Sunset Manor by Monte Davis
Ebner Mosby: one hundred twelve years old.
Dinner roll: ten days old.
Ebner used his fork to turn the roll over on his plate. There was blue mold on the bottom. This made Ebner angry. Why couldn't they check the bottoms? Weren't people supposed to eat the bottoms and the tops? Couldn't they t-mail up a crate of fresh rolls from Earth anytime of the day or night? Ebner dropped his fork into his creamed corn and picked up the moldy roll. Gripping it like a baseball in his bony hand, he scanned the dining room for a target. He had to act quickly while the purpose was in him, for he knew that ideas were fickle friends.
It wouldn't make sense to hit one of the other residents—they were victims just like he was. Finally, he saw a nurse, a thin, blurry woman named Lana. She was wearing her green Sunset Manor uniform. She would do.
Ebner lowered his brow in a futile attempt to sharpen his focus. He stroked the roll with his thumb and bumped his gums together, mumbling captive, inaudible curses behind his drawn lips. This would be for all of Sunset Manor's residents, and would avenge every bite of sorry pig slop that had been set before their dim eyes. Ebner raised the roll over his head while sucking air through his nose. His elbow popped. He held his breath. Lana was moving, moving. Still moving. Difficult to hit.
She stopped. Ebner's mouth sprang open to release the growl that had been clawing at his uvula like a phlegm-caked tonsil-demon. His arm arced forward, elbow rat-a-tat-tatting like a junior varsity band snare. He released his grip on the roll, but his timing was off. He let go too late and the roll flew horizontally into the face of the old woman seated across the table from him. She was only four feet away.
"Wha!” she cried, sprinkling her plate with specks of deviled ham. She raised a trembling hand to the red spot on her cheek where several bits of roll had sought refuge in the folds of wrinkled flesh. A few crumbs fell free as she rubbed; others sank further from view, swallowed by the jiggling, age-stained surf.
"Ebner!” said Lana, the nurse. She moved toward the table. As she drew nearer, she became less blurry but remained just as thin. “What was that about? Huh?"
Ebner looked up at the nurse but said nothing.
"Why'd you do that, Eb?” Lana asked, wiping Eva Polk's face with a napkin. “Why?"
Ebner smacked his lips and watched a tear fall from Eva's yellowed eye. He remembered being mad, but for the life of him he couldn't remember why. Had Eva done something to him?
"Why'd you do it, Eb?” Lana asked.
"Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “I ... I haven't the foggiest.” He would have offered a reason if he'd had one in mind.
"If I see anything like that again, you'll be eating in your room for days,” Lana said. “All by yourself. Do you understand what I'm saying, Eb?"
"Yes ma'am,” Ebner said. “Yes I do."
"Okay. Now, what do you say to Mrs. Polk?"
"I'm sorry."
"Okay,” Lana said. “Now finish your dinner and be good. I think I'd better check your med chart."
Lana walked away, watching Ebner from the corner of her eye. After a minute, Donald Roach, who was seated to Ebner's left, leaned over and chuckled and said, “That was utterly brilliant, boss. Brilliant! But, why'd you do it?"
Ebner turned and stared at his best friend's metallic stroke cap as though he were seeing it for the first time. He watched the blinking green LEDs on the silver hat, then met his friend's gaze and said, “I haven't the foggiest.” Roach's smile was as contagious as ever, so Ebner smiled back and then licked the creamed corn off the handle of his fork.
* * * *
Ebner took backward baby steps toward the waiting embrace of his favorite chair next to the Space Walk. When he could finally feel the chair's pressure on his calves, he gripped the crook of his cane with one hand and reached behind himself with the other. He patted the chair's arm, grabbed it, and then lowered himself to a seated position while gripping his cane to control his rate of descent. Once comfortably situated, he blew a long breath and propped his cane against his leg. He belched and prayed the hiccups wouldn't come.
A few grown-up steps from the tips of his slippers, simulated tile flooring met real glass. Below the glass glowed Earth, and all around Earth twinkled satellites and shuttles and orbiting stations of every imaginable purpose. Ebner had been told that some of those stations were nursing homes, like Sunset Manor, and that some of the largest ones were cities populated by tens of thousands, but he could never remember which ones were which. Some days he couldn't even remember what to call the giant blue ball under the glass. But it was sure pretty.
