Do you think that I don't know?
Do you think that I don't see?
That ditch out in the valley
that they're digging just for me?
So here I am parked out in front of this old-folks home and my job is to pick up some guy and load him into the wheelchair van and take him to the dialysis clinic. The woman at the front desk directs me all the way to the back, to where the decor changes from green to brown.
The hallway is littered with extinguished old ladies in wheelchairs and I walk as if treading on alligators in a swamp of shadows. But then I come upon Scylla and Charybdis. Blocking my way is one old soul appealing to her daughter (who is no spring chicken), desperately grabbing her hand and begging, “No one ever talks to me, take me out of here! Take me out of here!”
Nearby, a dozing woman suddenly snaps to attention as I slide by and she begins to repeat, mindlessly, "Hello, Hello, Hello."
I try to ignore all of this because my heart is about to implode, but then I stop in my tracks. There in my path is an ancient woman passed out in her shiny aluminum Queen-For-A-Day throne on wheels, with a baby doll clasped to her naked and shriveled breast. I stare down at living/dead flesh with plastic/surrogate birth, and jumping into my ears is “No one ever talks to me here.” “Hello, hello.” “No one talks to me.” “Hello.” “They won't talk to me.” “Hello, hello, hello, hell . . .”
I find his room. He has just been served a kind of lunch. I sit down and wait and wonder if the curse will fall on me.