...spectacles, wallet and watch...

Fiction

Quiet, I tell my head at the sound of stirring. Stay. Cool.

This isn’t some mystery bump in the dark. I’ve been here before, and it happens.

The shuffling of sheets, the creek of a bed frame, and he’s up. “Ermph,” he blurts as he stumbles past, kicking a toe against the bedroom door, behind which I stand frozen. A tinkling sound next, like raindrops in a puddle.

Weak stream, I consider privately. He should get that checked.

I steal a glance at my watch, checking how long I’ve been in here, calculating how much time I’ve got. This geezer needs to be asleep.

I remind myself to breathe, relaxing my taught muscles to try and avoid cramping. Just have to hang here a bit longer than I’d like, but there’s no need to panic. These things can take time. And high-value items take longer to find. If it were easy anyone would do it, right?

So just stay motionless, then find the goods and get out of here.

Sure, I’ve done this before. And I always get what I came for.

\\

In his dream he’d been some kind of burrowing animal, tunneling and twisting in the earth. He dreamt often now of earth and water, of exploring below the surface of what he could see, of digging and diving. There were sometimes classrooms, too, lecture halls with students coming and going, while a man without a face spoke at a lectern. At one point in his dream the earth had become the pages of a thick book, and the animal became himself, twisting and stretching to get out from between the pages.

He awoke on his stomach with his arms above his head, tangled in pillows and sheets. His arms were completely numb, and he thought upon awaking he’d lost them. He lay there helpless and paralyzed till a tingling sensation eventually brought feeling back.

“Ermph,” he grunted, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, pins and needles still impeding the use of his arms.

He stumbled into the bathroom in his boxers, his mirrored reflection a shocking white revelation that made him wince, and he continued immediately to the toilet, leaving his reflection back at the sink to deal with itself.

Weak stream, he acknowledged, as he enjoyed one of life’s few remaining pleasures. There’s always something. I’ll have to get that checked.

He stepped onto the scale, out of habit, but noticed only his bare, bony feet, a subconscious avoidance perhaps of the glowing numbers on the display, no doubt headed in the wrong direction. Large bunions grew at the base of his big toes, making it impossible to align his feet with any dexterity, like a dancer or diver might. He could only stand with one foot slightly below the other on the scale, the bony joints slotting together like awkward puzzle pieces. The result was a miniature Pangea, he though with a small chuckle. The portion where Africa met South America. Perhaps he’d been descended from the missing link, loping around in the miasma on one great, unwieldy foot, sometime in the distant, murky past.

A sneeze brought him from his reverie, and he remembered his cold as he retrieved a robe from the back of the bathroom door. At least the flu had worked wonders on his autoimmune pain. All those microscopic proteins and red blood cells at last had something productive to do. With business efficiency, his cold had soaked up the inflammatory overage. It was like a concept from one of his old Economics texts, and he stood there on the scale recalling earlier times. Had they really called him Professor Noble once? Was that still him?

Some time later he sneezed again and emerged from thoughts, still standing on the scale. He cleared his throat as if to change the subject, then stepped off without having noted his weight and headed for the kitchen. He was becoming forgetful lately. Something to add to the laundry list of maladies, all with corresponding numbers headed in the wrong direction. He’d been misplacing things, important things: phone, wallet. He’d found his eyeglasses in the medicine cabinet, just yesterday was it?

“Lose my head if it wasn’t stuck to my neck…” he complained quietly.

Thank goodness for Mel, his carer. She spent the majority of most days with him, making meals, helping with appointments, sorting his medications. Nights he was on his own, for now. Mel kept him settled, and the truth is he’d be a little lost without her. Well more than a little. He hated the constantly changing nursing staff. No sooner was he used to one than a new one would come along. A revolving door. The caregiver before Mel - Karen? Corrine? - had left so suddenly. Reassigned, Mel said.

“Was it something I did?” he’d asked Mel at the time. He didn’t think he could get used to another one. Thank goodness for Mel.

\\

How do you know this guy’s loaded? Because you know that’s how. Pep talks keeps me focused and calm.

Mel and I have a system. We look out for each other. Sometimes she sets me up. Sometimes vice-versa. I scratch your back, yada yada. A spare house key under the door mat and we’re set. Layout the bedroom, the study, maybe even some computer passwords or a safe combo. Easy-peasy, you’re in and out. Usually.

What, you think caregivers like us are rich? I’d make more waiting tables, hell, bagging groceries. For taking care of old people who can’t care for themselves. What a world.

So we take a little extra when we can. Where’s the harm? Sort of like a gratuity. Like these old-timers are ever going to give us a tip. You think restaurant servers work hard for their money? Have you ever seen a waiter toilet a customer? No, I didn’t think so.

We’re only looking out for each other, Mel and I.

The replacement nurse will show up early for their first day shift - they always do. I need to find what I came for and get the hell out of here. This guy carries cash and a million credit cards, according to his soon-to-be former nurse. It’ll be a shock when he meets his new caregiver, but he’ll get over it.

Me, I only need a wallet and I’m done. He’s snoring away, and I’ve been through his nightstand and his desk drawers, the bureau in the living room and the junk drawer next to the washer-dryer. Everyplace she said it would be. I’m standing here in the kitchen leaning against the refrigerator, and a thought starts to worm its way into my head.

Maybe this old guy’s smarter than we thought.

\\

From the bathroom, he tromped to the kitchen shaking off sleep, his dreams still fresh in his mind. He paused for a moment at the counter and touched an index finger to his chin, then remembered the routine: morning meds. He spent the better part of his waking hours, it seemed, either taking drugs or acquiring them.

He missed routine, the students and curriculum, the research and deadlines. Hustle and bustle. At the time, towards the end at least, it had begun to feel like a kind of dread, as if he were stuck in quicksand, paralyzed and waiting to be pulled under. But it had been a routine just the same that gave his life, he thought now, a certain purposeful meaning.

How had it ended, he tried to recall, addressing his pill dispenser on the counter before him? There’d been a meeting, he knew, with men and women who now seemed like strangers. They’d spoken to him from one side of a long conference table. Issues raised by students, they’d reported. Missing grades, unexplained absences and strange behaviors. He’d listened mutely, too afraid to respond.

He considered his dream from the night just past as he sorted his morning pills on a small china dish. Part of his new routine, a memory test. He often wrote about his dreams in his diary, which had currently gone missing. What had he been searching for, he wondered, below the surface, rummaging in the dirt? What was the deeper meaning?

The doorbell was ringing as he threw open the fridge and discovered his keys and wallet behind the orange juice. He really was forgetting everything lately.

I should get that checked.