tonight at work a very confused old blind man asked if i had come through the hole in his wall and insisted in tears that he was ready to go back with me.

two women died at my job while i was working earlier this week. last night's casualty was a lady who has been losing her foot to necrocis & refusing care/ uselessly taking morphine for for it the whole time i've been there. i was appointed to "dress & make the body presentable" because as a gay man it is my duty to make str8 women look their best even if they don't have a pulse? was in the middle of turning her head when her jaw yawned open &all this air came out in a loud croaking hiss. apparently the dead can belch.

"am i going to her funeral? *sucks teeth* HELL. NO. i was her caregiver for years. i saw her almost every day. she knows i loved her cause i showed it. why would i want to see her damn family? they never even met me. " -coworker

the woman who now stares glassily through me waiting to die while i change her diaper everynight always has portland classical radio blaring. now that shes stopped talking, it's my constant company. all the quality baroque stuff gets played after midnight. obsessed with this instrument and composer.
 

everything in my life feels like a completely unreasonable endurance test right now and i am for once strangely ok with that.

(@work 1am, opening the door of withered old woman, who is lying in bed talking in the dark to the ceiling)
HER: who? oh cliff, it's you.
ME: yeah.
HER: how did you know i needed you?
ME: you disconnected your phone .(looking at bandaged head) are you ok?
HER: the people came out the wall & they were all around me. they were speaking a language i have never heard & then i was away.
ME: where were you?
HER: in their place. & i thought,say,i need to be rescued.

at work, a grumbling man i reposition 5 times a night finally died this morning. the woman who refers to her colostomy bag as her "baby" is npo & lying on her deathbed with her opera singer son chanting beside her in hebrew & clutching ram horns for dear life. the parapalegic zombie doll who thanked me for changing her diaper no longer speaks or smiles & just stares right through me. both women who call me by their son's names have bandaged headwounds & casts from falling. we are all waiting.

so everyone moved out and i never want roomates again because i now have the most amazing natural emptyroom acoustics in the world. listen: