A Beautiful Night

[Ganny 285]

Lol at the night before things are due.

Here, I just finished this. :>

A Beautiful Night

“And why do you need to escape?” asked a voice whose only answer was the passage of time and the off-white on the walls. “Hm?”

Fred sat with a craned neck, immersed in the same robes in which he had woken up – the robes of age. This meeting would be over soon, and then all he’d have to do was survive until the next one.

A young nurse entered, letting the door squeak as she hesitantly pushed it. “Excuse me, counselor,” she said, “it’s time for Freddy’s bath.” Fred looked up at her and grimaced. The lesser of two evils.

“I’ll see you later, Doc,” Fred said. “Duty calls.”

Counselor Sheridan nodded congenially behind his crossed legs to the girl and began scratching at a notepad. She took Fred’s hand as he stood and led him out the door and through the halls; Fred took the time to gaze about at the other shufflers, some absently enjoying their midday fruit cup while others looked around as though they had no idea where they were. These were his peers, but he was different from them. Freddy was aged, but he wasn’t old. At least he wasn’t old like these ones.

Fred was tired. Old people weren’t tired. Old people were ready to keep on living, tied to machines and wheeled around by wide-eyed young things hoping to help. The only purpose behind an old person was to get older. Freddy wasn’t an old person. Freddy was tired, he was ready to move on, he wanted just to get it over with. But he wasn’t going to let it happen here, with all the old people.

“Here we are,” she said.

“I can bathe myself.”

She tisked. “We go through this every time. Come on.”

“Let me do it!”

She looked at him, clearly not knowing what to do. Freddy shook his head, entered, and then slammed the door behind him. He could bathe himself. He began filling the tub.

There was something about Freddy. He got out.

Every night, if he could manage, he would sneak down the empty halls, past the sleeping receptionist, and out the front door – simple. He would walk across the street and down to where the lights spelled out the names of pizza parlors and bars and bowling alleys. The world outside was different; it never intruded, it didn’t tell him what to do. It left him to himself.

Every night, he would get tired and make his way back to the home, reluctant but aware that he couldn’t stay out, dreading the moment when he would slide back past the girl in the front and back into suffocation.

Every night, he would slow down in the middle of the road, waiting for something, down past the stop signs and distant trees as though he were expecting something grand and horrible to bloom from them all at once.

And, every night, there was nothing, and he would set his eyebrows back into their regular positions while he glanced down to watch his step over the curb.

It was only recently that they found him out, when they discovered him asleep in the grass just outside the front doors. He’d been tired. They told him he was being dangerous and self-destructive and that it was much better in the home. They set up daily appointments for him to visit the counselor, a man who talked in the touchy-feely fake understanding way, like a vegan trying to convert the guy eating lunch across from him. And it was always the same stuff. It was better in the home. Safer? He couldn’t doubt them there; but better?

Freddy drained the bath and brought a towel to his face – his wrinkled face, his white face. He would go soon, but not here. He wouldn’t let it happen here. He put on the same old robe and wondered what the use of a bath was if he smelled anyway.

Out the door of the bathroom was what Fred found the most disconcerting – the people. If you could call them that. All over, drooling, sleeping, delirious; they were repulsive, the old people. It was like they didn’t realize where they were. A woman giggled while a man with slurred speech courted her from a chair across the room. Did they even know? Did they even know their lives should be ending soon?

Freddy made his way through the halls to his room, the only place in this entire complex where he could be alone, and craned his neck through the doorway, just the make sure. There was no one, so he closed the door behind him and sat in the cot. Insane people wouldn’t even let locks on the doors. God forbid he get a little privacy, or he’d slip while changing the channel and break his hip. God forbid he break his hip.

Fred turned on the television, just to be sure it wasn’t on The Price Is Right or Wheel of Fortune. The old people always watched The Price Is Right and Wheel of Fortune. But it was playing the news, just as he’d left it – the news, his second-best portal to the outside world, where young people told him about the crimes, the politics, and the weather from which he’s been isolated. He lay down and listened to it, the reporter’s voice – speaking without emotion, but with impact. Tone, information, all like a song, beats well-placed in time to help him feel a life outside, it lulled him to sleep.

His unlocked door creaked to wake him as a young, overweight woman entered and hesitated, seeing him lying there. “Mr. Jones,” she said.

He blew air out his nose. “What?” Not a moment alone.

“It’s time to eat. Everyone’s eating. Why don’t you come to the cafeteria?”

