frog.

 It just sat there on the window ledge. Croaking it’s mating call to anything that could hear it. I appeared to be the sole individual hearing its guttural summons echoing throughout most of the common area and into the office. It has the habitual annoyance of over powering everything I do to block it out and I’m beginning to feel the urge to mate with it myself. I walk out onto the screened in patio, the sound of every animal and creature in the throws of mating compulsion are all uniting in chorus.

     

Following the little path between the building and the fenced in retention pond that constitutes as water front property, under the glow of a fluorescent beacon it sits upon its windowsill balcony. If it was female I could have called it Juliet. With a flick of my fingers my love torn companion is air born into the ragged bushes and dead leaves. Making my way back to the patio, the cacophony appears to be getting louder, as if compensating for the loss.

     

The rising sounds of the world grow louder and louder; closing in on myself and filling my head with nothing else. The discernable cries of the distinct animals are becoming one whole thunderous rumble, my head is ringing with its overwhelming force and it’s closing in on me in, not only from the darkness but from within me as well. The gnarled trees within the fenced in pond move toward the building, as if the space between us is shrinking, without taking a step, growing larger to encompass everything.

     

A light is turned on inside, it distracts me and I see Mavis walking to one of the dinning room tables. She’s carrying an arm full of books and papers, a thick brown and green comforter draped over her head. Everything around has returned to the ongoing mating rituals and the dense air encasing the world; all quaint and normal and safe within their boundaries. And then there is Mavis, a pudgy middle-aged woman with a child like contour to her face.

     

Her smile portents to an innocence that may or may not be there, depending on who diagnoses her; she uses it well when her devious manipulating back fires and her explanations get no sympathy. I watch her, sprawling her belongings onto the table, taking a seat with the comforter still draped over her head, she wraps herself with it and begins separating her papers and books into neat piles. I walk back in, and prepare for the inevitable.

      

“What’cha doing Mavis?”

     

“What?” She pokes her head out of the comforter, looking as if I had just spoken to her in a foreign language or she somehow didn’t hear what I had said. “Oh, I can’t sleep in my room tonight. There is poison in the air and it’s gotten into my room.” She pulls the cover over her head once more.

“What poison?” I ask.

     

“The stuff Chris used to clean the counters tonight. He uses too much of it and I’ve told him thousands of times he can’t use that stuff because he sprays it all over the counters. I need fresh air. I can’t sleep in my room. It smells really bad.” She ends with that deceptive smile and a pseudo-geisha giggle.

    

I attempt to explain to her that there was no smell of poison or chemical cleaners in the air. I explain to her that had a cleaner been used in the kitchen it would not affect her in her bedroom. All in a reluctant but calm and endearing tone, attempting to defuse the situation before it escalates.

     

“Oh, it gets into the air conditioner and then to all the bedrooms. I can smell it. That’s all that matters.”

     

“You don’t smell it here next to the kitchen?”

     

“No.” She’s looking around for answers; you can almost hear the marbles clanking about in her head. “Because, you know, the air conditioner sucks up all the smell.”

     

“You know the rules about being out here after bed time.”

     “Oh, please, I just want to read and I can’t sleep. It’s cold in here. Can I get some ice water?”

     

“No ice water and I like it cold in here. I’m sure it’s a lot warmer in your room.” I make my way back to the office.

     

“But I’ll die in there!” Her voice trailing behind me.

     

“Yeah, I know, but you still have to go to bed. You got five minutes to clean all that junk you brought out here and head back to your room.” I sit down at the computer and jiggle the mouse to get it going again.

     

Mavis comes sulking to the office, her head down, attempting to use that child-like innocence. I click on the screen to bring up the desktop, the boss’ grandson on his second birthday, his face smothered in frosting.

“Donald…” She accentuates the syllables like a five year old. “Why can’t I stay in the dinning room? You know Jesus says that when you want something you should take it and I can’t sleep because Gerty is always talking in her sleep.” Gertrud is her roommate; a 55 year old who’s slowly decaying with the AIDS virus.   

“Because its bedtime and you know that and you should be in your room.” I pull up a Word document on the computer and begin to type at random to appear busy.

     

“Well can I tell you something?” She moves into the office and starts to close the door.

     

“Wait! No. Were not doing this tonight, not again, were not having some heart to heart about your dog, or about the bible, or about the fact that it’s the anniversary of your mom’s death. Step back. Go on.”

     

“That’s not fair. I need to talk to you.”

     

“I’ll tell you what’s not fair is what your mom’s going to say when I call her in the morning and explain to her how you’ve been acting these past two weeks.”

     

She lowers her head once more and heads back to the dining room. Within minutes she storms back past the office carrying all of her belongings and heads for her room, slamming the bedroom door. 

     

Air escapes my lungs in an involuntary sigh. My love torn companion has returned to the window ledge and his swampy serenade begins once more.

dead letters for living people

third shift

“You shouldn’t have any problems. Most of them sleep through the night. Occasionally you have a situation with one of them but all in all you won’t have any of them coming at you with a blunt object.” 

That was how our little meeting ended.

     

I got the impression that I wasn’t what she had expected. Maybe it was the sudden look of apprehension as we shook hands, the cautious manner of her speaking as she showed me the medicine cabinet, or the way she looked over her shoulder as I walked behind her during the short tour of the building. It might have been the fact that my eyes were seriously blood shot, the long arrangement of tattoos running up my left arm to the base of my neck, the tattered jeans that I’ve been wearing for the past week and half or the picture of Adolph Hitler on my t-shirt with his brains blown out stating, “FOLLOW YOUR LEADER!”

