A tortured Past, a short story by michelle25. Date added: 2012-07-21. Times viewed: 286.
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- Intro: Warning! Some dark adult content and strong language....Nate was left in a nursing home by his family and forgotten. His loneliness drives him to develop a friendship with new "inmate", Joe, who is tortured by a terrible past.
- Most residents of Ridgestone Nursing home followed their family right in the front door on the day they were dumped here. They wouldn’t dare complain to the offspring who had brought them, in case they might show some fuckin’ remorse and take them home. After all, it was pretty expensive to chuck us in here. I was just like the rest of them on my first day. My daughter Tammy and her brain-dead boyfriend Dwight led me in here when I was just shy of fifty-nine. I was a hell of a lot younger than the usual residents, but was having trouble copin’ with an old gunshot wound in my thigh and accordin’ to the grand old state of mother-fucking Texas, that rendered me too damn useless to live by myself. I was an educated man and an ex-officer of the United States Army. I killed more than my fair share of our nation’s enemies and I still managed to do more with a crippled hip than most of the lazy bastards I’d met in my life. All that meant jack shit to the courts though. They don’t listen to ya once that the word invalid is printed next to your name and it was ruled that I needed to be put somewhere where they could keep an eye on me. I followed my daughter in here like I was the old family dog, being led out back to be shot in the head, once he got so damn diseased they just couldn’t cope with him any more. I waited in the florescent lit reception lobby whilst Tammy signed my life away and handed my worn out old case to one of the nurses. “This way Mr. Jackson!” the nurse bellowed. She led us through a long corridor of puke-green walls and piss-soaked hallways into a miserable room the size of a closet. It was cold and almost bare with only one lumpy, single bed and a cheap wooden chair inside,
“There you are Mr. Jackson. I‘ll leave y’all to settle in” said the nurse as she made her escape,
“Oh , It‘s so cramped Dwight! WHAT DO YOU THINK DAD?” Tammy roared,
“I may be old darlin’ but I am not deaf!”
“Sorry dad. It’s a bit small for the price of it though, don’t ya think?”
“Well that’s the cost of living with a boyfriend who doesn’t want me in your life.”
“Now dad, we just don’t have any room for you right now,” Dwight piped in, “Besides I’d call this room pretty damn cosy if you ask me”
“Don’t call me dad, boy, and no-one asked you a fuckin’ thing.”
“Tammy! Let’s go” He nervously climbed out of the feeble chair and headed towards the door.
Tammy ran her finger along the grimy window frame, paused, and followed him out of the room. I silently pleaded with her to change her mind and tell me I didn’t have to stay. She always said once I was past it I’d always have a home with her.
“Goodbye dad. I’ll come up next week to see you sure.” My daughter blew me a kiss as she left. It was ten years before I’d see her again. She had left me to rot like everyone else in here and just like them I let myself be led in here and quietly accepted that my life was over.
Joe Kiebler was a different story. The day he arrived at the home, he made as much fuss as the day they slapped him and handed him back to his mother. I noticed the uproar when four nurses rushed past me in a crazed rush. Anything more than a dazed stroll was alien to them so I knew something out of the ordinary was taking place. I shuffled along the hallway as fast as my aging frame could carry me, and watched through the small lobby windows as Joe screamed and cursed the whole way up the yard. His straggled, white mane flew fiercely as he threw his arms at any nurse who came near him. The nurses grew in numbers as they struggled to drag him up the overgrown, gravel path and when they were helped by Gareth, a young orderly fresh on the job, all he got was a slap in the mouth for his trouble. When they finally got him calmed down in the lobby I stood at a safe distance and watched them sign his life away. There was very little left in my life and awful as it was to watch Joe being dragged in here I was glad to see something different in a place that thrived on routine. It struck me that Joe had no family with him to apologize for the fuss he created and it seemed that, unlike me, loneliness had been a habit of Joe’s long before he came here.
He kept to himself during his first few weeks, only venturing out of his room to stock up on the canteen’s pureed dinners and toilet paper, the latter being necessary after the god-awful former. He was far from sociable and quickly gained the reputation of a hostile old grump amongst the nurses. But to me, he was one of the few residents not suffering from dementia, and in a nursing home a resident without dementia was the jackpot for a lonely old fool like me. Maybe, the loneliness drove me to want to learn more about him but I needed to find out and I knew exactly where to go.