“I’ll be there later. I’m not hungry.”

“You should take better care of yourself, Mr. Jones,” she said, retreating into the hallway. “You’re never hungry anymore.”

“Can do,” he said, and he tried to go back to sleep. She’d left the door open, but he really hadn’t the energy to get up and close it. Rather, he stayed there, supine, while the weather man’s drone spread itself thinly over his eyes and around his arms, stilling him, his breathing a mere reflex as his body rested in anticipation of when he could be more human.

Fred awoke again late that night to a feature on school lunches and decided it was time to go. He lifted his cane from its place on the doorknob and started down the hallway, sliding past uniform doors and the sounds of the sheltered night – sometimes snoring, sometimes an old man named Roger screaming in his sleep so hard that they had to feed him special food as part of his throat therapy. Every night, screaming. But Roger was yet silent tonight, substituted instead by a stillness, something expecting, clinging close to the sterile whitewash. Freddy thought these walls were too austere as he observed how seamlessly the right-angle molding blended into them from the ground.

He reached the room – a lobby, a waiting room, a vestibule, an antechamber, hosting the pair of large glass doors and buzzing with some electrical noise like a forest of midnight cicadas. All had gone – the nurses, the workers, the volunteers. Freddy nearly smiled at the thought: this was the only time he could tolerate it here, when it seemed as though he were the only one.

The illusion was fleeting; against the wall, there she was, the receptionist behind her papered desk with her dim lamp illuminating her resting face. This was how Freddy could safely find his way out all these nights. No alarm would sound because she hadn’t turned it on, poor Jenny Peters, always asleep at the phone. She must not have had anywhere else to go. Things were different for Freddy now, who had places to be. He let the placid look of his guardian angel detain him no longer, opening a door and sliding out into the open.

It was cool, yet strangely humid as Freddy took long strides across the street, careful to have looked both ways. They would probably never see him if they came, never knowing ting to watch for an old man with a robe and cane. That sort of thing wasn’t ordinary at this time. That was why he liked it. He looked down at the cane, a stranger in his hands; he didn’t need it but for long walks, because his legs would tire. Until then, he kept it off the ground, because he didn’t need it yet.

The sidewalk became more and more covered with gum as he distanced himself from the home – tiny, strange ovals, consistent only in their shade of dark gray, once cinnamon or spearmint or bubble or watermelon, now more gray than the sidewalk itself. It was an interesting plight to Freddy, that of the stick of gum, but now there were more interesting things for his attention – the cars, the shops, all of them foreign to him but in the dark, when all of it made sense, and he could be alone.

It seemed that there had been a carnival by the pier, so Freddy went over to investigate. There was the Ferris wheel, split into pieces so the morning trucks could pull it away, and there was the merry-go-round. It all smelled of sweat and smoke; Fred treaded farther from the carnival grounds. Somehow, they just reminded him of crowds of sick people.

He turned to find a new destination; his stomach was like a pit, shaking and full of cement. He probably should have eaten, but those people made it impossible to enjoy food like he used to. From afar, he could read the words “Gourmet Italian” among indecipherable cursive lettering. Freddy imagined he could smell the fumes, the melody of kitchen pans crashing as he shared his meal with the night. But Fred hadn’t brought much money with him. He would eat the gourmet Italian next time. Until then, he wondered whether pizza from a nearby parlor would be a good choice for his declining health. But he hadn’t needed the cane yet, and he’d been out for a while; pizza it was.

“Two slices, plain cheese,” he said to the tired man across the counter.

“Gotcha.” He lifted a mug of coffee to his sweat-lined face and drank. Though it was cool outside, the air here was warm, wet – exactly what one would expect from a pizza parlor, but Freddy still wasn’t used to it, too accustomed to the conditioned medicine-air of the home. He paid the pizza man and sat at a table, unoccupied like all the others. The meal wasn’t fresh – barely warm, hard to chew, but it evoked something of Freddy’s youth, satiating his hunger; he wasn’t here for taste.

The pizza man drank the last of his coffee and leaned over the counter to Freddy. “What’s up, wearing your robe? You come out for a midnight snack?”

Freddy suddenly remembered what conversation was. “Oh yes,” he said. “It’s very good pizza.” Before he knew it, the meal was over, and he found himself once again sneaking past the unconscious into the night.

