Don't Lose Your Head

Now he was silent.

My only friend in this cold world was silent. My friend who had betrayed me ... was silent. I wept and spit bloody drool from my lips as I stumbled down what was, at last, a familiar alley. I knew there was a shelter at its end. The very same warehouse I had called home for years before I found him. He with whom I had spent so many years, that had been my best friend ever in this whole wretched life. He that had been like a father to me at times, like a brother at others. Alphonse ...

"PING, CRACK!"

The cold, wet asphalt rushed up to smack my face and I saw a bright red pool instantly forming below my eye. It was speckled with white chips that glittered like stars. Only stars should be fading in the approaching dawn, and these were growing brighter. I felt hands on me then, but could not move. I was turned, pushed, nudged, and shoved. Every pocket I had was rifled by seeking hands.

"Nothing," said a young voice.

~ I told you to let him pass by. That he looked broke, more homeless than even you are, my Tomas. ~

As my vision faded to darkness, in denial of the coming dawn, I watched myself, still young and foolish, lips having never tasted a woman's stolen passion, walk away.

There was no pain; I was too broken and numb for there to be pain, only an eternal falling into black that swallowed me whole.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** *** ** **

Hard heeled shoes on old, worn, floor tiles sent sharp echoes before a tired Cathy as she walked back to the nurse's desk. She slid the medical chart into the rack next to the many others she had already done and smiled at her supervisor.

"Any changes?" The head nurse asked.

"None." Cathy looked around to make sure no one was close to her, or the desk, and then leaned forwards. "Glenda ... did you see the note Dr. Avetante put on Tomas's chart? He can't be serious, can he? That poor boy's not had a rational thought in the three years he's been here and Alphonse wants to up the Lithium to 2600mg! Glenda that, just not right."

The head nurse sighed. "It's only for a few weeks. He wants to see if he can break through the delusions to allow Tomas to respond. If he can, then Dr. Aventante will lower it back down, in stages, till he has the right dosage level." Glenda pulled the young man's chart and turned pages till she found what she was looking for. "Here, this is why."

Cathy looked over the red-flagged report, cringing as she read the description of the night orderly. "He pulled his own canine teeth out? With his fingers?"

Glenda nodded sadly.

"Still ... that much lithium is dangerous," the younger nurse insisted. "His thyroid will burn out in no time at those dosage levels. Then his kidneys will shut down."

"We're monitoring it. He's being given fluids..." Glenda tapped the chart to show that her junior should have noticed that. "... often enough, to help stave off the worse effect till we can see if he's going to respond." She sat back and looked up at the other day nurse. "It breaks my heart to do it, but nothing is working. The boy's madness is growing worse by the week. He thinks I'm his step-mother for heaven's sake."

"I know. I gather from his mumblings I'm some sort of sex toy for him." Cathy shook her head. "It's sad; every time I go near him he's sporting an erection before I can leave the room."

Glenda nodded. "Several of the others nurses have reported the same thing to me. Mary, Tina and he apparently tried to bite Latoya's breast the other day." She shrugged and closed the chart. "Dr. Avetante knows what's best for Tomas, I think. He's been the boy's doctor for years now."

Cathy nodded, and then sighed in her frustration and picked up the next chart in the row. Opening it she read over the previous night's reports. "I just get angry is all; he deserves better. I still can't believe his family never visits. It's like they just left their son here to die." She shook her head in disgust. "So ... Melody is still trying to talk the male orderlies into bringing her a chicken."

Glenda had gone back to her filling in her reports and didn't bother to even look up at the younger nurse's question. "Yes, she is, as noted. She asked five times last night for one. The poor thing still thinks she's Marie Laveau reincarnated."

Tucking the wooden clipboard under her arm, Cathy started to go check on the girl then stopped and looked back at her supervisor. "Maybe someone could go by a KFC on their way in to work and pick her up a bucket."

Her hands not even pausing in their typing, Glenda shook her head. "Not funny, Miss DeVito. Not even close to being funny."

"Sorry. Just trying to make the long hours less drudgery. It's Halloween after all." With her hard heels clicking on the floors again, Cathy went off to check on the young "voodoo priestess" in room 244. She didn't see the smile when it appeared on Glenda's face.

A smile that faded as the older woman made the amendment to Tomas's permanent records. She included the concerns from the young day nurse at the Lithium dosage levels and added her own concern to the note as well.

"Poor boy."

[October 31st: No discernible changes in patient in room 113.]

**

There was a spreading pool of blood on the street, with the overhead halogen lights making bits of cranial bone shine like cold white stars. But that is not the beginning of my story. It's the end.