One Seventeen and Twenty Five and a Half Seconds

It wasn’t so long ago that his roommate entered the plastic body bag of no return. Charles sat in his chair like he had been instructed to, wondering what date it was. He had been instructed to wait quietly for lunch and leave Thomas alone. Charles learned a long time ago to do what they said. Not listening would result in dull lectures and unpleasant repercussions to be followed up by the in-house social worker for more discussion. Not listening went against the system. The system was required to keep one hundred and seventy people cared for during the duration of their residence. Some would be released soon, some were serving a life sentence like he was.

Charles used the time to think about the days past when he was young and vibrant. Carefree in the world to make all manner of choices. Some of those choices landed him where he was today. He shared his space with another old man also at the twilight of his life. A time where new memories don’t last long anymore as the old ones fade into the background and become questionable speculation of what might have once happened. Thomas “the moaner” who had previously been transferred several times for reasons related to his namesake. The two of them didn’t talk much. Thomas was the kind of geyser you left alone or he would just moan more. Even the staff paid him little attention by now. Then again, most of the staff offered the occupants little more time than their obligation dictated. With so many people in house and so few of them to do it, any extra time with one person meant someone else wouldn’t be attended to. He tried his best to remember the date. A task he failed at over and again. When in open waters, the only landmarks are in your mind. Charles felt his own drowning in an open ocean of time. An ocean that was ever slowly pulling him downwards into the lonely abyss.

Charles didn’t care for his room. It was much to small for anyone by his estimates. Some would say inhumanely small. He was fortunate enough to have a television with predetermined channels, which worked most of the time. He was quite aware that the next time he left the building for good, it would be in a thick, black, nylon bag. The square heads decided that he was “no longer capable of being in the community and that his current placement would be for the good for everyone concerned.” Charles barked at this news long ago, especially “everyone concerned.” That was code for him, alone. He knew that being old with a series of poor life decisions throughout his youth should not be a sentence to die in a room with someone as annoying as Thomas. Charles looked at the clock on the wall. The time read one seventeen and twenty five and a half seconds. The clock was correct twice everyday for the past three weeks. He never really knew what time it was until the news programs put their clock in the broadcast corner. The tv clock was possibly getting smaller or Charles was losing his sight faster. This he wasn’t completely sure which was more likely. When you’re old, the body begins failing like a car with poor upkeep and too many miles under its tires. The clock’s second hand danced in the same spot as the battery slowly wasted away inside. Much like Charles felt was his life as he was still unable to recall the date. Slowly doing the same thing over and over, waiting for the last of his energy to drain into a flatline. Charles knew that someone flat-lining or fighting were the only ways to get their attention. Calls for help would largely go unnoticed. Calls for staff were as useful as sliced cheese in a prison lock.

Charles was able to see the rarely-inclined members of his family from time to time. No one really made the effort to travel all the way to see him. None of his immediate relatives wanted to watch him locked up in a place such as this. Few others didn’t want to enter the dreary place with its depression and human decay on display. Families of other people brought their obligatory pity with them more regularly. Still, even they hurried in and hurried out, back to the happy freedom of the parking lot. Charles thought about his son, Fred. What a good boy he had been. Fred sent a check of fifty dollars once in a while for Charles to use on the few things for sale. Charles would need to send one of the overworked and underpaid workers to get what he needed. He was lucky to get his change back. He learned a long time ago that the fifteen cents he was owed wasn’t worth the “investigation” by the head honcho. The condescending questions and backdoor accusations. Maybe you just forgot about getting your change back, Charles. I’m sure it was returned, Mr. Rappaport. Maybe after a nap, you will remember where you put it. Let’s get someone to put you back in bed for a bit.

  Charles tried his hardest to remember the date. Days blend together like mixing colors in a paint can. Weekends don’t mean anything. Holidays mean less over the years and become blips of time icons. Shamrocks. Hearts. Turkeys. Time’s illusion fades into obscurity. “Open time,” the square heads call it. Hey, old man, I wish I had this much time to futz around. Time was the sentence for being old, poor and needing to be out of society’s way. Time was the slow torture from meal to meal. Waking to sleep. Over and over and over and over and over. A real life Groundhog Day. Charles was ever aware that when Thomas’ moans stopped all together, a new old man will be assigned the same bed with his own stained, rough linens. His roommate counter would begin anew. They didn’t assign the space to young men, filled with energy and frustration about their new situation. Those men cared about time because time still meant something special. Some of them would be in and out. Others would be in until they were released or became old men themselves. Charles thought about the idea of being released. He knew such thinking would put him in a spin. A spin that would erupt at one of the knuckle draggers or Thomas. A spin that would get him the shot. At least with a shot he could sleep. Day sleep eats time like Pac-man eating round pellets. The ghosts are the square heads who corral his behavior. Don’t be so loud, Charles. Don’t keep your television on so late, Charles. Be nice to Thomas, Charles, or I will have to call your son. If this continues, we will be forced to send you to a more secure part of the building. 

Everything the staff did was based on some god dammed rule. Charles suspected that most were made up. The calmer part knew that any institution housing people with public money was mandated to follow certain guidelines. None of the guidelines seemed to be about fixing his clock or giving him a calendar. Charles tried in vain to remember the useless date. The last calendar he had was likely three months old and falling off his chipped wall, not helping him any.