Being in the home as long as I had you got to know the way things worked. One; you avoided breakfast every Saturday when Todd, the work experience kid, was serving because of his below average hygiene levels and two; the part-time laundry assistant, Daisy, loved a gossip and was the purveyor of information on everyone here.
“You’ve been hiding away for a while Miss Daisy. Been on holiday?”
“Why yes, Mr. Jackson! I’ve been away nearly two weeks in the beautiful Sunshine state” she said proudly as she showed off the scaly, flaking skin on her arms,
“Um…very nice. Looks a damn sight better my pasty old skin” I lied,
“What are you looking for Mr. Jackson? I know you’re not here to compare skin tones with me so you might as well be out with it.” I never could lie very well and so instead of standing awkwardly listening to the laboured whirring of the dryer, I admitted my real reason for talking to her,
“It’s the new man…Joe” I confessed, “What’s the deal with him anyway?”
“Well, Mr. Jackson, I’m sure you heard about the mess he created the day he came here”
“Yeah, saw it with my own eyes, go on”
“Well, apparently he was brought here alone. No family”
“I noticed that too. Do you know why?”
“I have no idea, Mr Jackson, I don’t read minds for a livin’. All I know is one of the nurses told me that he had a little tin box with him on the day he arrived. Damn near took her hand off when she tried to look inside.”
“That’s all ya have? Well, What was that all about?”
“You can work it out on your own time, Mr. Jackson, unless you want to do this laundry for me.” She carried on ironing a faded white vest with a familiar brown stain on it and made it clear that she was done talking with me. I left her and the musty stench of the laundry room behind and began to chew over the mystery of the latest resident.
Joe eventually emerged from his room after a few weeks, early on a Saturday morning. He gazed out at the sun-drenched yard through the large, timber framed window in the breakfast hall before sittin’ at one of the seven large dining tables for breakfast. Unfortunately for him, Todd was serving and he looked even greasier than normal. I knew I needed to warn Joe before he ended up back in his room for another few weeks.
“You’d be wise not to eat outta here today!” I warned
“You mean the walking garbage can over there. Yeah I noticed him.” We shared a laugh at the germ-infested grease-ball behind the counter and the poor dementia-ridden residents, who couldn’t remember how sick they were the last time.
“I can get you a decent breakfast if you don‘t mind waitin”,
“I’ll wait” he said “But is there anywhere quieter?” I nodded in the direction of the common room and we both started towards it, leaving behind the garbled moans of the others. He only looked a few years older than me but walked with a lot more stability. He wasn’t burdened with bullet fragments in his hip, which I felt with every step.
“Now we just hide out here till that human skunk leaves” I whispered, “I make the nurses bring me a late breakfast every Saturday. They can always make one for you too”
“Thanks, I would’ve starved rather than eat any food that kid touched” he laughed. Before our conversation continued, I introduced myself,
“I’m Nate, Nate Jackson”
“Nate.” He shook my hand, “I’m Joe, I’m the newbie in this shit-hole”
“You made a hell of a fuss when you came in” I laughed,
“I’m usually not that bad” he assured me, “That was just a really fuckin’ bad day”
“I know exactly what you mean” I replied. If I’d had Joe’s courage I would’ve created the exact same fuss when Tammy brought me here. The very thing that made everyone else in the home hate him was the very reason I admired him. Joe and I sat in the shabby, smoke-filled common room and talked for over half an hour until the nurses burst in through the large, oak doors with the other residents following dutifully behind.
“Well, that’s breakfast time”
“Do you envy or pity those old bastards?” he asked as we watched some of the other, more advanced residents being wheeled in.
“I pity them of course” I answered confused, “My life feels worthless enough as it is. I’d never want lose all sense of who I am as well.”
