When the mind slowly decays

“What’s wrong with that guy?” The kid sucked down on a lollipop when he asked. He was peering over at an elderly man some feet away who had stopped in the middle of the store. Next to him was his wife, offering her hand and asking what was going on herself.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no.” The man grabbed for his belt. His wife quickly scanned the area; no bathroom. People swarming the couple all around. “Oh no, oh no, oh no.” A look of terror in his eyes. He shuffled his hands all about his waistband, his breathing hard to regulate as something within him grabbed hold and paralyzed him in shock.

“Do you need to go to the bathroom?” She put his hand in hers. “Come let’s go to the bathroom . . . . Sir, which way is the bathroom?” An employee answered her quickly.

“No,” he told her. “No, no!” The kid with his lollipop, now surrounded by friends, remained fixated on the couple as they shimmied about. What could it be these old folks were dealing with?

“Kids, don’t look.” An authoritative figure, one of the kids’ parents. He looked at them and looked beyond, and he kept them back from looking and talking.

“What a dumb old man!” Cried one of the kids. “Don’t they know there’s bathrooms at the front?” A boy in the group failed to find a trash can, and instead of rummaging and asking for one, he easily threw the slobbery stick onto the floor. Not his problem, hardly a mess.

The couple pressed on, she scared and he mortified. But he didn’t need to use the bathroom. She had figured out right before she walked him in what really was going on. His belt around his waist had been pulled too tight, and his terror stemmed primarily from the minute tinge of pain inflicted from its leather. She teared up her eyes as she fixed the issue, in front of people much younger and much faster than them.

“What am I doing here?”

The lady took him home that night after half an hour of walking around the store, helping her husband, fixing his belt. She hadn’t been out of the house much in weeks due to his inability to be out and keep up straight. He hadn’t been out in months. His bathroom habits were frequent and nonstop, and her patience tried what it could to keep up. But something pained her most when she left with him that day.

“We live together?” He asked her. And she, for the life of her, couldn’t remember what had come of their cart.