Charles wondered when his son would show up again. Fred hardly found the time to come by. His wife wouldn’t visit without Fred leading the way. Being a working stiff, time was more nutrient to Fred than to that of an institutionalized hermit. Fred with his wife and kids. A life that Charles once had. One in which he didn’t find the time to see his own aged parents. They had become a physical reminder of fleeting youth into old age with their dentures, ointments and medical issues no one really wants to hear about. Now Charles was that same reminder to his son and family. Fred had family obligations and some hobby Charles didn’t understand. There was so much in the world that Charles didn’t understand with no one willing to explain it to an old man dancing on the last trailing sands in an hourglass. Fred’s wife would send an envelope once in a while with drawings from grandchildren that were practically strangers by now. He stopped wasting his time on how old they might be. Charles kept their drawings and good intentions in one of his three small drawers. Posting artwork from family he would never likely meet again seemed like a waste of everyone’s efforts to him. Charles figured it would be easier this way for the knuckle draggers to throw away his pre-packed effects when he was dead.

He sat alone, searching for a meaningless date in his worn out wheelchair. Stuck in his chair until the square heads would transfer him back to bed. It was his routine. Bed to chair. Chair to bed. Isolated in one piece of furniture at all times. He couldn’t remember the last occasion that his body made contact with furniture meant for more than one backside or made for comfort over function. He thought long about his current situation. He didn’t have any other person to sit with or ask the date or share a meal or talk politics with. He was his own company. Most of the others that were placed in the room with him were what Charles called the “breathing dead.” He thought back and wasn’t able to recall the last person he shared meaningful time with. His roommates co-existed with him until the thick, metallic zipper was pulled up over their liver-spotted heads. Charles would be left alone once more until one of Mr. Valentine’s square heads rolled in the next breathing dead. By now all the former roommates blended into one old man. The square heads used to introduce his new companion. Charles, this is Mr. Kyoto. Please be nice to him. Charles, this is Gregory, he used to work in a factory too. Maybe you both could share some memories together. These days, they rolled the guy in and walked out without their surface only introductions. A few times, Charles woke up from his in-chair nap at the window to find someone in the bed that was vacant when his eyes were still open.

  Thomas would moan in his bed. Charles would eventually tell him to shut the fuck up and die already. The square heads wouldn’t like that kind of talk. Mr. Valentine wouldn’t have his usual patience for placation over more trivial matters. Mr. Valentine and the assistant would curtly tell him that his life was about to become more unpleasant if he continued being a “problem.” Charles would want to smash the broken clock over both of their heads, but would apologize to get the two knuckle draggers out of his face.

Charles prayed for death with every cough, stomach ache and chest pain. He prayed for a freedom that wasn’t possible through bureaucratic means. His day was a series of pre-planned events of which he had almost no say in, much like being handcuffed on a merry-go-round. He knew what was going to happen and how it was going to happen. The staff’s routine. The cold meals. The nurse and her little, plastic cup piled with his rainbow of pills. Take them, Charles. Think of them as medicinal Skittles. Yes, you need to take them all, even that one. No, Charles, I don’t have time to tell you what they do. Dr. Freedman thinks they’re important, so you should as well. Charles thought about telling her where she could stick her Skittles. He always decided not to, fearing that he would be reassigned a roommate more annoying than Thomas. Self preservation of sanity was paramount when one was old, trapped and alone.

There were no options for Charles to change this ride. Thomas continued to moan while Charles did his best to figure out the elusive date. The task seemed much like trying to put together a model plane with no directions and missing pieces aplenty. Trying to find the date haunted Charles. Not because he had a reason to know but because he didn’t know. Not knowing was one more way he felt that disabled. The man down the hall was crying out for someone to help him. Charles imagined getting free and somehow walking room to room with a heavy pillow, quieting the building one complainer by the next. Charles imagined a lot. Imagining caused less stress than hunting a memory lost in the thick grasses of time. He imagined that he had done more with his life before this, possibly avoiding his current dilemma. Possibly avoiding having to listen to Thomas make such ungodly noise throughout the long day as he tried to solve the ongoing mystery. He was free in his imagination until the moaning slapped his thoughts back on the tiled floor of reality.

He wanted more than anything to feel the fresh air that taunted him outside his bolted windows. The insects and small birds made their way in the fresh, summer air across his faded vision. Even a crap devouring fly was freer than him, Charles thought. A simple bee was more productive and more valuable than an old man wasting away behind an institution tray with the same meals they served last week. Charles thought about the idea of having a meal with someone. To listen to anyone banter about their day. He longed to listen to his wife’s stories about problems with co-workers he didn’t know or care about. He wanted to listen to any discussion over a meal that wasn’t slopped on his plate in the basement of a building he was locked in. Charles wanted the company of his worst enemy telling him all of his faults over a juicy steak and hot fries with a side of buttery corn. His reality was a dying roommate’s noises over cold, running eggs with sandpaper dry toast and a side of jelly packs he could no longer open.

  The clock’s second hand continued to vibrate in place, trapped under the economy, plastic cover. One seventeen and twenty five and a half seconds. Charles felt as if he was society’s broken second hand trapped in a concrete building with no one available to remedy. The wonky second hand’s progress mirrored Charles’s efforts at remembering the date. The time piece’s internal gears had messed up by chance or design. Charles felt his existence was those gears. Charles closed his eyes. He imagined being anywhere besides in this god forsaken nursing home.