i've been watching a minister die in slow motion all week long. he hates my fucking guts. always has, atleast since i first showed up in his room to answer a call light. "misery lightning-rod" being but one of the many nicknames carefully concealed in my job description, i change his diaper anyway. even assholes deserve to be clean, right? and even when the man was coherent enough to buzz me demanding painpills every four hours, he'd still hiss on cue like an irritated nocturnal terrarium reptile each time i unexpectedly hit the lightswitch and entered his confined lair. lather, rinse, repeat. call, answer, deathglare, as per routine..atleast, until this last stroke robbed him of his ability to form words. it hasn't helped that the resulting fall we found him in took away what little was left of his mobility. so..now? i get to wake him every two hours to fight a doomed repositioning battle against pressure ulcers and bruises. it is excruciating for all parties involved. i have been promoted from certified nursing assisant to a massuese-who-only-inflicts-torturous-level-of-pain. even with his language reduced to unintelligible moaning morphine froth, the eyes still zero in and follow my every move, accusing, burning and hating without language accompaniment. tonight, however, after reaching out and feeling what has become a familiar cold sprouting upward from his feet, i locked eyes with him and saw for the first time that they had begun to actually shift color. no longer a dark stern brown, a faded, weary, blue-ish gray storm had worked it's way into the cornea. i blinked. he was starting to stare through me, and i, in turn, was reminded of a blind newborn kitten? in this case, i suppose, a reversal of life stages with the same optical symptom in between, all at once forgivable and kind of adorable?