     

She was much older than I had expected, she obviously had made this position her sole livelihood for countless years. All I saw was a woman who found out too late in life that she could have done more and was now in a desperate race to compensate. It was clear that as long as I came to work clean and sober, didn’t burn the place down, steal any of the controlled substances or molest the residents, she’d be impressed with my job performance; no use setting a bar so high that you can’t step over it.

     

“I’m not worried." I attempted to assure her. "The last job I was at, I had a hospital monitor thrown at my head, I was punched in the face by a seven foot fourteen year old and watched a nine year old boy smother himself in his own feces before he ate it.” 

She smiled nervously when she realized I wasn’t joking. She says goodnight and I follow her out and lock the door behind her. I had half expected there would have been more to do: count the addictive meds, file some daily paperwork, verify that all residents are present and accounted for; now just sit around and wait until the end of the shift at seven.

     

The hours dragged on.

     

I find myself attempting to make the clock move faster with my mind. I have accepted that my mind can effect the movement of time, I could make it all melt away and this shift would be over within seconds. I know this to be true; I have only forgotten how to achieve this. 

I’m convinced this can work.

     

“Hello there,” says a linty feminine voice from behind me that startles my concentration. I’m staring at what appears to be a dried out human husk, skin like pale beef jerky, and a head that is similar to one of those massive alien craniums, only shrunken, but the eyes are large and wet, as if she is about to cry. This creature produces a thin smile that makes her cheeks look like they’re about to rip from the strain.

“Uhh…hi.” I’m reminding myself not to stare.

“You must be the new guy." Her breathing is constricted, "Mieder told me you’d be starting tonight.”

“Mieder?”

She grabs onto the door jam to balance herself, standing is putting a strain on her, but she maintains the smile, “your boss. Mieder. I’m Gertrude. Gertrude Brinkerhoffen. You are…?”

     

“Oh…yeah…my boss.” I continually tell myself not to look disgusted and not to stare. She looks pensive at me with those drowning eyes that appear perplexed by what she sees, “Donald. Hi. I’m Donald.”

     

I stand up to shut off the ceiling fan; the breeze appears to be overpowering her. Gertrud stands somewhere in the four feet

range, the top of her head comes to my chest. She has spider webs for hair that is gradually fading away, accentuating the odd shape of the mass.

     

“Thank you.” She strains for the smile once more.

     

“No problem. Did you need anything?”

     

“Oh, no sweetie, I’m fine; I can’t sleep, so sometimes I just walk around. Get so tired of lying in bed all day.” She talks in a tightly pact structure, barely opening her mouth. Gertrude moves the spider web hair from her eyes; I notice the purple, bruise-like blotches on her forearm. “Well dear, I’m going back to bed.” She walks in small steps, keeping one hand on the wall for support.

“Goodnight.” I tell her but she doesn’t reply.

     

Most of the residents here don’t really sleep. 

You think your hearing voices most of the night. 

They talk and some scream, mumbling to conversations in their heads while staring at the ceiling, pacing in their bedroom, or dreaming. 

I’m sure one of them would know how to move time.

     

The medication that they take can be extremely powerful; they’re knocked out a half hour past evening med time till two hours before morning med time; a life of dreams and nightmares.

I step out of the office and watch Gertrude creep along towards her room. When I hear her shut the bedroom door I close up the office and head to the back patio for a cigarette.

A few of them have been getting up for cigarette breaks, as if the whole process of sleeping were a chore to get through. The idea of an addiction they can control must give them some sort of independence from the reality that their lives are fitted into this regimented living situation; because they can’t live anywhere else on their own. I’ve heard some of them hack up bits of their insides in blackened char burned phlegm wads. Burning through long coughing fits that leaves any one of them at the point of passing out from the lack of oxygen.

There is a clock on the outside wall by the door; I can resume my mission of mind-bending experimentation. Although the quick hit of nicotine and unknown chemicals drains whatever ambition I had and surrounds me in a thick grey and blue cloud.

  

Another resident is walking towards the door; his walk is swaggered and he has arms that swing low like a gorilla.  He sees me through the French doors that lead out to the patio, and pauses before coming outside. He looks like a refugee from a nuclear disaster area. Ashen skin that is pockmarked by a combination of freckles and brown cancerous moles, a head that appears more oval than the normal proportions, his hair grows out of the top most curve of the shape in a small tuft of pale blond hair. Where Gertrude looked like pale beef jerky, this gentleman’s flesh just sags about his bones and joints. Stepping outside cautiously, eying me, he takes out a cigarette and lights it before beginning his chore.

     

“I won’t do it. Nope. Won’t do it. Just get fucked, I say, get fucked. Stupid cunt. Fuckin asshole. Get fucked…” He goes on, staring at the ground, with his one sided speech. He pauses for a few seconds and shakes his head before continuing. “Not fair! No. Fuckin cunt! I won’t do it!” His skin is flaking in sheets and a pile of dead cells is accumulating at his feet.

     

I ignore him, even though he is looking right at me, and return to watching the clock. From the corner of my eye I notice him watching me and the clock; there is two and half hours to go, no use disrupting the space-time continuum for a measly two hours.

     

An out of character breeze blows through the screen-enclosed patio, it’s enough to disperse the cloud around me and I breathe in the new air. Some of the man’s skin is now sticking to my pant leg.

He gets up and stops in front of the clock before going back in; turning he gives me a big toothless grin, then moves the hour hand ahead two hours leaving only half an hour left to go in the shift.

 dead letters for living people...the book

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