There’s a
little more security that might be expected, for a nursing home. Discreet, but
there: the full-body scanner set into the front door, the well-muscled and
alert ‘nurses’ at reception.
He barely
notices, after two years. Making sure his pockets are empty of anything that
might be considered ‘a weapon’ has become second nature, and the security staff
are familiar faces, seen once a week.
He knows why
they’re there, after all.
He’s glad
of it.
Up to the
second floor, third corridor, fifth door on the left, more ‘nurses’. He smiles
at them, like always. They don’t smile back, like always. Not unfriendly.
Just on duty.
He still
smiles. Still brings the traditional gifts at the new year. They’d die to
protect him: the least he can do is smiles and marzipan.
Through the
door, the man waits. Although waits
might not be the right word – there’s nothing in the empty stare, the slack
face, to indicate enough cognitive function to understand the difference
between present and future. Still, the
man is there, and not doing anything
else, so waits is close enough.
It’s a
pleasant enough room, the medical necessities subtly concealed, a view of the
gardens. He takes a chair that lets him
see out the window, lets the silence lengthen. Always, there’s the possibility that
this time, he won’t be the first to
speak.
And always,
eventually, he is.
“You’re
looking well,” he says. It’s not entirely untrue. The medical care here is
excellent. The residents have every chance of living a long, long time, and this resident is still in early middle
age. “She’s looking well, too. I
talked to her yesterday.”
Not a flicker
of response. Still, maybe, just maybe, there’s the possibility of a firing
neuron somewhere deep behind those vacant eyes. Maybe, just maybe, what he says
is heard and understood.
So he
persists. “Just bought a new ship, she said. Some sort of rare … something, I can never work out what she
means when she starts talking about that stuff, but I gather it was incredibly
expensive. But then, she’s incredibly rich. I mean, even by capsuleer
standards. And so happy, still so much in love, and her family … everything’s
going perfectly for her.” Is that a flare of a nostril or a trick of
the light? “And for me, too. I’ve been chosen for the exhibition. They say
I have real talent. And Cami is in an advanced computer sciences course – she’s
a genius, you know, although mostly at skills that don’t have many legal
applications. She’s going to be able to
do anything she wants with her life. Anything at all.”
Nothing. He studies the man for a while, noting the
sagging flesh of his cheeks where the muscles are atrophying from lack of use,
the unmarked, manicured hands. Nothing.
Always nothing. But he can’t quite believe it,
despite what the doctors say, can’t believe that this man is, for all intents
and purposes, gone: personality, will, mind all erased by creeping dementia.
And until he can believe it, he will
keep coming, week after week, bringing his stories of the world outside the
walls and the worlds beyond the stars.
Look how well we’re doing. Look how successful
we are.
Look how happy we are.
And there’s nothing you can do about it.
The garden
outside the window is darkening into dusk. The weekly visit is over.
Luc Roth
stands, and leans down to brush a kiss on his father’s immobile face. “Goodbye,
Papa. I’ll be here next week.”
And so will you.
With a
smile for the unsmiling guards, Jorian Roth’s youngest son walks out the door
and into the world outside his father’s walls.
