Category Archives: autobiographical

It was the third time that evening that he soiled himself, and the nursing assistant scolded him. “Why didn’t you press the call button, Randy?” she said with the voice of a kindergarten teacher.

“I tried,” he said. It wasn’t Randy’s fault he soiled himself, and it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t reply well. He did not seem to be very quick mentally, and the tests and medications he was being put through and on surely didn’t help.

I lay in my bed on the other side of the curtain, praying I would never have to suffer the indignity he did.

“Hey, Eric,” the responsible voice in your head says, “You have the whole day ahead of you. Why not write a story first thing, so it’s out of the way.”

“Nah,” you say, “I still got time.”

A little later the voice says, “It’s your lunch break, but you could squeeze in a story. They’re only 101 words long.”

“I’d rather eat,” you say, “and watch clips of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Hulu.”

Several days later the voice says, “Are you ever going to actually post a story?”

“You can’t rush genius, voice-in-my-head!” you say refreshing Twitter yet again.

“How are you doing today?” she asked after taking my order

“I’m fine,” I said, “How are you?”

“I’m okay, or I will be okay,” the Starbucks barista sighed, “Want to try a sample?” She handed me a chocolate chip cookie piece.

“Sure.”

“It’s good, isn’t it? Just like homemade. They make me happy—made me happy,” her eyes looked off to nowhere.

“They don’t make you happy anymore?” I asked.

“I haven’t had one in a long time,” she sighed again, “Venti Americano with cream.”

I take my order, “Why don’t you refind your happiness in a chocolate chip cookie?”

“You’re getting old,” they say, “It’s only downhill from here.”

Such words of comfort! Please speak more of them to me, gentle folk.

I understand Catch-22 now, all the nonconsecutive skipping through time.

Perhaps it is karma. I taunted my father with the typical gag gifts one gets on a fiftieth birthday. Now the universe has decided to “even the score.”

The doctor shrugs, “Don’t know what it is. I know what it’s not, but not what it is.”

He prescribes me a tiny pill. Thank goodness for four dollar prescriptions at Wal-Mart. They make me drowsy. They make me incoherent.

If ever there was want of home, I have it. It calls to me over the miles upon miles of ocean waves. It beckons me with sweet siren song, driving me mad. I consider for a moment swimming home, but my brain pipes in, “Wait to fly. It’s much faster.”

Though it’s only briefly been my home, it is home still to me. Home sweet home, as the saying goes. And home I want to be.

Farewell, sunny Africa. You’ve been good to me. Now I’m off to where the buffalo roam, and the wheat fields stretch out like a sea.

“It’s Thursday, Pieter. Where are your sheets?” Sylvia says.

“I wasn’t aware that Thursday was sheet-day,” PJ mumbles.

“I want those sheets now.”

“Yeah, yeah,” PJ sits at the lunch table and mutters, “I’ve been home for three months and it’s never been sheets on Thursday.”

“Thursday is derived from ‘Thor’s Day,’” I quip, “Thor being the Norse god of thunder . . . and bed sheets.”

PJ smiles, “How silly of me to forget.”

“Where are those sheets?” Sylvia calls from several rooms away.

“You better get those bed sheets,” Alan says, “or you will have to deal with the god of thunder.”

“Eric, you are such a great guy,” she says.

“Do you really mean it?” I ask.

“Not anymore!” she yells. “Why are you always like this? Why can’t you just be confident enough to accept what I tell you?”

“My previous experiences with women have taught me that even though they say I’m a great guy, they dump me at the first moment of weakness,” I try to explain.

“Just shut up!” she turns and walks away.

I learn to live without her approval, regain my confidence, and meet someone else.

Return to the beginning of the story and repeat. Forever.