her life more painful than if she'd just died?" "Exactly, and I know, that sounds AWFUL and I FEEL awful for thinking that, but...on some level...I don't know, it just seems like it'd be a better alternative." "For who? You or her? If she died, she'd be died. You'd still have your guilt, but it wouldn't be the way it is today. You still feel guilty. You never accepted what happened. You might've accepted that it was your fault, but you never accepted that it's okay. You never got past it. But you feel that if she'd just died, that would've been easier to move past, yes? That you wouldn't have had to watch the enduring pain that came after?" "...I...I guess...yeah," Boris said, "I didn't even really...I didn't really get to see her much after that, I was...I didn't..." Boris paused, his eyes half shut and his voice cracked. "I was a bad father," he said weakly, "I was such a bad father." "But you care, so no, you weren't. You said it was an accident, right? The fact you feel this much about it at all shows you're not a bad father. You didn't want her in pain at all, you care. And besides Boris, even if you were a bad father then, that was then, and this is now. You don't have to continue being a bad father. She's still here. You can be a better father. There's no expiration date on recovery. It's never too late to get better." Boris looked at him, somewhat surprised. "Every time I talk to someone about this, they always say 'oh that was in the past!' or 'don't be so hard on yourself!' but nobody has ever, EVER, once told me 'that is terrible but you can fix it'. Nobody ever said I could fix it," Boris said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, "...god...thank you Father Kricket." "Boris," Father Kricket said, crossing his legs and leaning back, "...everything is fixable, no matter how broken it gets. People especially are fixable. It may take some time, some patience, and a whole lot of effort, but humans are fixable, you just need to believe you can be fixed. By continuing to tell ourselves that we can't be fixed, we live that reality that we're so far gone, so beyond broken, that nothing can bring us back. But WE can bring us back. You just have to stop telling yourself you're broken and start telling yourself you're being fixed." A few moments passed as Miss Price mumbled something in her sleep and they both glanced at her. Boris stood up, as did Father Kricket and they looked at one another for a moment. Boris approached the door, Father Kricket following him into the hall. "If it's any help, I can come back and speak to you weekly," Father Kricket said, "I'd like to help-" Without warning, Boris quickly turned and hugged him tightly. Father Kricket, surprised but not put off at all, simply smiled and hugged Boris back, patting his back. "It's going to be okay Boris. There may be nothing afterwards, but there's always something right now," he said, "We're going to make you better." After the hug, Father Kricket headed back into the room, leaving Boris standing there, smiling like an idiot. This was the best day in weeks. Suddenly, a voice spoke out in the hallway, surprising him. "Boris," it said, and Boris turned to find Lorraine standing there behind him. The two stood and stared at one another for a moment before he really accepted she was actually here, standing in front of him. "Lorraine? What the hell are you doing here?" "I said I'd come by," she said, "I know this is sudden, but um...we didn't really schedule anything concrete and I had to see you. Something's happened." "Well, you could've called first, we could've...what do you mean something's happened?" "It's about Ellen," Lorraine said, "They called me. She had...some sort of allergic reaction to what they gave her in the hospital to put her under, and she...she hasn't woken up. She's rather unresponsive. I didn't want to tell you this over the phone. I...I had to say it in person, to your face, that they told me to-" "No." "Boris," Lorraine said weakly, standing in the hallway, her hands holding eachother in front of her, her eyes stuck to the floor, "...I don't...I don't know how to..." "No. No you don't...you don't get to say it," Boris said, tears brimming in his eyes, "Don't say it." "Whether I say it or not it happened," Lorraine said, "It happened." "No," Boris said softly, clutching at his chest as she approached him. She put her hand on his shoulder and he glanced up at her, and then his head hit her knees, he hugged her legs and he started sobbing as she stood there and stroked his hair. "There there," she said quietly, "Get it out. It's okay. I'm here now." "This isn't happening!" Boris shouted, standing up, turning and running, best he could, down the hall and out the back doors, out into the back garden area, past the quilters and just kept running. He had been given a good room, but at what price? The price of his daughter? And just when things were getting better? Boris kept going, until he reached another building on the property, and started into it, heading up the stairs. He finally reached the door he was looking for. Room 37G. Leanne's room. He needed something familiar, someone who would still be there for him. He knocked, and then opened the door and... ...it was empty. The entire room was empty. Boris stepped inside cautiously and looked around. Where was she? Where was EVERYTHING? An old man passing by with two small kids stopped and tapped Boris on the shoulder. He spun around, face to face. "You alright?" the man asked, "What're you doing here?" "Where is she? Where's Leanne? This is her room! It's...it's empty!" "Oh, yeah, Leanne. Yeah, her daughter came and picked her up yesterday, took her to her house. Checked her out of here completely. I thought she would've told everyone she knew, but, with her mind these days, who knows what she remembers to do. Sorry, pal." The man continued with the kids down the hall and out the door as Boris entered the room and stood there, the sunlight peeking in through the blinds and spilling on his face. He shut his eyes, and he could still hear their voices. Their faces. And then...and then... And then.
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About
Golden Years follows the exploits of a bunch of old people in a retirement home as they try to have fun, relax or come to terms with the soon to be end of their lives. Archives
April 2024
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