The California Nursing Home

2

Most of the times, I think, you can choose what you're gonna do with whatever comes your way. But others, a choice is made for you without you ever even noticing. If you're an only child for instance, and both your parents are as well, then you'll have no cousins or siblings growing up. And if, say, you live in a somewhat isolated place, you might have no other kids around you at all. Being a playful, extroverted kid might never cross your mind if that's the case. It never crossed mine.

Looking back, I think this is mostly why I joined Sunday Soup. Every week, mom would drive me to town, where we'd get together with some locals and make soup for the homeless. People thought I was the most altruistic little girl in the world, sacrificing my Sunday afternoon. Helping the poor instead of riding my bike or playing with the other kids. But for me, Sunday Soup was a weekly blessing, a way to spend time with regular people that were not, you know, my parents. Yeah, they were all grown-ups, but that's what I was used to anyway. This got me into charity work for the rest of my life.

No good deed unpunished indeed.

I've already told you how my story starts. Charity work and a desire to improve my English conspired to put me in the worst situation of my life. A man I considered a friend was severely injured. The American police had contacted me. But most of all, my understanding of reality had been turned upside down. I know what I've seen, and it was not from this world.

For the days before my meeting with Kevin, the male nurse that had contacted me, I obsessed about that nursing home. I was reading everything there was to read about it, making contact with libraries in California and just googling my heart out. I needed to know: why there? People travel all over the world and never see anything like what I saw. There had to be a reason, something special about that place, but I could not find out what it was. The home was very well regarded by the families of past residents and local society as a whole. A part of the community. It was over forty years old as well. Before, the building was a small hospital for children, so most of the structure was reused. There are many commonalities between the needs of people at the start and at the end of their lives.

This is what I knew by the time I met Kevin on that website.

For some reason, my first impression was that he seemed like someone who had smoked a lot in his life, but not anymore. Somewhat tall, dark hair turning grey, mid-forties but with the skin of someone older. He was gentle enough, almost careful, except for a tendency to use a lot of words that his mother would probably not approve of. Maybe that's why Mr. Wiebe liked him.

It seemed to be a sunny day in California, but it was dark and cold where I was.

"Listen girl, I got to know Mr. Wiebe quite a bit in the last few years. There were no loose screws on that old fucker's, I mean, that old man's head. He was sharp as a harvest knife." He would speak slowly, always searching for the right way to express himself. It was clearly not an easy task. "But, there was something off around here lately. He and some other residents wouldn't talk to me about it, but I caught some talks here and there. They thought there was some fucked up thing going on. A... how do you call it? Unnatural."

He stared at me. I knew of Mr. Wiebe's fear of being labeled senile, so this was a delicate subject to handle. Kevin was an employee, one word to the wrong nurse and everything could go south very quickly. I nodded and said he might have mentioned something in passing that night. Kevin seemed relieved.

"Ok, I guess that's good. Thought I might be losing my head. Ok, so here's the thing: in five years working here I have never seen anyone fall to the ground on a straight, carpeted hallway. Especially healthy dude like that. And falling hard enough to get yourself into a motherfucking coma? No way. Unless he was like, really desperate. Perhaps even running away from something? You were the last person to talk to him, did he seemed, I don't know, agitated or something? Was there someone else in the room with you guys?"