The Ones We Forgot
Each day, every day, Mary would walk to the swing set outside the retirement home. A shanty home with a look of death that matched the inhabitants who were either left alone or just abandoned. A stranger swings by happily like a child ignorant of all of life's miseries and messes. Her name is Jade but the orderlies prefer to call her a prisoner. Her mind departed a long time ago when her children were still young and incognizant of such matters. "Daddy they would say, why is Mother drowning poor old Harry." Their Father knew nothing about her mental discrepancies. A few years later the neighbours found Harold's body half sunk and dead in a vat in the family lawn. Jade was admitted to an asylum and turned into one of Sylvia Plath's so-called lobotomy freaks. Mary steps to the grass with an inexplicable sense of hope in her mind, as she expected an old friend reuniting once again. "Do you remember me Ma?" she lets out a cry. "No", replies Jade in heft.