To Hank: Someday I will do something much more grand for you, but now because I miss you so this will have to do.
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My Fading Glory
They tell me that it's time for bed. They tell me that I have to take my pills and go to sleep; sweet dreams. I don't want to though. I am old and I am tired but I do not want to go to bed. I think that I am too old for these people to tell me what to do. They are young and should do as I tell them not the other way around.
So, I am writing. They wont let me watch the television because I might disturb the other guests and that I should be sleeping anyway. I don't care what the other 'guests' do or feel. I don't go around pester them about all the things they do that piss me off and I think that it would be fair if they did the same to me.
Besides that, why do they call us 'guests' here? How are we guests? We do not want to be here. We didn't ask to come. No, we were all dropped off by our families who couldn't give us 'proper care' or 'support' which really just translates into that they don't want to watch us die anymore and that a retirement home is covered by insurance so please go deteriorate there while we go on with our lives.
Whatever. Truth is, is that I don't remember my family let alone the day that they dumped me in here. I wish I could remember them; I really do, even if it's just to hate them it would be nice to have faces to my anger.
There's a girl who comes in everyday, or at least I think that it's everyday, and she tells me that she's my daughter, or rather that I'm her father. She'll say things like, "How are we feeling today, Dad?" Or, "Any good stories today, Daddy?" She has a pretty voice and I face that I recognize but not as belonging to her. She has brown hair and blue eyes and a sweet heart but I do not remember her, and I think she knows because sometimes I hear her crying when I pretend to take a nap.
Did she leave me here? Who is she? I don't know.
Sometime the nurses come in and take me to the showers. They sit me on a plastic stool and pour water over me as they wash my body with a sponge. The whole event is soft, slow and humiliating. Sometimes though it does feel good, not so much the riddance of bodily scum but just to be touched by someone. Not even the girl who calls me 'Dad' touches me. Sometimes I think I just scare her.
They tell me things like, "Mr. Leonhart, it's time for dinner." There are even occasions when I get excited because it's a promise for something that I think that I remember liking. Like chicken and dumplings or steak but when I reach the table it's only a vague beige globule of stuff that I'm expected to eat. I rarely do eat though and the nurses are beginning to notice and threaten things like being force-fed or that they'll feed me through a tube. I want to tell me that it's not the food itself it's just that I don't want the few memories that I do have to be replaced with what they serve. It's not their fault though; they're just doing their job.
Sometimes when I wake up I get the feeling that there's another person beside me, sleeping. Sometimes I even get to see her face that resembles that of the girl who calls me, 'Daddy' and cries when I pretend to nap. I feel like I should know this person who isn't beside me but I can't. I just can't.
I saw myself in the mirror today. For the first time since, since I don't know. I looked old. My skin is all leathery and my hair is thin, gray and falls from my scalp like dandelion seeds. I did notice though that I have blue eyes. Blue eyes, just like that sad girl who visits me everyday, I think.
I don't know who put me in here, and I don't know exactly why. I can't even remember who I was or what I did before I came here, but I do know that whoever this girl is who visits me and cries, I don't think that she put me in here. I don't, I really don't and I hope that I am right.
Death is an inevitability, I am not afraid to die. I am afraid that I'll forget these things that I've written. I'm afraid that the Guardian Forces have taken over my mind, and I don't even know what a Guardian Force is let alone why it would take over my mind. I think about dying and I wonder if I would be happier if I were to just never wake up. I think that and I begin to remember the girl who visits me everyday and calls me 'Daddy' but wont touch me. Somehow she makes it all worth the trouble of living.
I am tired, and it is late. So I will sleep and pray that I will not forget even though I know that I will.