novembre ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- penny says, ending one Karen stop looking at me, I�m not going to look back right now. She looks like a man with her hair so short. Why is she alone again? Why did she dump that last guy? She�s thirty-seven. She needs someone to take care of her. I messed up my knee when I was thirty-seven. All that worker�s comp. Is she ever going to have kids? Penny says we shouldn�t ask her. Penny wants grandkids but I only want them because Pen does. What do I want with more little aliens? Karen decides to get coffee. She said she�ll get me some. I imagine this place has really thin crap that tastes like dark hot water. I say decaf. Why do I need to get all jittered up? Caffeine is a drug. Did I have any caffeine pills? No, truckers take those. Oh this white-washed hospital and its stupid pastel paintings. This is purgatory. Waiting and more waiting. I�ll be here all night. What if this is the first night of many. I thought it would start in a few weeks. Inoperable. But she�s kick-started the process and for what? All she has is me and Karen. Why do the nurses wear those little smocks, anyway? Penny once told me it�s so they are hygienic and bacteria free for the patients. But once Penny made me pick up my vitamins on the way to the hardware store and I saw a nurse walking around the drugstore in her smock. I raced home in the Chevy to tell Pen. I wanted to prove that nurses don�t give a rat�s ass because they wear their smocks in public getting germs all over everywhere. People cough all over drugstores. Penny was sitting at the kitchen table writing Karen. I always loved her handwriting. Cursive but neat. Never understood how she could write in a straight line on blank paper. She looked up at me and said maybe the nurse was on her way home, maybe she was just wearing her scrubs home. 10:47 pm - 04.19.05 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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