Fiction

To my dismay, I found I had high blood pressure shortly after I retired as an elementary school principal at the age of sixty-three.

A sharp pitch pulled me from my sleep. I sat erect and turned to the small crib nestled beneath the window beside me.

Grace noticed the girl’s fingers first, stubby with chewed nails that looked sore.

I often wonder about what happened to old friends or acquaintances. What was their story?

I am eating almonds. These days, I can’t seem to get enough of them. Something about the bland crunch of them pulls me in. Biting into an almond is like snapping a twig. It is firm until it is not anymore, solid and then suddenly broken.

Coach said “no excuses.” And what was he going to say anyway when no one wants to hear the word “cancer”?

Ikenna stared longingly at his wife. It has been what now? Eight months. Not even a touch. He kicked his feet aimlessly in a failed attempt to release the tension welling between his legs.

Darrell leaves on a late spring bicycle vacation in Hawaii. Maddie angrily, reluctantly, stays behind.

“Spare me some change, would you?” a homeless lady calls from the street corner. Her thick Southern accent shows me that she has come a long way from home.

It was almost time to go home after a busy clinic day seeing patients with a wide variety of heart diseases. I looked at my schedule – there was one more patient, a woman.

It was the first day of clinical in my Bachelor of Science in Nursing program. Time to actually bring real patients into the picture! We were visiting a local nursing home to work on our communication skills. Each student was assigned a nursing home resident. We were to spend the day with the patient, interacting, laughing, and assisting them with their daily activities. This was a time for making memories!

Before COVID-19, I had a daily routine: Leave for the hospital at 7:00 AM, return home at 9:00 PM or later. Days were filled with treating cancer patients, writing academic papers and proposing projects. Evenings were filled with meetings, potlucks, restaurants, and workouts at the gym.

His daughter had insisted he get a room with a view. The manager had promised her to find her father the best views of the whole complex.

He wanted to be scooped up in the ocean wave of new discoveries and to ride the wave for as long as he could. Anything, anything to have a chance.