He sat silent for a minute before finally responding, “I don’t know. I’m kinda jealous”. He leaned in towards me and spoke with a strange wisdom,
“Those poor bastards may have broken bodies and forgotten lives but they could have suffered the worst tragedies in the past. Horrors, which could have haunted them everyday. Now they’re able to sit here with a stupid grin on their face waitin’ for a fuckin’ nurse to bring them their Jello. Nothin’s ever gonna trouble those lucky bastards again.” He made sense. There were many events in my life I’d love to have erased from my mind. The Fall morning my beautiful wife drove off to the local Wal-Mart was the worst. She waved goodbye to me at the door and asked me what I wanted for dinner. I was too wrapped up in some stupid TV programme, I don’t even remember the name of now, and I never even took her on. While waiting in line at the checkout she collapsed. She never got up again. The doctors said it was Arteriovenous Malformation. To this day it still hurts that I have no idea what the hell it was that took her away from me. Another memory, which crushed me daily was when my sweet baby met that bastard of a boyfriend. She changed from my devoted little daddy’s girl into a woman I barely recognized. A woman who allowed that sack of shit to beat her whenever the fuck he liked and a woman who left me here and broke my heart. There were many memories I would gladly forget but there were so many good times as well. Memories I carried around from happy days, which comforted me on the nights when the loneliness got too much. I didn’t want to remember how she died but to forget my wife even existed was too awful to think of. I could put up with the bad memories if it meant holding onto the good. How bad must some of Joe’s memories have been if he was willing to give up every sense of himself just to forget them?
We ate our breakfast and decided to take a tour around the yard to walk it off. I wasn’t able to walk too far because of my thigh but it was nice to feel the Texan sun on my back again.
“Great to get away from those fuckin’ nurses. Ah, I miss the great outdoors. Out here all your worries just fade away. Don’t ya think, Nate?”
“I suppose they do in a way, but I don’t think this yard is quite the great outdoors” I laughed. He talked on as if he hadn’t heard me,
“These tulips are so fuckin’ pretty” he smiled, “A little work needed but they’re stunnin’. Remind me of my Cassie’s beautiful golden hair. I feel like I’m just sitting in my own backyard, takin’ in the breeze at the end of a long week. Puts me in the notion for a cold one” he laughed. He surprised me with his cheerful reflection. It was like talking to a completely different person from the crazed man who cursed his way in here only a few weeks before.
“I grew tulips back home”, he said, “Me and Cassie would pick some every year and put them in our bedroom. I even cut her some for her if we had ourselves a fight. They always made her forgive me” he smiled.
“You were married too?”
“Um, no. Cassie died before we could get hitched, but I still thought of her as my wife”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know”
“It’s okay Nate. I think when you get to our age, everyone’s lost somebody”
“True. I lost my wife eleven years ago” We shared a sympathetic smile at our shared suffering and decided to head on inside. As much as I hated routine, afternoon naps were a fuckin’ necessity once you got used to them.”
The next few months in the home were the most interestin’ I ever spent there. Joe and I became close friends and I found I had more in common with him each day. A friend at an old age is more than just someone you want to spend time with. He was a lifeline, savin’ me from the loneliness that eventually would have driven me insane. We’d meet up at breakfast and spend our days talking in the garden, smoking until out tar covered lungs couldn’t take anymore. After dinner, Joe usually went to his room alone to lie down. He stayed there until the evening’, when we would meet again in the common room. We had first choice of the television, being the only two who actually watched it. Every night we would watch an old classic without being interrupted. Daisy made the mistake of disturbing us once and after Joe told her to fuck right off, word spread around the home to leave us the hell alone. Joe said it like it was and I was the only person he seemed to like. One evening after watching Clark Gable walk out into that fog I looked over at Joe and there was a tear running down his cheek.
“Why was no-one with you when you came in here” I asked abruptly,
“What?”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything”
“No it’s okay Nate. You want to know. I don’t have any family.”
“No one? No kids?”
“No. Cassie was the only family I needed. It’s rare to get a woman who’s your lover and your best friend. When we were lyin’ under those covers together I never needed anyone else and neither did she”
“You must have really loved her”
“I did. When she was alive my life was perfect. I spent all my days thinking’ of her and even when I was workin’ she was the only thing on my mind. I couldn’t wait to get home and tell her how much I loved her by makin’ love to her all night. I had all the time in the world for her. Don’t have time for most people now. I just lost my faith in them when she died.”
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t want to talk about that if you don’t mind. Some things are better never thought about.”
