The Old Man and the Fly

The old man stares torpidly into the distance, his head held at an odd angle. Perhaps not really held so much as left there to hang. He doesn’t appear to have the strength to hold it up. His body and face are sunken; the emaciation of the old, and his head can only hold on to a few stray hairs, like sirus clouds. Dolefully he stares, unmoved from where he has been abandoned by the nurse in his wheelchair.

If you didn’t have money and you had to grow old and die somewhere, this was as fair a place as any. The staff was kind and attentive for the most part, and the place wasn’t exactly decorated, but you could bring almost anything of your own that you wanted, as long as it could fit in the 22x18ft room without giving the staff a problem. He’s seen people expire in worse. His room doesn’t have much in it.

David… David, that’s his name. It took him longer to recall it today than it did yesterday. The effort is exhausting, but he doesn’t move. He has nowhere to go.

Like a victorious king, a new insurgent sweeps into the room. The fly goes on a cursory circuit about and between and over David’s things, at last deciding that they are beneath it. It lands on the window frame. Directly in the path of David’s line of sight.

Bzzzzbzzz…

“Shut up,” David mutters belatedly. A beat, two, three, four, “Shut up! God-damned-blasted- Nurse!” With effort, he grasps for the call button, eyes searching wildly for the invader.

“Nurse! Nurse, there’s someone in my room! …Nurse!”

At last the old fellow’s eyes land on the insect, and he falls silent. He squints hard, trying to see it. “Little bastard,” he whispers hoarsely, spitting. “You… why are you here? How dare you come here? I suppose you think you’re smart. Breaking in on an old man. Making him feel insecure. Well, I am secure. I am. I am!” He stops for a moment, jaw waggling, trying to regain control of its spasms.

“You don’t know the half of it. What it’s like here. Surrounded by- by OLD people! Your hear me, Frank!? You’re OLD!”

The man shuffling his way down the hallways turns to look in the room. “So’re you,” he replies obstinately, with no patience for the other man’s shit. Resolutely, he continues his measured shuffle.

David stares again at the wall, jaw working slowly. “Bloody-damned… you dunno what it’s like to be left somewhere, do you?” His gaze lands again on the fly. “Left here, all by yourself in this god forsaken hellhole. People always coddling you… they treat us like babies. Can’t walk… can’t talk… Can’t think! They treat us like we dunno how to think! Like we’re stupid! Like we like that! It’s- it’s damned insulting. You know that? I am… insulted. I’m… I’m damned… insulted. Being here. I am. I’m insulted…”

“How are you feeling Mr. Bennet?” a chipper woman comes in wearing the pink-rimmed pin of nursing home staff.

David mumbles incoherently.

“That’s good, she smiles, taking the handles of his wheelchair. Her calm manner is taught to be soothing. “Come along, it’s time for your afternoon medicines anyway.”

The wheelchair squeaks every time the wheel turns, and, uninhibited, the fly does what he does best. He flies.