Freddy wanted to find something else to do, anything to prolong his freedom, but on the way to the pier his legs began to tire, and he resorted to the cane. He hated the cane. The cane meant his time was over, it meant he’d overstepped his bounds, it reminded him of his dependence. He wasn’t alone when he had the cane. So he turned back to the home and began his journey, one two, one two, steps supported, carrying him back to where everything else was supported too.

Heritage Manor Retirement and Rehabilitation Center was more than just a place where the molding blended in too much with the walls and old men screamed at night. To Fred, it was more than only a prison. It was an inescapable prison. No matter how far he could bring himself, still he tired, still he had to use the cane, and still he had to return.

It wasn’t as though the old people knew that. They liked the support. Living, not freedom or happiness, was their true end. Fred didn’t like the old people. They weren’t willing to accept the inevitable, and so they had no idea of the torture they were going through. They were sick.

Fred’s steps had become labored, and now he was breathing heavily – deep inhalations, his chest caving in as his back bent over it to make room for air, then quick sighs – rapid – irregular. When did it get so light out?

He came to the street across from the home. There were trees here, darkening the road, so thick that he could barely see the brightening sky from under them or the end of the twisting pavement. There were no stop signs. Fred slowed down to the center, right on the broken yellow line, and stared at the building. He waited until he knew he was nearly too late; the home’s staff would be there soon. There was nothing, so he continued across the road with his cane, through the unlocked gates, and up to the door. He began opening it cautiously to avoid noise, but he looked up to see the head nurse staring him in the face.

“Freddy,” said Counselor Sheridan, cross-legged as always atop his slightly unlevel chair. A different leg always hit the ground when he moved, and it was irritating.

“Freddy, I think it’s clear that you learned nothing from our last talk.”

“Pretty clear.”

Sheridan leaned forward. Clunk. “I can’t help you if you don’t help me,” he whispered. Fred didn’t answer.

“Okay then,” said the counselor. “I think I’ve come up with an elegant solution to your problem.” He was all smiles. “Oh yes. It’s a kind of buddy system, and I think you’ll rather enjoy it.” There was a pause. “Michael,” he called. The door opened to a man who looked to be in his late fifties, wearing a gray t-shirt and athletic shorts.

Fred couldn’t help but notice that the shirt was the same shade as the gum. “Who’s this?”

“This is your new roommate, Michael, who is temporarily joining us from the rehabilitation wing. Michael’s an insomniac, so maybe he’ll be able to dissuade you from indulging in your habit at night, if his medication fails. The center’s staff and I have decided that it simply isn’t healthy.” He leaned back again. Clunk. “And this will be the last night with Ms. Peters at reception. It’s a shame, but we can’t have her letting you out every night. It’s not healthy.”

Fred was defeated. “Fine.”

“Come on, Freddy, chin up. You have a new friend. You two will even be moved to a new room that can fit you both. It’ll be fun.”

Fred glanced up at Michael. His new friend had a look of boredom, of dissatisfaction.

A nurse peeked in the door. “It’s almost time for breakfast!” she said gleefully before hopping back into the hall. Fred went to breakfast.

Late that night, he thought about what could be done. Tired, he’d hoped to sleep and go out again the next night; but with this as Jenny’s last day, he couldn’t afford to waste time. Fred immediately planned to get out that night. He could go all-out, bringing enough of his savings to eat that gourmet Italian. He could go for a walk on the pier and breathe in the fresh, salty air. And then, who knows. Anything could happen. There was the dark road covered in trees, the twilight blending all the colors together; anything could happen. He was ready, as long as it didn’t happen here, in his prison.

He turned his head to find Michael in his peripheral vision; he was watching the news on his own bed – comforting, but this was Fred’s final obstacle. If he really was on Sheridan’s side, Fred would need to find an excuse.

“Michael, I’m going to go take my bath,” he said. “I forgot all about it.”

Michael moved angry eyes toward him. “You don’t have to lie, you know. I’m not gonna tell anyone. Don’t you think we’re a little too old for tattling?”

“I’m not old.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Shut up.”

And with that, Fred rummaged through his pile of clothes for an actual pair of pants and shirt. He had to look presentable for his gourmet Italian. He reached to get his cane from the doorknob and hesitated. It hung there, mocking him, a reminder. He didn’t need it. “Thank you, Michael,” he said as he moved briskly into the whitewashed halls. Michael didn’t respond.

The lobby was familiar: there lay everything in the proper order, and there was the hum of the lamp as it shed light on poor Jenny Peters, asleep at the phone. Freddy couldn’t tell, but she might have been crying, his guardian angel. One more time, he slipped unnoticed through the door and away from it all.