“Sorry”
“A man could go fuckin’ crazy if he thought about some things.” Our conversation was over for the night. Much earlier than usual. We said goodnight and I hobbled out of the creaky oak door and back to my empty room for the night. I fumbled for the bedside light and as it flickered I laboured into my mildew covered pyjamas. When I was successful I carefully edged myself into bed and kissed the photo at the side of my bed. It was a picture of my wife Jessica holding our Tammy as a toddler. My wife was about twenty-nine and was stood in a body-hugging bathing suit that she’d picked out the week before the photo was taken. We had the best sex of our married life the night she brought that bathing suit home. Once she tried it on I couldn’t resist the way it pressed against her swollen breasts and I ambushed her right in our sitting room. In the photo, she was standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon. The three of us went there in a busted up Winnebago on our first holiday as a family. It was hell on earth at the time, but looking at the picture that night, I’d have given anything’ to be crowded into that shit-pile with the two of them again. I fell asleep gazing into the innocent eyes of my wife and daughter and resented the belligerent old bastard I’d become.
“I’ve been thinking about my daughter a lot” I admitted a few days later on the crooked bench at the back of the yard.
“What happened to her?”
“Nothin’. As far as I know. I haven’t seen her since she left me in here. I just wonder if she’s okay sometimes”
“Why don’t you find out?”
“Na, she obviously doesn’t want me around or I’d have spoken to her in the past ten years. She’s shacked up with a real scum-of-the-earth motherfucker. Wasn’t much of a choice for her I suppose, dad, the old bastard who can’t climb her stairs to shit by himself or a dumb-ass, welfare scroungin’ asshole. The asshole won and I can‘t say I blame her.”
“It’s up to you buddy. But if you don’t talk to her you’ll just end up regrettin’ it. I had a fight with Cassie the night she died, I regretted it ever since. I only ever wanted her to know I loved her”
“How did she die, Joe?”
“She was never meant to go.” he started to cry “I loved her and she was supposed to love me back. She fuckin did too…until he came along.”
“Who?”
“The bastard who came to take her from me. He was going to make her leave me and she wanted to go with him” He turned away as he sobbed.
“What happened that night Joe?”
“Me and him, we got into a fight. We were scuffling on the ground and I pulled my gun. Cassie was screaming. We both grappled for control of the gun. It just went off.”
“Oh Joe!”
“The worst part was the silence. All I heard were her screams and then nothing. She was just lying there not movin’. I knew she was dead.”
“Oh Joe I can’t imagine…”
“So maybe you should think of talkin’ to this daughter of yours. Before you lose your chance too.”
Joe wasn’t up to much talking that evening. I wasn‘t either being honest. I realized why my friend was so shut off, I’d be in a bad fuckin’ mood the rest of my life if I had lost my Jessica in such a violent way. She just slipped away from me, I wasn’t even there and I still couldn’t get over it. No wonder he wanted to forget everythin’. I skulked up to the nurse’s station and asked if they still had my daughters telephone number on file.
“Oh Mr. Jackson. You startled me there.” The plump nurse leaped from her seat and turned towards me,
“Do you have my daughter’s number on file?” I asked again
“I’ll just check here for you…let’s see…Ah yes!”
“You’ve got it?”
“Oh yes Mr. Jackson. Looks likes she’s updated this several times. She’s makin’ sure you can reach her anyway. You must be very close.”
“Um, no actually. Can I have the number please?” My daughter had been waiting for me to call her for ten years and I never even bothered to check. I felt like the worst father that ever walked. The need to phone her became more important than my need to breathe. I nervously dialled the number she left for me and anticipated the voice on the other end of the phone.
“Hello” a young voice answered,
“Hello Tammy?”
“MOM! Someone’s looking for you on the phone” Mom? I had a grand-daughter?
“Hello, Tammy speaking”
“Oh Tammy!” I couldn’t hold back the tears when I heard her voice,
“Dad? Is that you?”
“Yes darlin’, it’s me” I said between sobs,
“Oh dad!”
“I‘ve missed you so much darlin’” I cried, “I can’t believe I waited so long to ring you”
“I missed ya too dad. I’m so sorry I didn’t come visit” she sobbed “Dwight was never too happy with me going up there. I just wanted to keep the peace. Then it was just so long…I thought you’d hate me, I’ve been so stupid.”
“I could never hate you sweetheart, him, on the other hand”
“Oh dad, I left Dwight years ago. I’ve been with Billy for five years now. You’d like him dad. He’s real good to me” I felt a huge rush of relief that she had been happy for the last ten years.
“I’m so happy for ya Tammy. I’d really like to see you again darlin’ if you’d let me and if I could just meet my grand-daughter”
“Grand-daughters. Dad I have two little girls”
“I’m so proud of you”
“Oh dad. I promise we’ll come up to visit next week when the girls finish up with school. We can head away for a few days if you’d like. Take a road trip up old route 66 just like you and mom used to do only this time I wanna stay in the motels dad, that old camper was a nightmare.” I laughed.
