The clock ticked away the seconds, counting away the moments of my life. I couldn’t be bothered to care. I couldn’t get up, clean myself or even feed myself. Why should I care about the clock, why should I bother? But the noise, the noise was unbearable.
A door creaked somewhere in the corridor and I cringed. I hated that sound. And I hated the sound of rubber-soles squeaking on the linoleum floor even more. The bedroom door opened and an overpowering stench of cleanness – bleach, talcum and anti-septic – burst into my senses.
Leave me alone, I shouted in my mind. Nurse Talia, a large stout woman, approached my bed with freshly laundered sheets and blanket. She placed them to the side, went out again and soon came back with a basin of warm soapy water. I was enraged. She had already wiped me down this morning. Why must she do this again.
I wished I could tell her to leave me alone and to let me die in peace, but I didn’t think she would care. A man’s voice called from the door, “How is the patient, Talia?”
“As comatose as ever, doctor.”
He came in and shut the door. Then they picked me up, put me on a chair facing the bed, changed the sheets and began to copulate on my bed. I was enraged and I couldn’t do anything about it. All I could do was watched their wrinkled, cellulite covered bump moving up and down, up and down on my bed.
Once done, they straightened their uniforms and placed me back, right on the stain they had left behind. How I wish I could speak, how I wish I could tell another caregiver about what they were doing.
An hour or so later Nancy, a new trainee, came to feed me dinner through a feeding tube.
“Strange,” she said, “You get fresh sheets almost every day.”
Every single day. Sometimes twice a day.
“You must be really special to Nurse Talia.”
My bed is
“That’s nice, I guess. You should see the way she treats the patients down the hall,” she whispered to me.
I wish someone could see the way she treats me.
“I was a little worried about you when I heard that she was taking care of you too. Imagine, living in a room all by yourself, and being unable to speak up if she does mistreat you.”
I am being mistreated! I am!
She stared down at my face for a moment and a frown soon began to form on her smooth forehead. After she had detached the feeding tube, she folded aside the blanket that covered me. She must have smelled the stench too because her face suddenly wrinkled with disgust. She put the blanket back then rushed out, leaving the food tray behind in her haste.
A few minutes later she returned with a lady doctor, who also folded the blanket open. Nancy helped her roll me to my side.
“Is that what I think it is, doctor?” Nancy asked.
“Yes. We must report this to the Board. You tell me that Nurse Talia changes her sheets every day?” She paused as though waiting for confirmation. Then she continued, “Go get new sheets. I am taking this one as evidence.”
I was so relieved I almost cried. For the first time in months, I had clean sheets to sleep in.
#
A few weeks later, while Nancy was feeding me breakfast she said, “Doctor Brenner finally confessed that he and Talia uses your bed for their romps.” She giggled. “But only after he was accused of raping you. The Board had to send the sheet to a lab to confirm that it was Talia with him, and not you.”
She detached the tube then brushed a stray hair from my face. “Thank goodness, dear. Thank goodness he never touched you.” And she left the room.
A strange feeling washed over me. My mother had died decades ago, but in that brief moment when I felt Nancy’s love, I also felt my mother’s presence. I was disgusted with myself. I was disgusted for even thinking about her, because she was a weak woman who let my father abuse and abandon her. I worked so hard to be different from her, to be independent and strong. Yet in the end, in my old age, I had become like her. I had become reliant and dependent on the goodwill of strangers. The clock ticked the seconds away. I wished I was dead.
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