• Coffee is my religion. If there was a church for coffee, I’d make a damn good pastor. My sermons would be quick and to the point. The holy water would be purified for drinking. My God is quite dehydrating, you know.
    But sadly, there is no coffee church, and no job as a coffee pastor. There’s no job at all.
    I was awake. My eyes were still closed, but I was awake. I didn’t want to be. I sleep a lot, I could always sleep. Don’t know what was wrong today. Must be something I had to do. Couldn’t remember, mind too foggy. Ugh. Oh well.
    I opened my eyes and looked over at the digital clock. 1:32 pm. I guess I could get up. Damn, it’s hot this morning. It’s midsummer in Los Angelos. What was I expecting, a nice cool day? Even perhaps some rain? Yeah, right. I can dream.
    The sun was blazing, and at that perfect angle where it can blind me through the window. I yawned and stood up, my bones creaking. I’m old at age nineteen.
    I glanced around my room. It was very plain, like he rest of my apartment. There was a twin sized bed with an old fan above it, a nightstand with a lamp on it and finally, my desk. My desk is probably the most cluttered thing in the apartment. It’s where I spend the majority of my time, though. It was a large desk with room for my computer and a 20” LCD monitor along with room to draw if I ever felt like it. Surrounding my computer were various pain killers. Some bottles were empty, but I had just about every pain killer out there. Tylenol, Aleve, Advil, Ibuprofen, Motrin. You name it, I could probably find it somewhere on my desk.
    Ah! That’s what I had to do today. Job interview. Well, it wasn’t really an interview. Supposedly I already had the job. I had to get my uniform and go to some information session. What time was it at again..? Three, if I remember correctly. I had plenty of time to shower and grab a bite to eat.
    I yawned again and went into the bathroom to have a nice cool shower. After I was out, I looked into the large mirror in the bathroom. Quite a sight that was. My brown-blonde hair was getting long. If it got any further down past my ears and forehead my curls would be unbearable. It’s straight until it gets long, then I hate it. There was one time in high-school I had been dared to grow it out into an afro. No idea why I did it, worst month of my life. You could fit a lot of pencils into that afro. High-school sucked. I would get a haircut later. Hopefully… maybe…
    I kept staring into the mirror at my somewhat unfamiliar appearance. I was abnormally thin, and my eyes were bloodshot. It was rather obvious something was, or had been wrong with me. Turns out I had just gotten over a stomach virus. I cheered silently in my mind, remembering I could eat a good meal today without a whole lot of worrying if I would see it again in the garbage.
    I quickly put on my clothes and headed back into my room, glancing at the clock as I walked by. 2:15pm. I guess the decent meal would have to wait until later.
    I figured I’d go out for dinner tonight, but for now before this interview, a ham sandwich sounded wonderful.
    I ate my lunch and headed out the door of my apartment to the elevator to get to the lobby. The security guard watched me as I left, not saying a word. I wondered about him sometimes, as he never spoke around me. In fact I had written a short piece on my random musings about the fellow, how he could be the voice of God and what would happen should he be forced to retire.
    As I started walking down the sidewalk, I noticed the people around me were keeping what one might call a “safe distance” away from me. I knew I looked bad, but I had no idea that the people of the city would avoid me. I must look worse than I imagined.
    It didn’t take long before I arrived at my destination; the nursing home. It wasn’t too far from my apartment which was good, because I didn’t have a car. It was one of the smaller buildings in the city, but still fairly large. I walked into the main entrance, it smelled of the elderly, but still looked very clean. The lady at the front desk looked at me impatiently, with a slightly disgusted look on her face, probably because of my appearance, waiting for me to tell why I was at the home. To spite her, I took my time and walked slowly up to the desk.
    “Hello..” she said cautiously, now that I was close. “What can I do for you?”
    “My name’s Tristan Ferchl, and I’m here to pick up my uniform and speak to Cindy.”
    “Oh! You’re the new RA here, aren’t you? We’ve been expecting you. Cindy is down the hall and is in the second room on the right.” She seemed much friendlier than before, I knew Cindy liked me but I didn’t know if she would talk to me about.
    I walked down the hallway where she directed me and saw Cindy sitting in a meeting room with a large table in the middle of the room surrounded by comfortable looking chairs. She was a middle aged woman, with blonde hair. She was fairly short, and wearing some purple scrubs with flowers on them.
    “Hello Tristan, nice to see you here. Please have a seat.” I obeyed, sitting in the chair closest to me. She was on the opposite side of the table so she moved closer, to the chair next to me.
    “So you’re here for the protocol, and your uniform.”
    “Yes m’am.”
