Our Lady Of

They put rat poison in the porridge. It's a cull that only a few of us know about. I refuse to eat it. My friend Lavender Bill ate just enough. Now his skin is a kind of dandelion yellow. One of the nurses, the nice one, says it wouldn't do his heart any harm. It's just Warfarin, only more concentrated.

My children put me in here, and it's not bad, They hold seances every Monday, although few people come. My children sold my house to buy themselves a new car. They're in Australia now, spending the proceeds of my farmhouse kitchen, and antique walnut dining table.

I saw a ghost once. It was on a Monday, nowhere near the seance room. She waved at me, and pointed to nothing at all. I kept on playing cards afterwards. Neither of us were scared of each other. I don't think the dead are interested in communicating with anyone that wants to get hold of them.
The damp in my room seems to flourish in my presence. My joints feel like they are effervescing. Lavender Bill told me to complain. They'll move me if I complain. But the last person who complained was Aida, and she ended up being arrested, which, no one ever talks about.

There's a picture hanging in the main entrance, where all the families wait to see the relatives they've left. It looks holy. I asked where it was from, but nobody seems to know. They pass me around whenever there are unanswered questions.

I didn't make a fuss when they explained to me why they were selling my house. It was hollow anyway, and had a hundred years worth of trouble in the foundations.

Lavender Bill is going for his injections. I tell him to save a few pills they give him for later, and he smiles at me. He knows, like me, that they will make him take each and every one before bed. It's fun to think you know what will happen, that you have a connection, a secret with someone, no matter how strange or untrue it is.

The picture in the reception is being taken down for repair. It's black at the edges, because of all the candles that were burnt in front of it. The woman in the picture has a veil and is looking upwards towards something, I don't know what.

Someone has scraped their initials into it. The nice nurse thinks we're all worse than teenagers, but teenagers don't know that much of the world. By the time you get to this age it's all paying attention to things; to save them up for the next part, the next room.

My joints have started to ache. I haven't told anyone how much pain I'm in, perhaps because I know no one can do anything. I notice that Lavender Bill is called Lavender Bill because he tries to grow it in his room, and the nurses take pity on him. The conditions aren't right and they buy him it, rather than see him sat in his room, watering nothing. I notice he leaves out his honey cake on Tuesdays for me. I think we each share a soft spot for each other.

I have taken to my bed, because my fingers feel funny, and my eyes are streaming. The doctor has been called. I think of Aida in prison while I doze. I hear Lavender Bill's rusty laugh, as he shuffles from plant to plant.

After the doctor leaves I look down at my hands. My veins are the colour of Heliotrope. My wrists, small hollows that would easily house a baby mouse.

The back of my wrinkled old neck feels soft, like pigskin. I have told no-one, but I am losing my flesh, bit by bit. It is papery thin. It is my secret. I think that if I poke my hand into my thigh, it will go straight to the bone.

There is an old woman down the corridor who is covered in tiny, black marks. You have to get really close to see them. There is one inside her ear, which I can't stop looking at when I talk to her. It is only a dot, a rich, velvet patch of colour. Bill says she is a lightning strike survivor.

My son returned from his holiday. He comes to see me, sniffing upwards instead of speaking. We sit in two easy chairs by the window. It has started to snow. His manner is full of complaint. It loops around his fingers, remains in the gentle wave of russet hair at the back of his head; something left over from childhood.

I notice his neck is strained. He explains. He has to take me back with his children, and his wife. I can feel my tongue begin to go as he speaks. I say nothing, I can't. My taste buds ruined. My eyes sly, for once. He thinks it's the start of my brain seizing. It's not. The snow keeps falling. I laugh at it, as my son exits the room.
The painting is back. They've moved it into the hall outside my room. Lavender Bill points and jangles his index finger every time he sees it. The nurses don't know he is beginning to eat the lavender they supply.

They are shutting the home, and have sent some of the nurses away. A few gather in the hallway near the painting. One weeps for her job. Nothing matters at the moment. They all place their hands on her, like there is something inside making her cry, like they want her to be healed.

I don't have that many belongings to pack up, so it will be easy for me. Today someone comes around with a clipboard. It's the rat poison apparently.
Lavender Bill says the painting is a triptych. One of three. I wonder what the other ones look like. The black veil over the lady lengthens in the dark. I walk out to look at her face in the morning light. No one bothers me now.

I am one of the last people here. The nurses are waiting for relatives to come and get me. They don't tell me when, they just keep me talking. They are afraid I will die before I leave and there will be too much paperwork. Too many Ides to deal with in one month.

Bill visits. We don't discuss separating. He moans, about the plants being taken away before he has the chance to water them. He kisses me on the cheek, and walks away.
I haven't been wonderful throughout my life. I can't be what I once was; a girl dancing at her cousin's wedding, someone in lust with someone they shouldn't be, a useless mother. The nice nurse doesn't believe me when I tell her this. When she brings me a glass of bourbon, she smiles at me; that secret again. The one we don't have, but pretend we all share.

It doesn't worry me, all this. I find it easier to accept and forget the furtive feelings in my stomach. The mind rushing dizziness that stops me from walking to the bathroom on my own.

It finally happens the night before Lavender Bill is due to be taken away with his plants. I am lying in bed, and once it takes hold, progress is rapid. My earlobes started to turn a week ago, but nobody noticed because my long, white hair covered them up.

The bones that knit my scalp together have softened, like a baby's crown. My fingers no longer itch from the cold.
The ribcage, and the heart were the last to go. My legs had already gone, hidden underneath the woollen blanket laid upon me in my wheelchair.

I've seen a lot of people in my life, who would gladly go this way, who would disappear into nothing. My heart flutters, tenderized.

I've decided. I shall mix with the vapours and the votive prayers of this lady on the other side of the wall. The home will be saved, the moment I begin to fall from her eyes.