Sisters: An Unfinished Random Flash Fiction
The monitor has kept a lonely vigil on the nightstand. Its green, and sometimes red, bars of light have blinked intermittently for nearly two weeks. The volume is turned off, though the residents in bed beside it wouldn’t know the difference. They lay inert beside its quiet pleas—bodies and breath reeking of the same substance that recently occupied the empty bottles littering the floor.
Neither is much to look at. The wife—we’ll call her that, for they are legally married after the common-law variety—is rather large. Her thin, unkempt hair fans across the pillows of her fleshy cheeks, puffy lips hiding dark, spotted teeth. Her pink, wrinkled chemise stains beneath the underarms and her hefty legs tangle in the rank sheets.
Beside her lies the broad form of her husband. Though not as corpulent as his wife, he bears it more awkwardly. His arms and shoulders are thin, but he packs more in his gut and cheeks and ankles. He is also rather hairier; the short stubble of his head extends toward his eyebrows, and down his back. An empty liquor bottle rests against his chest. He strokes it mindlessly with his thumb, a smile on his lips; sordid dreams flitting across his barren mind.
The monitor gives a sudden, silent scream as the bars flash to maximum capacity. Green. Green. Red. Red. Red. All five blink in rapid succession. The monitor seems to buzz and shake with the effort of waking its owners. The wife twitches and begins to stir.
Down the hallway, at the microphone end of the monitor, a girl crouches against crib bars, fingers to her ears.
“Hush, hush,” she pleads with her infant sister, “you’ll wake them!” Her knees are held tightly to her chest, tears in her big, somber eyes.
The girl is no more than seven, perhaps eight years old, though she is small for her age. Her body is as pinched and thin as her parents are large and obtuse. Her wispy-fine hair is mouse-brown and matted, and she reeks of urine. Reaching into the crib, she tenderly lifts out the shrieking bundle. Even so, no one has taught her to support the neck, and the baby’s head lolls back. The infant shrieks louder. Terrified, she pleads again— “Hush baby!”
She cradles her sister like she’s seen other girls do with their dolls. Girls whose dolls are exquisitely dressed, pushed along in pink little wicker prams. She rocks baby girl, back and forth, back and forth. Still, the girl screams on, inconsolable.
Fearful, the girl looks about, grasping at a bottle on the shelf. It is empty—only a dried milk residue remains—but she puts it in, desperate to quiet the shrieking. For a moment it works, baby girl is content to suck on the dry air of the bottle. But her empty belly aches with the rush of air and the crying intensifies. Laying the baby on the floor, the girl rushes through the doorway to get to the fridge, when from the other end of the house, a roar.
“Fer gods sakes, shut ’er up!”
The girl flinches visibly and hurries back to the room. At the end of the hall, an argument ensues.
“It’s yer turn.”
A whiny voice answers. “I went th’ last time!”
“No yeh didn’! Yeh jes’ slep’ through me gittin’ up!”
Their voices grow louder and louder through the thin walls.
“You son-of-a-b—! You say that every time!”
“I don’t! Ef’n yeh ever got off yer own lazy ass, yeh’d know!”
She screams at him in return, a high, angry shriek, and the sounds of a scuffle ensue. Profanities rain through the walls and the whole house shakes at the meeting of these two behemoths. Baby girl screams on, where she’s been left the floor. Her sister sobs quietly, crouched, hiding behind a threadbare armchair in a corner of the room.
A few loud thumps, a final shriek and the door flies open. Hair ratty and frizzed from the tussle, the ogress emerges from her cavern, jowls quivering with rage.
She hurls a final insult behind her; “son-of-a-b—!” before stomping down the hall. Her fury is brought to a halt on finding her infant on the floor. Her face slackens into an expression of dull stupidity as she puzzles over the marvelous event, when suddenly the pieces click.
“Lena!” Her patience is razor-thin. “–Lena! Where is that little b—!?”
Timidly, Lena emerges from behind the chair, thin arms across her chest, shielding herself.
“There you are.” Her mother grimaces. “What you been doin’?” When Lena doesn’t answer, she cuffs her across the head. “You been wakin’ her!? Huh? You been wakin’ her ‘cause you know we already en’t gettin’ no sleep!? You little b—! Answer me!”
Lena glances down at her squalling sister before replying. “No’m. Jes’ tryin’ to shut ’er up.”