Freddy was unusually happy as he carefully looked both ways before crossing the street – not quite time for that yet. He strutted down the sidewalk; he greeted the gum and somehow failed to notice how gray it was. Freddy’s walk without the cane was easier, lighter, but his lack of sleep was weighing down, delaying every step. Soon enough he found the carnival ground where only the base of the Ferris wheel remained, along with the bits of paper and garbage strewn about the grass, clinging to the floor. He felt he had to look at the pizza parlor in a silent farewell, in gratification for the food that night.

Still further, there was the restaurant; he could see it – “Gourmet Italian.” Whatever the unreadable script said, it wasn’t necessary. Freddy stepped energetically to the door, where a man stood at a podium, looking off into the dark.

“Hello,” said Freddy.

“Yes,” he responded, snapping into reality, “hello. What can I do for you?”

“Table for one.”

“Right this way.”

He led Freddy through rows of empty tables to sit at a booth in the empty corner, and Freddy ordered a rather expensive plate of penne.

As he sat there, eating, he looked around at the decorative columns coming down from the ceiling or up from the floor; they weren’t fooling anybody. He could probably push one over, no matter how tired he was. The pasta was slightly burnt, but it was good. It seemed nobody wanted to talk to him like the pizza man did.

Once he had paid and left, he decided to begin his walk to the darkened road, where he would find his solitude; it was a long way, after all, and he was getting more and more tired. So he walked, and he walked, with the darkness lucid above him, a window to the stars – how they glimmered. Millions of his personal flashlights.

His legs began to grow weary, his every stride shrinking in length, and he could almost feel the cane lying in his arms. It was strange how it mocked him. All he needed was rest. So Freddy stopped when he had come upon a bench; he sat and looked up at the stars. Then there were his eyelids, closing, dizzied by the starlight, and he fell asleep.

Freddy awoke staring into a red dawn, something he hadn’t done in years. Still, he was confused. He was on his way to the road. He stared more at the sky, stood, and then began running as quickly as he could. Maybe he could still make it before it was too light. Maybe he still had time. His legs became sore; a man of his age shouldn’t have been running. There. There it was.

He walked to the middle of the street and stood across from his prison. It was too light now; the volunteers had arrived, the nurses had arrived. So he waited. He stared forward and he waited and he didn’t carefully look both ways, expecting something, hoping for something.

It took about thirty-five minutes for anyone from the distant home to notice him standing there, and it took another fifteen before anyone came out to get him.

“Freddy, I’m afraid this is the last straw,” said Counselor Sheridan. “We’ve tried extending as much independence to you as possible, but you simply reject that and run away. Why is that? You could have broken your hip or been hit by a car last night. You know you have a weak hip.”

Fred sat, exhausted, silent.

“We’re going to have to keep a close eye on you from now on, until you prove you can be responsible enough to care about your own safety.”

A nurse hesitantly knocked on the door and let it creak open. “It’s time for Freddy’s bath, sir,” she said.

“Of course,” Sheridan said. “Go on, Freddy. Don’t get too hung up on this; we’ll talk later.”

Fred stood and walked out with the nurse. Once they were outside and the door had shut, he tapped her on the back. “I can bathe myself,” he said.

“I’m not so sure if –,”

“Just let me do it.”

She stepped back a bit and nodded before treading down the white halls to her next assignment. Fred was able to look around at the old people as he made his

ay to the bathroom, where he could at least be alone – all of these faces, so wrinkled, so old. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him; of course it had no lock; they would intrude on even the most private of moments. Fred started the water and laid out his towel. Then, once the bath was full, he turned off the water and removed his dinner attire. He stepped carefully into the tub, slipping backwards; his head crashed into the acrylic, and he drowned.

[Sahaqiel 1232]

wondraful

[pheonix561 2080]

Before I read this, I'm wondering if we should do another dramatic reading, like we did with detective Olivia. Anyone up for it?

[Ganny 285]

I'm willing to do anything

Anything

for love

[pheonix561 2080]

So yeah I see you floating around there while I read this Ganny. Reading it without ever having gotten around to a dramatic reading.

I can see why your friends were tools for finding you afterward and calling this beautiful. I mean yeah its good and its well done and your teacher probably gave you an A, but it's not, as I said in irc, "my tears will not cease their march is never ending and my face is their parade ground" and all that. I mean, just in response to those people. Still liked it.