Page 71 - Vol. VI #1

er’s anti-anxiety drugs. Sheila had been stealing Xanax a few pills at a time from Mrs. Harper, like she did from all of her patients, on a weekly basis. What she wanted to do tonight was knock the old lady out with fifty milligrams of morphine and then kick back with Randall and enjoy her goody bag along with a few of Mrs. Harper’s stash. Oth- erwise, once Randall left for his family dinner, the night would be endless television watching and boredom, time ticking so slowly by that she could see the minutes floating in the air, going nowhere.
“It’s time for your medicine, Mrs. Harper,” she sang out from the kitchen.
“Sheila didn’t mind the physi-
cal manifesta ons of death, because she felt an almost magne c at- trac on to the dying.”
“Tell her – no.”
Randall met her in the hallway, out of the old woman’s sight but not her hearing.
“Hey, baby,” he whispered. He ran his hands up and down her sides.
“Not yet.”
She tried to move past him with the morphine and plastic syringe in her hands, but he held her in place, grinning. He slipped his left hand into the back of the elastic waist of her scrub pants and pressed his fingers into the top of her ass. She leaned in and licked his nose.
“Randall – the thing, the thing. Tree. The thing.”
They rolled their eyes in unison at one another. Randall shouted over his shoulder that it was already dark outside.
“Not dark,” Mrs. Harper said. She sounded mad now, and Sheila thought she could hear spittle fly- ing out of her mouth. “I can see...”
“Don’t start shouting, Ma,” Randall said. He patted Sheila on the butt and turned back to his mother. She followed him to the hospital bed, morphine in hand. Mrs. Harper pointed toward the backyard with a crooked finger. Her eyes were trained on Randall’s.
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