“Liar!” Her mother slaps her again, before turning her attention to baby girl. Lena takes the opportunity to scuttle back to her place behind the armchair.
“What Lena been doin’ to you, huh?” she smiles emptily down at baby girl. Lifting her up, she presses the child against her bosom. “Shush, shush, baby.” Lena watches jealously from the corner.
Alternately rocking and bouncing, the woman works to console her. Rock, bounce, pat. Rock, bounce, pat. At moments, the newborn pauses in her crying and allows herself to be consoled. Then, remembering her parentage, the wails begin afresh.
“Agh—jest shutup!” The woman’s jaw quivers angrily. “Well—mebe you’re jest hungry!”
Rummaging in the cupboard, she hastens to mix a few ounces of formula and puts it in the child’s open mouth. Though hungry, the child gags on the cold milk, crying louder. Her small, wrinkled face is a crimson red-verging-on-blue. Rock, bounce, pat. The mother goes through the motions of consoling her child, though inwardly her corrupted heart dwells on the offenses against her. An abusive husband who forces her to care for their children alone! A willful daughter who purposefully awakens her sister. An infant who won’t stop screaming. All of them, conspiring to wrong her. Her mind picks over each damning evidence.
A dark seed of hatred, already well-established, takes firmer root. Her stained pink chemise slips off her shoulder and those wretched, rotted teeth grimace as the infant scorns her attentions.
Rock, bounce, pat.
Rock, bounce, pat.
Five minutes pass, then six. Each second is an eternity beside those ear-splitting screams.
At eight minutes, she tries burping her, changing her, feeding her again. After each failure, her fleshy face darkens, and her mind grows more embittered.
‘All I do is care for ‘em, hour after hour an’ this is my thanks.’ She thinks savagely. ‘I hate ‘em.’
Rock, bounce, pat.
Rock, bounce, pat.
Behind the chair, Lena tries to stifle a miserable sob.
“Lena! Git out here!”
Reluctantly, Lena creeps out from behind her perch.
“You woke ’er, so you c’n take ’er. See how you like it!”
She dumps the child unceremoniously into Lena’s arms and retreats into the hallway. The thin walls no longer hold back the tide of noise, however, and the alcohol has worn its way into a pulsing headache. She hovers there for a few minutes ‘jest to teach Lena a lesson,’ before marching back in to pull the baby out of Lena’s despairing arms.
Rock, bounce, pat.
Rock, bounce, pat.
Rock, bounce, pat, shake.
At first, it’s just brief jounce, enough to scare her quiet. Then, as the screams crescendo and the injustices against her culminate in the woman’s small mind, she shakes the child harder. With a final thump on the thinly carpeted floor, she begins to scream herself.
“Shutup! Jest shutup!”
This time, baby girl listens.
Childlike Wonder
Her small form is obscured by the tall grasses and overgrown milkweed. She squats, balanced on her thin legs, tousled blonde hair blowing free and wild with the wind.
“Sarah?” I call, but she stays crouched, low to the ground.
“Sarah!” I call again, and she half-turns, her fat, toddler-cheeks dimpled and delighted.
“Look mama!” she chirps. She lifts her cupped hands high into the air for me to see. I walk closer to crouch beside her, kissing the tangled locks and open brow.
She shrugs me off impatiently. “Look what I got mama!” Tenderly, cautiously, she unclenches her small fist, displaying its contents with glee.
“Look! Look!”
I look down on the crushed legs and beautiful, crumpled wings giving a final fluttering effort.
“A butterfly! How wonderful” I smile and she returns it fully, filled with pink-cheeked childish wonder.
Reflections of a Nursing Home
On sleepless nights their faces come, unbidden to my mind. Quivering lips and doleful eyes glimmer out of the gloom. —Gray-aged creases, crinkled to scowls; faces stale and spent beside the insolence of youth. They peer up at me out of oversized hospital beds and follow me from the corners of hallways.
I am haunted by their silent accusations.
Sunshine Meadows called to offer me the position on the same day rent was due. My one-bedroom apartment cost two-hundred and seventy-five dollars a month and the role as night-aide, 6 PM to 6 AM, paid $8.50 an hour. I accepted gratefully and chewed my fingernails until the first paycheck cleared.