The Space Walk was one of the manor's most eminent architectural features. It spanned a breadth of fourteen feet and extended twenty-nine feet perpendicularly from the nearest wall. At the wall, the glass floor curved sharply upward and formed a nine-foot-high window through which the moon was often visible. The nurses were the ones who had started calling the glass portion of the floor the Space Walk, and most of the residents now called it that too. But to Ebner it was just a window in the floor, and it was made of glass, and there was no way—not ever, never, nohow—he was going to set foot on it.
"Here I go, Ebenezer,” Roach said, stepping past Ebner's chair and waltzing onto the glass. “Try and stop me, old scrooge. Try and stop me. Oh, too late. I'm outta reach!” Roach walked to the middle of the glass and danced slowly about with his arms waving above his silver-crowned head. Elderly women watched from the chairs and couches lining the transparent walkway. “Did you hear that?” Roach asked, standing still and cupping a hand behind his ear. The lights on his cap were blinking green. “Was that ... was that a crack? Help me! I'm falling!"
"Stop it, fool!” Ebner said. “Get off there."
"Come get me."
"No. Get off."
"Come get me."
"No! Stop it. You're gonna give me the hiccups."
"Scared? Scared you'll fall through three feet of glass and do the ol’ reentry burn? Is that it? Woohoo! Woohoo! Look at me go! Bet you couldn't move like this at a hundred and five.” Roach danced in circles on the glass with Asia six hundred miles below the soles of his loafers.
Ebner banged the bottom of his cane on the simulated tile floor. He stood up, hiccupped loudly, and said, “My wife!"
"What?” Roach asked.
"I just ... I just remembered. My wife's in my room. I've got to go.” With the rubber toe of his cane squeaking ahead of him and the hiccups coming on hard, Ebner began a fast baby-step shuffle around the edge of the Space Walk and toward G-33.
"What are you talkin’ about?” Roach asked, shadowing his friend.
"She's in my room,” Ebner said. “I keep for—hiccup!—getting. I've got to go."
"Your wife died, Eb. Way back."
"No."
"Yeah. She got Leushaun's Syndrome. Remember? That was something like eighty years ago."
"No."
"Yeah. I was at her memorial service. You were my boss back then. I worked for you, remember? We were engineers."
"Shut up."
Roach shook his head. “Okay, let's check your room. Maybe she's in there. Only one way to find out."
Minutes later, Ebner entered his room and turned on the light. His hands were shaking; his thighs burned. A sharp pain clawed at his chest and caused his left arm to tingle.
Roach looked down at his friend's hip pockets and waved a hand in front of his nose. “I think you better check your pants, bub."
Ebner scanned the room while bubbles of saliva oozed from the corners of his bluish lips. The bed was empty. Stuck to his wrinkled pillow case was the tongue-polished watermelon Jolly Rancher he'd been sucking on when he fell asleep the night before. The chair in the corner was vacant. He stepped to his dresser and looked down at the clock on its top. It was an old clock made of olive wood in the shape of a cube. Each face of the cube was equal in width to the length of a man's hand, and the wood was carved decoratively and stained to bring out its
hearty grain. Projecting slightly from the front of the cube was a round, white clock face, four inches in diameter with black hands and numbers and a narrow gold rim. The second hand was moving. Ticking, ticking, ticking.
Hiccup!
"What's wrong, Eb?” Roach asked.
Ebner said nothing.
"You made that clock for Kori,” Roach said. “That's what you told me once.” He picked up the clock and looked on the bottom. “See. There's your initials, and look. You carved the date. 2532. That was ... hmm. I think that was the same year she passed away."
Ebner stared blankly at the letters and numbers.
"What's on your mind?” Roach asked, setting the clock back on the dresser.
"Well,” Ebner began, “I ... I haven't the foggiest."
Roach patted his friend's shoulder. “It's okay, buddy,” he said. “You're just having one of those days."