“There’s nothing I’d love more Tammy. I really mean that. I’ll see y’all real soon”
“See you next week dad.” The line went dead and I continued to sit there with my ear pressed to the phone and a dumb smile on my furrowed face. That night I crawled into bed and had the soundest sleep I’d had in ten years.
The next morning I fought with the new shag carpeting in the hallway as I rushed to the breakfast hall to tell my new companion the news. I was finally going to see my daughter again. I couldn’t hide my grin as I sat at the breakfast table waiting to share my gratitude with Joe. The nurses were wary of my contented smug and checked to see if I had finally caught the Alzheimer‘s bug that seemed so rife in an old folk’s home. I waited for fifteen minutes before my contentment turned to worry. Joe was always punctual so something wasn’t right. I slowly manoeuvred myself out of my seat and staggered into the hallway. I struggled along the dingy hallway towards Joe’s room, holding the tarnished brass raining. As I approached Joe’s room door I was halted by Nurse Callahan. The dismal expression on her narrow face warned me of what I was dreading to hear,
“Mr. Jackson, I’m so sorry. We lost Mr Kiebler last night in his sleep. I’m sorry, I know the two of you were close.” Her words lingered in the air long after she spoke and when they eventually sunk in they thrust themselves into my chest. I left before the nurse could see me break down. Joe had suffered a massive heart attack during the night. A part of me felt like his heart just gave up after reliving how he lost Cassie, and I had made him relive it. Maybe he was finally ready to stop blaming himself and join her, I tried to convince myself, but thinking that way didn’t take away the bitterness I felt at losing him. He was the closest friend I’d had since my wife died and getting used to a routine without him again was gonna be brutal. I’d only known him for a few months but he’d been one of the closest friends I ever made and I would never forget what he had done for me and Tammy. I suffered through two lonely days in the home waitin’ for his funeral. I woke up that morning in a grave mood and struggled more than usual to make myself presentable. I was the only resident attending his funeral as I was the only one who knew what the hell was happenin’. The nurses were glad he was gone so none of them went outta their way to go. Nurse Callahan came with me to push the wheelchair they were making me use because I had dared to leave the nursing home grounds. I argued till I was short of breath but she was able for me. I sat defeated in the chair and went to pay my final respects to Joe. Seeing his coffin made the cruel reality of his death slap me in the face. He was gone. I waited optimistically for the other mourners to arrive but no-one ever did. The minister said a few words, all of which he could’ve wrote about any unlucky bastard who’s time was up and then they dumped him into a purpose-dug hole. It was all so artificial, the metal coffin, the Astroturf, even the tears on Callahan’s face as they lowered him into the ground. The only thing that was real about that day was how much I was going to miss my friend.
Joe’s death was forgotten about by the next week. Death is like that in a nursing home. A common visitor and no-one is really concerned when he comes to town. I heard the nurses laughing outside Joe’s old room. They were there to pack up everything he ever owned and dump whatever they didn’t steal into a storage room. I wasn’t gonna allow them to throw his stuff away like garbage so I walked up to the door and told them I would take care of his stuff. They were happy to have the burden removed and quickly dispersed across the lime green shag carpet. I had an hour before my daughter came to pick me up so I seized the keys off the one remaining nurse and stood outside Joe’s room door. Standing next to that rotten chipboard door, it struck me that I had never been in Joe’s room before. We always talked in the garden or the common room, sometimes even in my dusty old corner of the nursing home but I had never, in all my time with him, been inside his room. Now I stood outside with the key. I felt uneasy at the thought of invading his private space and pawing through his personal stuff but it wasn’t his room anymore. The stuff inside belonged to no-one. Joe was dead. The emptiness was the first thing that hit me. My room was full of pictures of my wife, my little girl and I couldn’t wait to fill it with pictures of my grand-daughters. In Joe’s room there was nothing. Apart from a cheap wooden chair with a prescription back support, a single bed with the original green, scratchy covers and a bin-bag full of clothes there was nothing. I sat on the chair for a minute and said goodbye to my friend. I levered myself out of the chair, reached for the bag of clothes and headed for the door. That’s when I noticed a tin box poking out from the corner of his pillow. I remembered Daisy’s words months before,
“Joe nearly took the nurses hand off when she tried to look inside.” I was captivated by this little aluminium box and wondered what Joe had treasured so much inside. I sat on the wooden chair again, this time nursing the box in my knee. I looked around as if Joe might walk in at any minute and slowly prised it open. Inside I saw a picture of a little girl, no more than ten standing beside a much younger looking Joe. His frizzy white mane was neat and black and he didn’t look much older than thirty-five. She had long golden curls that glistened in the sunshine. I thought Joe didn’t have any children? I looked at the writing on the back. Me and Cassie, ‘73. What? They were both stood in a garden of tulips, the garden Joe had described to me in his stories. The image of the little girl seared into my eyes and burrowed its way into the pit of my stomach. It made no sense. I’m sure he said they were lovers? I looked into the box again, this time with a sick feeling I couldn’t shake. Then I discovered the newspaper clippings. “Girl, 8, killed in police rescue”, “Man, 37, arrested”, “Defendant Joe Kiebler found guilty of kidnapping, abuse and murder of a minor.” I forced myself to read on. The word “lies” was scribbled over most of the articles, sometimes scribbled so hard there were huge gashes through the pages. Cassie was a child.