I was sixteen years old, and alone. My conscience resorts to this irrelevant statistic—age—when it feels particularly guilty, when the images of lips and eyes and creases flash unceasingly in memory.
A forgetful youth. A selfish moment. Is this neglect?
A cutting word. A cruel grimace. Is this abuse?
An impudent girl in over-large scrubs clocks on to her shift.
The work is steady, but unenviable. Distribute pills. Check vitals. Apply lotions, creams and cosmetics. Wash. Scrub. Comb. Hair. Urine. Dentures. Feces.
An endless monotony of self-sacrifice to the nearly dead.
The shower shift is especially unsavory. Twelve hours heaving the invalid and overweight from wheelchair to shower seat, removing undergarments, hearing aids and jewelry, and being bitingly warned against pocketing the treasures stripped from their scabby necks. The men are prone to grope. The women are prone to complain.
After careful scrubbing between each fleshy excrescence and a second hugging of their naked, now wet bodies back to the wheelchair, the process of re-clothing begins. Breasts are scooped from their long descent into bras. Hip-high compression socks are peeled over layers of mottled, flaking skin. Buttons are adjusted. Watches are replaced. Every individual has their preference.
‘Over the shirt, I said. Over the shirt, not under!’
‘Watch the curls. I just had it permed.’
‘Put it in the left pocket, not the right. I can’t reach it in the right.’
The list of demands is unending.
Irma is uniquely cantankerous. She has two great vanities: heaps of gaudy jewelry that she wears draped about her wrists and neck, and vermilion lipstick, meticulously applied. If the jewelry is not put on in just-the-right order, or the lipstick applied not just-to-her-liking, it must be removed and started over.
As I draw closer to that threshold between activity and inability, my compassion grows. My own skin is now blotched, my own mobility now constrained. Handing over control of my personal comforts, however small, to the impersonality of a stranger feels dreadful.
On the third re-application of lipstick, with Irma insisting “it’s just not quite right. See how it’s smeared at the bottom?” I sneer and toss the tube into her lap.
“If you don’t like it, put it on yourself.”
Her embarrassed glance at the useless, arthritic arms at her sides, and those quivering red lips linger now in my mind.
Her voice is falsely cheery when she replies.
“Well.. that’s ok then. I think it looks alright after all.”
I Killed My Love
I killed my love today, with words
Rashly cast and keenly scored;
Rage succeeded self-control,
Spitting barbs of vitriol
And whetted edge its mark re-found,
Remembering a former wound
Though pen triumphs the biting sword,
Sharper still’s the daggered word;
And fury of the tongue could be
Murder of a first degree.
The Way of All Men
The weary, wan light of the moon filters faintly through the window shades. The pale, cold light casts into relief a small, ill-kept bedroom with two matching twin beds on opposite walls and two night-stands, a small lamp upon each. A wheelchair sits, crammed between the end of one of the beds and the wall, behind an old commode.
The bed on the left is empty.
A man lies in the other, listening intently to the clock ticking above the doorframe. His eyes glitter dully in the bleached half-light of the room. The night is only half-spent and he shifts imperceptibly, as someone accustomed to lying awake for long hours.
His face is gaunt and unshaven, bristly and rough—a lifeless conglomeration of skin and hair and eyes—unmoving and unfeeling in the bleak and winnowed moonlight. The night’s shadows heighten his socketed eyes and angular chin; things that once were fine, even handsome, appear somber and spent.
The man stares fixedly at the ceiling, arms tucked in close at the sides, hands upon his chest, fingers interlaced. For all of the man’s roughness and severity, his hands are a tender antithesis. Delicate and elegant, they are the hands of an artist, or a surgeon—equally liable to paint the sweeping majesty of a sunrise as to bind a wound or brush a tear. They are hands to craft a toy for a child or nurture the tender shoots of a garden bed.
The clock has finished ticking to four-thirty when the man ends his quiet vigil, unclasping his steady fingers in search of the thick, plastic cord near the bed’s side-rail. Outside his reach, it takes some moments before he is able to grasp it, and some time more to locate the rubberized grip and red button.
His fingers linger over the button, hesitant, feeling the edges. He shifts uncomfortably in bed, an act that seems to decide him, and presses the button.
A light above the door flickers on.
