Wednesday, February 6, 2013

injaynesworld it's "The Golden Years..."


Stuck out on California’s I-15 in the desert armpit known as “Barstow,” the wretched place, wreaking of urine and rotting food with old people stacked like piles of discarded tires, was where Hell came for suggestions.

Most of the people were warehoused here by ungrateful children who sucked the life out of them for years and then, finding their children doing the same to them, had neither the time, resources or interest to care for their own parents.   Because the State frowns on the elderly wandering the streets pissing themselves, they pay corporate-run cesspools like this to make the problem go away.  And at Shady Haven, “The Welcome Mat is Always Out.”

So then it was all the more ironic that this should be the place where, after a lifetime of self-imposed solitude, I should meet my one true love.  Lila was as lovely as her name; truly a gentle woman who had not yet had the twinkle in her sea green eyes dimmed by the harshness around her.  Blessed with dementia, hers was a world still filled with dresses of fine lace and the crooning voice of Sinatra, and I was her beau coming to court. 

Because the staff cared little about what we did as long as we were no bother, my plan of escape for us was easy to execute.  I had been saving the little yellow pills for weeks.  Lila readily accepted my tale of Valentine’s Day and the box of candy I brought for us to share.   Where I had filled paper cups with tap water, she saw fine bone china filled with lightly-sweetened Earl Grey tea.   We held hands, her head resting lightly on my shoulder, my head resting on hers… and then we slept.



This post is from the prompt “haven,” part of the “30Minus 2 Days Writing Challenge” from the gal who can talk anybody into just about anything, the fabulous Nicky at We Work For Cheese.  Click here to visit the others she’s managed to lure into today’s particular exercise in stress, panic and frustration.


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