I Used To Dream

"I used to dream," the old man would say. The employees never cared. They're here for a paycheck, "Okay Sir, would you like some water," they would say. The old man would let go of their arm, realizing again and again nobody cared. I've watched this man, from time to time. I lay curiosity on his life, but the medicine numbs him of his past to the best it can. The water offered by employees is roofied with K/O meds. The other elders fear him, he gets crazy at the most random times. "I used to dream." That's his starting sentence every time. Nobody cares to hear the rest, nobody wants his knowledge or wisdom. I was once asked to fill the water and drop the med, to which I secretly didn't. I watched him carefully. He rolled his wheelchair to a certain window, a window nobody ever gaped. With it's awkward view of the graveyard, where these men and women knew they will be moved to very shortly. He looked to a specific spot, nowhere else in the graveyard. Sometimes I want to let him free, watch where he flies, but like all others; I'm here for a paycheck. Losing this job, and I have to move out of town. So I stay posted, watching the old man wonder in a world of lonely depression. I've even gone through his paperwork, a very noble man. Was once a MLB player, served in the military, lots made him out to be an American hero. I would rest my case on he is sad to be forgotten, but the puzzle pieces still fail to make a picture. He had a wife, they entered this home together with locked hands. She died a week after, put into the certain area the old man always watches. That doesn't quite solve his absence of dreaming, though. After his gawk to the window he rolled into his own room. I wanted to give him space, but I was told to pull him back out here. I'm here for a paycheck. I strolled into his room, this place I've never seen before. He had pictures hung up, what seemed to be his kids and grandkids, whom never shown up. Two weeks after he entered, I was put in charge to inform them of their accident; putting them all to an end. They were not in the graveyard, they were mistaken for a hitman, burned alive and pushed down a swamp beach. I, of course, didn't tell him their causes of death to that such detail, he just knows they're deceased. He has a daughter, still alive, but she's been in a federal prison for assisted suicide many years before this man came here. The old man, sitting in his room, would gawk wilted flowers. Given to him by, I believe, a friend from his military squad. He looked at it as if he had a dream, a dream which he never had of will fulfill. I told the old man he must go back to the main room, to which he unlocked his wheels to be pushed. I pulled the wheelchair back, to which he whispered things I pretended to not hear. "I failed my men." "I've lost my family." "My goal is unreachable."

"Boy, I used to dream."