Shuffling and Fog

The first lungful of spring air. The warm sun on your face. The pools of melted snow and you think "I probably don't need a jacket today." 

Three years ago things were different for me. I worked in a basement apartment with a large sliding glass door that let the light in and had a small concrete porch attached to it. I used to smoke there and read and write science fiction stories that weren't any good but I thought they were all right. I used to pass meds and make meals and clean and on the television there were a lot of reruns of Bonanza and Gunsmoke and Charmed. 

On Sundays I worked thirteen hour shifts and in the mornings on those days I would go to church because that was part of the job. When church was over and I had made small talk with folks who tried we would drive to a nursing home to visit a dying sister for a bit. The nursing home was hollow in every way. Long corridors of fog and shuffling and sometimes a woman would come to me and for a few minutes I would let her believe I was her son or her husband or whoever she needed me to be and I would text Marie and try to let it go. 

The sister was all there, or at least mostly there, for a while. She died on a Saturday and we hadn't driven there in two weeks. It sat heavy in the air of the basement apartment for a while and people became worried but I said everything would be okay. There was a lot of talk of death and finality and there should have been. People grew old and if they grew old enough they were eventually the last of their kind and it was the end. We went grocery shopping for the apartment and we did laundry and made small talk and everything was quieter then.

Mostly I sat on the couch. Through the sharp autumn air and evenings, and through the winter, and in the air conditioning for three months I sat inside on the couch with my feet over the armrest and my laptop glowing and my headphones on and typed bad science fiction. I can admit it was bad now. I watched movies and read great science fiction and played video games and reruns of Bonanza and Gunsmoke and Charmed played and I passed meds and cooked and cleaned and my managers thought so highly of me. I didn't do shit. Everything was quiet and the sister had died and there was shuffling and fog all around. 

In the spring the snow melted off the lawn and dripped onto the concrete porch and I opened the glass sliding door and let the light and air in. I wished I was a caretaker. I wished I was better. I wished I had been better. The sister had died and things had become quieter and through the spring air and sunlight there was shuffling and fog and I left that job.