I couldn’t breathe as the images of that little girl being forced to fuck the man I called my friend rammed their way through my mind. I thought back on everything Joe had ever told me with sick realization and I started to grasp that the Cassie he claimed to love was a little girl, who’s life he destroyed in order to live out a twisted fantasy. A child he kidnapped, fondled, fucked and called his “lover”. A child he continued to obsess over long after her death. Joe had held her captive for years, raped her of her innocence night after night and cruelly cut her life short when police tried to rescue her. My memories of him became so stained that I couldn’t bear to be in his room any longer. My head spinning, I hobbled to the door with a bag of Joe’s things in one hand and the box in the other. The images in my mind wedged in my stomach making me retch violently. I puked vile, regurgitated omelette and watched it blend with the sickly coloured carpet. As more repulsive, bile shot out of my mouth a nurse noticed me and ran to my aid.
“Is it too much for you Mr. Jackson? Maybe you should let us handle Joe’s things for ya. It‘s hard to accept a friend’s death.” Friend? The word made me retch again. My breakfast continued to expel from my mouth and my weak legs buckled under the weight of my dreadful discovery. A cold sweat ran out of my pores and the nurse ran to get some help. She returned with an army of nurses, who lifted me up onto one of the chairs in the hallway. One of them went for Joe’s belongings,
“DON’T TOUCH THEM!” I yelled,
“I was just gonna put them in the storage room Mr. Jackson. You just take it easy”
“No! I got it” I clambered to my feet, “It’s okay I got it.” I swatted the nurses away. They were swarming around me like buzzards around a corpse. I picked up the bag and went to reached for the box. I paused. Seeing the box again made it real. I pictured that little girl, lying naked and breastless, her golden curls tangled and matted. She was crying, bleeding, soiled and shamed. Then I pictured Joe leering at her, enjoying her disgrace with his evil intentions. A beast who used his manhood devastate her. The sweat was pouring from my brow and I had begun to shake uncontrollably. I took a deep breath and seized the box in my wrinkled hand.
“Leave me alone, please, just for a moment and I’ll be okay” I begged. I limped away from the nurses to the privacy of the common room with quiet determination and walked on through to the canteen. I placed the box inside the bag of Joe’s less disturbing possessions and took it through to the kitchen. As I turned into the grimy kitchen I met Todd, the smell of him up close was much worse than I could ever have imagined,
“Um, Is that for the Garbage can sir?”
“Eh?”
“The bag sir, is it, like, garbage?” I realized he was talking about Joe’s belongings,
“…Yes” I said with a wicked smile on my face. Cassie wasn’t going to be his prisoner anymore. The box would be destroyed just like any memory of her tormentor. I watched as the last remnants of my “friend” met the same fate as their master. Thrown away like garbage and forgotten about, by everyone but me. I stiffly walked back to the hallway, the adrenalin finally setting as acid in my tired muscles. I grabbed my cane and went outside to greet my daughter. Everyone else would soon forget that Joe Kiebler ever existed and I would force myself to do the same. I finally understood Joe’s readiness to loose every sense of himself in order to forget his past, because I too wanted to forget his very existence. After all, “Some things are better never thought about. A man could go fuckin’ crazy if he thought about some things.”
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