* * * *
Lana held a tiny plastic cup against Ebner's lower lip and said, “Open big.” Ebner obeyed, and Lana tipped the cup and watched an octet of colorful pills tumble into the darkness of Ebner's mouth. She handed him a cup of water and he washed the pills down. “Good job,” she said. She picked up one of Ebner's hands. “When's the last time Sheila cut your nails?"
Ebner looked down at his nails. He could remember the day Sheila had clipped them next to the Space Walk. She'd done his toenails, too. “Over a month,” he said.
"That's too long,” Lana said. “We'll get you taken care of."
She walked from G-33, leaving Ebner alone in his chair in the corner. He held his palms up near his face and curled his fingers so that his long, yellowish nails were lined up before his eyes. A few were chipped. And there were faint, silvery scars on three of his fingers. Old scars. Scars from his youth, from the days when he first started making things with wood and learning to respect chisels and blades. For the moment, he could remember those days. He could remember the scream of a power saw and the magical, primeval smell of sawdust. Yes, he could smell it right now, as though a fine mist of it were drifting through the air around him and catching the shaft of sunlight streaming through the shop window.
He looked down at the gold ring on his left ring finger. It was a simple, thin band with no stones or engravings. It was scratched and scuffed and old, like his fingers. As far as he knew, he had always worn it.
"Knock knock, dirty old man.” It was Roach at the door. “What are you doin’ now?"
Ebner looked up from his fingers and said, “If I remember something important, and if I tell you it's important, will you help me remember it later, when I've forgotten again?"
"I, uh ... huh? Come again."
Ebner frowned.
"Just kiddin', boss,” Roach said, his words slurred. He wobbled and grabbed the door frame. “Of course I'll help ya ... remember.” He raised a hand to his forehead, just below the blinking red lights of his stroke cap. “Think I better ... sit down.” He limped to the chair in the corner of Ebner's room.
"You're having another stroke,” Ebner said.
Lana entered the room and silenced her beeping pager. “Let's have a look,” she said, walking to Roach and opening a panel on his metallic cap. She pressed a reset button and the lights on the front of the cap changed from red to green. She watched as a tiny servopump sucked the last drop of thrombolytic cocktail from a thin, transparent reservoir, then removed the empty reservoir and replaced it with a full one she'd been carrying in her pocket. After reading Roach's pulse rate and blood pressure from a tiny screen, she closed the panel on the cap and undid the top four buttons on Roach's shirt. She checked the adhesive electrodes on his chest and then buttoned his shirt back up. She knelt in front of him.
"Talk to me, Mr. Roach,” she said.
"What do you want me to say?” he asked.
"You sound pretty good. I'm afraid you're gonna live."
"Really?"
"Lift your right hand. Now your left hand. Right foot. Left foot. Now smile. Perfect."
"Want me to dance?"
"That won't be necessary."
* * * *
The nightlight cast a meager yellow glow upon G-33 and its contents. Ebner lay in bed with his back to the nearest wall and said his goodnight prayers. He looked over at the empty chair in the corner and wished Kori were sitting there wearing one of his t-shirts for a nightgown and reading a book or just smiling at him. He felt proud for recalling her name. Kori. His mind had a knack for digging deepest right before he fell asleep, but he couldn't always trust the mental artifacts it unearthed. Along with his brief bedtime clarity came a cruel form of creativity, or so it seemed, for buried along with a century's worth of recollections were strange notions that resembled memories but must have surely been bits of fancy.
Ebner caressed a green apple Jolly Rancher with his tongue and closed his eyes. He thought about her. Kori. As long as he could keep her name in mind she was with him. He opened his eyes and looked at the clock on the dresser. The second hand was moving.
Kori. Roach was right about her. Ebner could remember now. Funny how his memory could come and go like a spoiled brat with a will all its own. For now, he could remember her memorial service and her parents’ tears and the marble urn on a gold stand. She really had come down with Leushaun's Syndrome. She really had been given three months to live. She really had been wonderful.
Ebner's eyes blinked twice and then stayed closed. His mouth eased open and his glossy piece of candy, green as an emerald and no bigger than a pea, fell out and stuck to the corner of his pillow case. His eyelids were stone still for a while but then began to undulate as the pupils beneath darted rapidly back and forth.
