Analogues

So much for shifts. That was our plan, like we were on a stakeout or something. But my wife, because she is my wife, is home sick in bed. She’s supposed to be here tonight. Last night was my turn and here I was. Right here. Same as now. I never even lost my couch. My father did not have a couch when he was doing this with my mother because he was bedside. I am officially waiting to visit. I never asked my father what his time was like because he would have just stared at me, and I think you can practically choke on those kinds of looks. And I don’t go asking a lot besides.

I have not and won’t call to ask my wife just how sick she thinks she is. I cannot use the laugh. Hardly anyone says anything here except if they whisper. Some people try and sleep the whole time. I watch the television. You can watch one show turn into another and sometimes you don’t even know they’re different. I like the commercials when there’s a bunch in a row, and you look at the clock on the wall and see that the next show is about to start. It only took a day or two to memorize all the magazines. I can almost get sick off of them by now. They don’t have any medical ones. Which you think would be relevant. Then again, there’s some coloring books on the table with everything else even though hardly any kids come in here. I’ve only seen the two that were here yesterday. They sat at the table by the vending machine and didn’t say a word, just colored. I do not know why I was watching. Like their parents couldn’t have left them at home like the rest of them. Kids scribbling their cards and writing Get Well like that’s all anyone has to do and Grandmama or some younger tragic case is going to get better. Just dry your eyes, love. Stroke it, children. I could never think like that. The rooms in here must be covered with little hopscotch drawings and smiley faces. Our kids are in school. Thank God for that. We just aborted one of them. Right here in this same place. It was down a floor though. One of the pamphlets they had downstairs at the nurses’ station was nice enough to tell me that there is love even in loss. And to think I was wasting my time doing crossword puzzles.

I’ve read every magazine here dog-eared, and I won’t watch the news. It’s on at least six times a day. Come and get it. Another helping of news that never changes. It just gets rebroadcast. You should have heard that doctor though. “She’s going to be extra emotional,” he said. “For I don’t rightly know how long,” he said. That rightly. Like he had just come out of someone’s barn. When he said what he did I swear I thought he was talking about one of those vacuum cleaners you use for your pool, only smaller. Sucked it right out. She said she could really feel the pull, all deep up in there. So maybe I’d be home sick in bed too. But why wonder. They shut the television down late at night, and there is not much to see. I do not want to look at the woman who says she’s been here since Wednesday because when I look at the woman from Wednesday all I hear is her voice saying the same thing she always says. She says she’s here to be with her husband. I don’t know how she thinks she’s with him sitting out here. She didn’t ask about me so I didn’t tell her about my wife’s mother and of course not about my wife. But she did say I was a dear because I got her some bottled water out of the vending machine. She...