The Runner

The Runner

The retirement home was quiet, except for an occasional elderly shuffle down the hall. It was ten a.m. and everyone had been fed and ushered into chairs by their beds and by the windows. Some had to be tied in because they could not sit up alone, but the policy was to have the beds made by eight and the patients sitting or standing. They looked like stiffened dolls arranged against their will. I could hear Mr. Hill cursing in the next room. In a moment, Edna, red faced and angry stalked in.

"You wanna do Hill," she asked. It was more of a demand than a question.

I nodded and hurried on over. He was still shouting, Go to hell, at top volume.

"Mr. Hill," I said, "Would you like to sit up?"

"Yes," he said, "I would like to be left alone, but since that is impossible, you may help me sit up."

I bent over the back of his chair, hooked my arms under his, and pulled. He pushed hard with his feet.

The other aides had a problem assisting him. He would flatten his entire body, so that he was halfway in the

floor. He was strong. Even the stroke had failed to render him helpless, but he would become that way instantly if he disliked the aide. Unfortunately, he disliked most of them, which is why I was sent in so often.

It was actually simple to assist him, but he was furiously independent and easily angered. I was constantly

trying to convince my co-workers to call him Mr. Hill, and to treat him with respect. His first name was Worley, and they continued to enrage him by calling him, Whirly Bird and Bad Boy.

His only way of retaliation lay in making himself impossible to move or arrange in a chair.

I had just finished making him comfortable when the alarm went off. It was the alarm I dreaded most. We had a runner. The male aides were dashing down the hall like quarterbacks. They were headed for the exit. It was against the law to bolt the exit doors, so, inevitably , patients would discover this, and make a run for it. I could not blame them. They all wanted to go home. They wanted their lives and families back.

Careers, cooking, kids, and purpose all lay beyond the steel doors. In the spring, many of the old men brooded on planting, and the old women had canning to do. Even the paint in this place was blue and cold looking. It was supposed to be a comforting color, but it came across as frozen and sterile.

When an alarm rang, we had to close the doors to the rooms, and take a watchful position. I hurried over to the window and saw three male aides running toward the highway. I could see Emily Elizabeth, moving with the amazing speed of the desperate, ahead of them. She was still fairly new. New enough to think she could make it to the main road and hitch a ride. She was seventy two years old and I was impressed with her fast clip of speed. She was looking back over her shoulder to gauge the distance of her pursuers when she stumbled on something and went down. I saw her try to rise to her feet again but the men held her down. It was also policy that once a patient fell, they were not allowed up until a medical evaluation had been performed. We called an ambulance and they arrived swiftly. Emily Elizabeth was pronounced ambulatory and the ambulance brought her back up to the home. They handed her over to me for clean up.

She was shaking with exhaustion and cold. Her gray hair still retained streaks of its former darkness. It was pulled back in a bun. It made her blue eyes appear even larger. Her skin was paper thin and pale. She had a delicate sort of beauty and an aura of gentle sadness. She looked at me with frantic appeal.

"I want to go home," she said, "If I could just call my son, he would come for me."

Of course her son had filled out the papers that kept her here. He had signed for her admittance on a Saturday morning. Later that day, his wife had brought her in. She had been told that the two of them were going shopping. Now she harbored a conviction that her daughter in law had committed her behind her son's back. She was certain that if she could contact him, he would come for her.

I washed her gently and put salve on her arm. I slipped a flannel gown over her head. Once she was clean and dressed warmly, I placed her in her chair, and pulled mine up beside of her.

"I want to go home," she repeated.

"I know," I said, "but I would miss you so much. I have some things I need your help with."

I pulled a blouse from a bag I had brought in with the salve. It was my emergency sewing, the stitches all crooked and looped too large. I placed the blouse on Emily Elizabeth's lap. She stared at it in amazement.

"Who did this work," she said, "it is terrible".

" I was trying to sew up a rip under the arm," I said.

She held the work up and shook her head. She tried to pull the bad stitches out with her hands. I handed her a pair of kindergarten scissors. She cut carefully and ripped out the bad seam of sewing.

"Who taught you to sew?" she asked in amazement.

"My mother," I said, "but I guess I wasn't listening."

She nodded in agreement and demanded her glasses be brought from the drawer beside of her bed. I offered to thread the needle, but she insisted on doing it herself. I went into the kitchen for cake and milk.

When I brought it back into the room, she was just finishing up.

"There", she said, "that should do it."

She handed me the blouse as I handed her the milk and cake. Since she was watching my reaction, I gasped in astonishment, and fell across the bed.

"It is a miracle", I said, "to have a blouse with two good sleeves. To no longer have one underarm shivering in the cold, while the other one sleeps warmly."

"Stop being foolish," she said, but she was smiling with amusement. Sometimes a smile is enough.

Reviews

[KAREN]

Wonderful work! I so enjoyed reading every word of this! You made the story come to life!!
100/100

[J. Marc]

This is quite a story: the subject is not so easy to get and retain attention, and yet with simple but carefully chosen words you have created a calm and yet interesting atmosphere where the reader sees the projection of his or her own feelings in the characters of the story, The ending, indeed, says it all.

[Ross]

I like your style of writing. You really handle the subject of aging nicely! Keep going....add me as a friend if you would

[Donald Meikle]

Beats your poetry to hell and I thought that was impossible!!

[W.k.kortas]

The Venable eye for detail on full display here. Fine narrative, highly visual.

[Fabian G. Franklin]

How wonderful and sad and moving this story was. I'm all too aware of the needs of the aged. It's just so sad that when folks get old their own kin would take them someplace that they do not want to go or be. I suppose sometimes it's the only way. My own mother loses touch with reality these days more and more; I just try to keep her comfortable. The ending shows great caring and concern.