None of this is real.

She wasn't mine last week.
I only know her from from the shouts i heard in the hallway, and her nurse's exasperated look when she can't be settled.  I know that her tiny frail body body takes nothing to boost up to the top of the bed.

When we really meet, i say "I'm going to ask you three silly questions." and she tells me her name and where we are.  She can't remember the rest.

She doesn't say much at first.  Says she's fine.  Nothing else.  But i keep making dumb jokes,  and i don't let her send me away,  and after a little while, there's a look, a tiny glint in the eyes and the beginnings of a smirk on the side of her mouth that the stroke didn't smear.

I try to make her comfortable.  I show her the call bell.  When i ask if she needs anything she says no. I say i'll come back and bother her again in an hour and she laughs and says she'll look forward to it.

Later I bring her some pills.  Some juice.  More pills.  Each time I leave I ask again if she needs anything.  She says:
"A million dollars"
"A trip to Barbados"
"A Good looking man"

I brush her teeth with a little sponge on a stick.  Wash her face.  She tells she feels human again.  She says its been a long time, I brush it off and say something silly in response and i don't let myself think about it.
Later it will break my heart.

Each time I care for her she compliments me.  Says i'm pretty.  (debatable). Says I have nice teeth. (a lie).  She tries to feed me cookies.  These are the only things she has to give, and these compliments come with apologies.  She sorry she needs to be cared for.  Sorry i am stuck with her.  Sorry to waste my time. She's sorry she had to go to the bathroom.
I refuse the apologies.
"Everyone poops" i tell her.  "There's even a book about it for children" and she laughs.

Eventually, she stops trying to make it up to me and at odd moments we talk a little about travel and she tells me a funny story.  Its long and can't quite catch all of the words, but i try my best to laugh the right amount at the right times and she believes me and pats my arm with that now satisfied smirk.

She says i am too kind to her.
"Impossible!" i say.
Again, she insists.
"No",  I tell her,  this time resolute.
"There is no such thing as too much kindness"

She wakes up disoriented in the night, and begins to slip back into confusion.  By morning the smile is gone and when I ask her if there's anything i can do for her she says "shoot me".

All my dumb jokes can't bring the smile back, and we are both of us defeated.

Bus Haiku

on the long long ride to Kanata this friday morning


Mylar heart balloon
Crimson in crumpled defeat
Dumb trees grope rudely

*

on sunday morning i wake up early.
i prepare myself for the day ahead of me. its going to be strange.
i arrange a ride to the same small town i grew up in, escaped, all those years ago.
i need to get ready.
in the bathroom i look in the mirror. my normal self looks back. i don't look tired. my eyes are not red. i do not look distressed or distraught.
i look detached.
i frown at the mirror. Sometimes i worry that my "professional detachment" has metastasized too far into the margins of my personal life. this is definitely one of those times.

i shower. wash my hair. brush my teeth. curl my lashes. dress myself in black.

i'm excited to wear my new dress.
don't be dumb.

my legs are pasty and fish belly white, marked with too many bruises and scratches for normal wear and tear.

courtney love.

thank you, wrestling dogs and cats for a living.
i will need pantyhose, which i don't have.
i put on my shoes and my coat and so does Richard. we'll go for coffee and hosiery before we split up for the afternoon.

by the time we sit for coffee my feet are already sore and a bit red across the top where the leather edge has bitten into them. they won't rub so much once the pantyhose are on, but i'm glad to have something to focus on if things get weird.

"its just so weird", i tell Richard.

today i'm going to the wake of a girl nine years younger than me. we grew up together and our parent would go out and i'd babysit. we'd catch bullfrogs in the creek and snakes sunning on the stone walkway. we'd build forts in the woods and watch cartoons.
her name was "minnow" back then and she was the kind of kid you could tell straight away would grow up to be someone amazing.
and then she did grow up, and our families drifted and she got away from me, and now its been years and she's gone; died.
gotten away from all of us.

she was at university. told her mum she wasn't feeling well, went to bed...that was it.
she was twenty years old.

i'm the only one in our family who can make it to the wake.

"it IS going to be weird", Richard nods, "death is a pretty fucked up thing"