Thanks
The tear in my side cannot be
mended. If left open germs could fester
and infect not just me but the patients who sleep on me. I could hear the on
the phone. I am not just cleaning it and
putting a sheet on it. What if it was your family member? There are more mattresses in the closet.
So now I’m waiting for the porter to take me
to the dreaded compactor room and my destruction. I will be replaced. Maybe he will get one of my friends or family
members from the closet. I wonder if
they will know of my demise. My comrades. We held each other up in that dark closet,
leaning against one another awaiting our fate.
We were not the elite mattresses. We are simple folks, stuffed plastic sewn on
the sides to keep or insides in. No the elite serve to comfort patients in
intensive care. Sometimes their stints
lasted months, sometimes a day. Briefly they
would be deflated of air, bathed and replaced to their home. Discarded rarely. No, we are the plow horses of the
mattresses. We are providing comfort to
new mothers, sick children, and the terminally ill.
The maid has removed the sheets and
now I am naked. I feel her lift the
pillow and heard her toss it in the garbage.
I can hear the motor of the bed and feel my legs and head being lifted
in to the air. Squeezed together I form
a v shape while she washes under me. The
drawers of the nightstand are opened and soap, toothbrush and any remnants of a
patient are discarded, making room for the next one. Depending on the maid the TV
is either turned off or turned in to Univision and Sebastian, foretelling the
future for Gemini’s. Once I heard two
maids discussing the novella. One was
giggling when music played. She asked
her friend,
Bravo, who is she?
She is a very bad person, killed a
lot of people, but she’s ok now.
The broom swishes and then I feel
the cold wet rag on me. My top and sides
are scrubbed. She leaves me to dry while
I hear the broom. After I am dry, she tucks in clean sheets and tops the bed
with a pillow of dreams. Then the baths
the blue rag bathes me head to toe, and along my sides. Refreshed I hear the click of the light as
she turns it off.
Day one: I would
feel the weight of him lighten. Like a
king on his throne he would sit in the chair, the head looming over him, a
blanket to his chin. His cane rested
like a specter on his armrest. I could
hear him greet the maid with “Buenos Dias.” And her response in English good morning, he
giggled and I heard her replace the bag in the garbage.
Day two: he has not moved. His tears rained on me in the dark. He shifts and whispers, as the nurse adjust
his IV. Tiene hambre, tiene hambre he mutters.
Day three: the weight is lifted. The sheets have been removed, and I wait for
my bath. This is the ying and yang of a Brooklyn hospital.
Don’t feel sorry for me, I have
been witness to joy and sorrow. Before my
stint on the cancer ward I was comfort to the new mothers who nursed and
cuddled their infants. Siblings crawled
in beside to adore and wonder at the new member of their family. Spouses and cousins, in-laws and friends, ate
feasts of pernil and rice. After three days I would be bathed and clothed and
another woman would climb in and begin snoring soundly.
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