The man sighs audibly, unable to retract the action, and returns to his examination of the ceiling. The ticking of the clock resumes to his hearing. One minute. Two. The rhythm of the clock is indelibly etched into his mind. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Five minutes. Six. Nine. Tick. Tick. Tick. Eleven. When the door finally opens, it is a relief of those endless seconds.
“What’cha need, Mista’ Lewis?”
The voice is loud and harsh.
Mr. Lewis’s eyes flicker to the outline that fills the door, his fears confirmed. Voice hoarse from disuse, he struggles to reply and the voice repeats itself, more forcefully.
“What’cha need?”
Coughing to clear his throat, he croaks, “the bathroom.” A loud groan of dismay meets his reply.
“Day shift’ll be here in a hour. You cain’t wait?” Murmuring a soft no, Mr. Lewis continues to keep vigil over the ceiling.
“Fine,” the outline grumbles.
Ambling towards him from the door, she drags the commode beside the bed and drops the siderail. His aged body twists unpleasantly as his legs are pulled unceremoniously off of the bed.
In a practiced motion, his body is heaved upright from the edge into a standing position, body held in force by her massive form. The sharp smell of sweat and of freshly-smoked cigarette on her uniform is nauseating. Again, a practiced swing, and he is on the cold plastic seat, trousers pulled to his ankles.
“You gon’ be long?” she asks, eying him impatiently.
“No’m,” he replies, though it is a long seven hundred and thirty-nine seconds of the clock before she returns to help him off.
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Title: The Way of All Men
Genre: Literary Fiction
Age Range: Adult, or older Y.A.
Word Count: 598 (in excerpt), approximately 9,000 written
Hook: “The bed on the left is empty.” This line gives room to the question: why is the bed empty? The book brings this concept full-circle as the empty bed becomes a metaphor for all of the loss in Mr. Lewis’s life, specifically, his wife. The opening theme of abuse of the elderly is also employed to draw the reader in.
Synopsis: The book’s central character is Mr. Lewis, an elderly man who has lived in a nursing home for four years. The loss of his wife and the busy-ness of his children’s lives (which keeps them from visiting), has made him lonely and cynical. When the director of the nursing home determines that the business won’t survive financially without taking on more paying residents, all Medicare patients (including Mr. Lewis) are forced to share rooms. The dementia patient who moves into his wife’s empty bed is far from desirable, but as Mr. Lewis and Albert become acquainted, a friendship develops that alters Mr. Lewis’s perspective. The novel will examine the following social issues:
1. Elderly abuse, and why it often goes unnoticed.
2. At what point should care/treatment end?
3. When do nursing homes become predatory?
4. Does God exist and/or love His children, and if so, why does he allow them to suffer?
As all good literary fiction requires an exceptional plot apart from its social considerations, each of these topics is broached via character dilemmas and plot setbacks, not just through dialogue or verbose commentary.
Target Audience: Hopefully all lovers of classic literary fiction. (My aspiration is to write like Steinbeck, Hemingway or Hugo, though I certainly fall short).
Bio: I worked for 5 years prior to college as a CNA/EMT to save money. The time spent in various nursing homes and hospitals gave me much of my material for this book. The more interesting points of my life have been my work: I have sourced agricultural products within sub-Saharan Africa, worked as a surgical technician, in wildland fire-fighting, and am now a data analyst/scientist, specializing in healthcare data. Each of these experiences have spawned a variety of book ideas.
Education: Bachelors of Science deg. in Computational Mathematics & Statistics, Emergency Medical Technician (EMT)
Experience: Apart from placing 2nd in a collegiate writing competition, I am new to the realm of writing (in terms of sharing and marketing my work, not creating.)
Personality/Writing Style: I am a reserved individual with a dry sense of humor, who values logic and precision (cue my background in mathematics). In my writing, I prefer character-oriented lit that scrutinizes the human condition. For example, I am working on a novel about the loss experienced (by a family) in a hurricane that examines how natural disaster relief efforts too-often fall short.
Hobbies: I love to read (classical literature and historical non-fiction are my favorites) and also enjoy all things outdoorsy (backpacking, skiing, fishing, biking, etc.). Learning in general is also a hobby and lately, I have been studying for the actuarial exams and learning how to bottle food from my garden (pickles, peaches and salsa so far)!
Hometown: I have lived in Chicago, Utah, New Jersey, Idaho, Arizona, Houston and south-eastern Africa, so no place in particular is home.