"No,” he whispered to the room. “He's wrong. We'll get another opinion, or five more opinions if we have to. You're gonna be fine. You'll be the one crying at my funeral, not the other way around."
* * * *
"Are we sure about this?” Kori asked as they boarded the J-ring tram.
"You tell me,” Ebner said, pausing just inside the tram at a panel of buttons. He pressed the one marked 23. “This was your idea, remember?” He asked the question as though he really believed the idea had been all hers. But he'd been the first to actually use the word elope. The simple truth was that he wanted to get married every bit as badly as she did. He was twenty-four years old, and he was ready.
Kori sighed as she took a seat. Ebner sat down beside her and grabbed her hand.
"Mom's gonna kill me,” she said. “She's really gonna kill me. She's wanted to plan my wedding since I was born."
"Then let her. It's not too late to back out. I can call the judge right now and cancel.” Ebner reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone.
"No! I don't want Mom planning my wedding. She'll go overboard and spend a fortune on flowers that'll just wilt. They can't afford it."
"Just tell her you want a tomboy wedding."
Kori gave him the evil eye. “Yeah, right."
"Seriously,” Ebner said, trying not to smile. “Everyone can wear jeans and we can get married on Earth by a pond and then go fishing."
"I said my mom wanted to plan it, not my dad."
A series of beeps signaled the tram's immanent departure. The door whisked shut and the tram accelerated as a computerized female voice announced, “J-ring tram leaving Spoke Eleven. Next stop: Spoke Fifteen."
"Look,” Ebner said, turning in his seat to gaze straight into Kori's brown eyes, “you're not a teenager. You can do whatever you want. If you want to get married today, that's fine with me, but don't do something you're gonna regret. There's no pressure from me."
Kori's eyes filled with tears. She wiped them and asked, “What do you want to do?"
"Whatever you want to do."
"No. What do you want to do?"
"You really want to know?"
"Yes. Please."
Ebner looked away, then looked back and said, “I want to get married right now and if I have to wait one more day I swear I'm go
nna kill something or break something expensive."
Kori burst out laughing and then buried her face in his shirt and cried while he held her. He stroked her brunette hair and rubbed the back of her neck until she calmed down.
"I love you so much,” she said.
"I love you, too,” he said.
"Put your phone away. And talk about something so I won't think about my mom."
Ebner leaned over and whispered in her ear. She giggled and slapped his arm.
* * * *
Ebner opened his eyes and tried to focus. He could see green lights pulsing amidst the shimmer of chrome. Then Roach's face became clear. It was only an inch away. “Hey!” Ebner said. “What're you doin'?"
"I thought you were dead, boss,” Roach said, stepping away from the bed and waving a hand in front of his nose. “Had to make sure you were breathin'. What's with the clock? Quit workin'?” Roach sat down on the chair in the corner.
Ebner realized that his arm was draped over his wooden clock. Apparently he'd been sleeping with it like it was a teddy bear. He sat up—an ordeal that took a good bit of straining and groaning—and looked down. A pink groove marked the place where his arm had been resting on the wood. The cube was there in his bed, but in place of the clock's white face was a black, four-inch-diameter hole. Ebner frowned.
"What happened to my clock?” he asked.
"Up there,” Roach said, pointing. “On your dresser."
Ebner turned his head and saw the clock face and its attached battery-powered mechanism lying face-down on the dresser. “Who did this?” he asked.
"You did, I guess,” Roach said. “But why?"
Ebner peeled the remnant of his green apple Jolly Rancher from his pillow and popped it into his mouth. “I think I had a dream,” he said.
"About what?"
"I haven't the foggiest."
"Well, you better get ready for breakfast. I double-dare you to hit Eva Polk with a boiled egg. Right in the kisser! I'm talking about a peeled boiled egg, of course."
Ebner frowned and picked up the cube of olive wood. He held it close to his face and looked down into the hole where the clock face had been. “I think my wife's ... in here,” he said. “That's what I need you to help me remember. My wife's in here."
Challenging Destiny #23 Page 10
