Prelude

The man lay, dying, in front of Linda. His frail body rose and sunk as he slept, his snores catching apnea against the nasal cannula taped to his shriveled face. Linda pulled her scrubs back down over her full, sagging breasts and her swollen, flabby stomach. Albert Stewald wouldn’t die tonight. He wouldn’t die for the next few days. She smelled it. His brain fluid tickled her senses; a stale, dusty tartness, like old salt.

Linda looked behind herself towards the doorway. The hallway outside showed no sign of disturbance; just bland, white walls illuminated with the sick, yellow fluorescence overhead, where electric clicks and hums continuously droned. She knew that they wouldn’t be bothered. She was on duty, and no one walked the halls of the hospice ward at this time of night. Even still, Crocs© made the act of feeding all the more uneasy in the past decade.

She turned back, glancing at his vitals on the monitor. The break in the neon string blipped at a steady pace. The man’s family would be here to visit the next afternoon. She pulled his bottoms down halfway and removed his diaper and catheter, which slid out of his urethra easier than in the past week he had been charged in her care. She thought to herself how opportune it was to have been tasked with Mr. Albert. She scoffed to herself as she gently lifted one of his legs and delicately cleaned his backside with a handiwipe. It wasn’t as if the decision wasn’t a product of her mechanisms to begin with.

Two weeks before, as the head nurse was briskly giving her a tour of the St. Joseph’s Candler hospice ward in Savannah, GA, Linda prowled. While she noted the head nurse’s clipped gait, and strong clutch of her clipboard, her primal senses were in euphoria. She felt the folds of her neck moisten with sweat. Her breathing became louder; strained. Linda’s lips curled into a smile. She loved the smell of fresh food.

The head nurse giggled and stopped outside of one of the patient’s rooms. “I’m sorry; I don’t know if this is rude to ask, but what is your ethnicity?” She smiled sheepishly. “You have such an exotic look. It’s very interesting.” She sputtered. “It’s beautiful.” She giggled apologetically again.

Linda’s smile stretched even wider as she peeked inside. “Guess. What I look like, baby?”

The head nurse shook her head in surrender. “Ah, Mexican? Spanish?”

Linda nodded approvingly her way as she made her way towards the sleeping Albert Stewald.

“My daddy was Mexican and my momma was Spanish. Good guess,” she gaffled.

The head nurse giggled and shrugged her shoulders meekly. "I'm full-blooded Irish."

Linda rested her hand on the man’s shoulder.

“This one looks like he been through a lifetime a’ hurt.”

The head nurse nodded. “I can see that,” she replied thoughtfully. “Mr. Albert’s a Vietnam veteran. Awarded the purple heart and everything. It’s right here.” She walked forward towards Mr. Albert’s bedside table and pointed the pen in her hand to the Purple Heart resting at the corner nearest to him.

“Wow,” Linda exclaimed. “We in the company of a hero, huh?” she laughed. “My son hisself died in Iraq seven years ago. Lawd…” She took a deep inhale and trailed off.

The head nurse shook her head in sympathetically. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright, baby,” Linda shook her head dismissively and breathed in a heavy inhale. She stretched out a pained smile. You didn’t get meals like this on the regular, she thought to herself. If she wanted him, she’d have to sell this story. “I sold the house back in Washington. Too many memories. My family from Savannah originally. Nobody live here anymore, but I jus’ wanted to come back to something familiar, happier. Somewhere where I can get my stability back. Mm, my baby….” Her smile fell into bleakness. “It ain’t alright yet, but I’m gonna be,” she chuckled. She looked back down at Mr. Stewald.

“How long you think he got?” she asked solemnly.

The head nurse shook her head. “A couple weeks, I would say. His family comes in here about twice a week. They’ve made preparations earlier this month.”

Linda nodded confidently and patted Mr. Albert on the shoulder. “Lemme take care of this man.” She grabbed his shoulder and squeezed.

The head nurse paused and took an inhale; thinking.

Linda shook her head vigorously, “Don’t tell me you the type of place that does rotations, nuh-uh.” The head nurse shook her head even more vigorously and shot her hand up. “ - because I don’t allow that for anybody. These people need to know that somebody for them and they ain’t just a job until they -” Linda choked before she could finish and bowed her shaking head, holding a hand up as if it were too much for her to think about.

The head nurse jolted forward and firmly held Linda’s arm.

“I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that this man is under your care until his last breath.” She locked eyes with Linda, whose eyelids fluttered as if she was taken aback. “If you need it, it’s done. And I feel like he needs someone like you, too.”

After she had replaced Mr. Albert’s diaper and catheter, Linda bustled out of the room. Mr. Albert’s dirty diaper and old catheter were dipped in his bedpan. She wobbled out, groaning a little; her stomach was so full. Her tongue watered. The memories of the illicit murders of innocent women and children, as well as the vocal propaganda Mr. Albert spread about the “inferior little, rice people” during a time when he was stronger, hardened and trigger-happy, were going to sustain her for the next few days.

She decided that she was going to try and enjoy her stay in Savannah, GA.