    “Okay, well I’ll give you a uniform but keep in mind you can wear scrubs that you buy also, if you don’t keep up with your laundry.”
    “Alright..” I said, not really knowing how to respond.
    That was how the meeting started, it took around an hour. I got my new blue uniform scrubs and a paper that showed me my pay and what was expected of me. There had been already a paid day of training previously, so I knew what I had to do. I was to start the following day. My hours were 7:30am to 2:30pm.
    ******************
    The next day I woke up earlier than I had to. I loved my sleep, so I figured it would take me a while to wake up. I was wrong. It was 6:30am. I was groggy, but I took a shower and put on my uniform before going to the lobby of my apartment to see that Security Guard God silently watching me. I paid him no attention this time and quickly walked out of the apartment building. I stopped at the building right before the nursing home, as it was a coffee shop. The shop had good, cheap coffee and I got myself a large mug of it before going into my place of work.
    I walked up the stairs to my floor, and got to work. I had to change sheets and bedding, change bed pads, organize closets, take the elderly to their breakfast and lunch, and most importantly talk to the people and entertain them, and get whatever they need.
    At least this job was money. But not McDonalds kind of money. That isn’t money at all. I wouldn’t be caught dead working there. Who wants to get fat through osmosis? Or listen to R. Kelly through osmosis, lower my IQ through osmosis..
    No, as bad as it is I’d rather work with dead bodies. Or dead animals. Or anything dead. Where I was about to work I might just get that opportunity. Not that I wanted that.
    The nurse of my floor, two east introduced me to everyone and showed me whose room was where. The people I met were Gordon Jones, Julia Smith, Katherine Hall, Katie Bell, Margaret Hoskyns, Ann Mcphail, Alex Mckinsley, John Davis, and David Norton.
    Gordon, Margaret, Alex, and David were all in wheel chairs. Katherine and Katie had horrible memories and generally forgot what they said after they said it and they end up repeating it. Margaret could be aggressive in the mornings and was paranoid, Julia and Alex were quiet. John and David seemed pretty average while some of the others I found sort of weird.
    Work started slowly, but I began to enjoy it. Except for the sheets that weren’t so clean and the bed pads I had to take care of, the work wasn’t too hard and the pay was decent. The elderly had stories that were very interesting at first, but because some of them were senile, they kept telling the same stories over. I wondered what I’d be like when I got older, if I got older. Would I be stuck in a home or would I be sane enough to take care of myself?
    One of the residents whose stories I never got tired of was John. When he was younger, he had worked on railroads. He had many stories about how his companions were out late with the hard work, and the fun times they had together. He was a very interesting man. I know I wasn’t supposed to, but I spent most of my free time with him. Sometimes he even gave me a piece of candy that he had in his drawer. John always had something to say or some story to tell, but he had a good sense of humor too. Although he could be rude, when the other residents kept asking “Is it time to sleep?” over and over, but that could be understandable when you’re stuck there all day listening to it.
    John got along well with David, but David had appeared to lost a little bit more of his mind as he got older than John did. The two were quite alike and very close. I was very close to John as well, he seemed like a fatherly figure to me. Since my father left me and my mother when I was young, I latched onto John. I couldn't figure out why he was in the home. Although, he said the same about me.
    ******************
    Time passed, and I enjoyed my job. The people were decent and tolerated me, though I guess they didn't really have much of a choice because Cindy liked me. It was quite pleasant and I had made friends there with the residents.
    It was another normal bright morning in the city of LA, and I was once again on my way to work. I had made my coffee at my house, and brought it down to the lobby. Today was going to be a great day. I was going to bring John out for lunch at the Subway down the road. The weather was good, and I was looking forward to an entertaining day at work.
    I got out the door to my apartment building and was walking away when I heard a whisper. At least, I think it was a whisper. It was more like a mans voice in the wind, but I could clearly hear what was said.
    "I'm sorry...."
    I looked around and the only person I saw around me was the Security Guard. I was baffled, did he say that? Did he finally speak to me? What was he sorry about? He was looking at me with a blank expression on his face. Maybe it was my imagination. I shrugged it off and although I was still a little bit confused, headed to work.
    I walked into the building and smiled at the woman at the front desk, who didn't return my smile. Usually she did, so I wondered if something was wrong. I would have asked her if I hadn't already been held up slightly by my confusion with the security guard. I clocked in and took the stairs up to my floor where I worked.
    I was going down the hallway and saw the usual nurses and people walking around and talking, but when I went by they went eerily quiet. One of the nurses even gave me a gentle pat on the back and gave me a look of pity as I walked away. Something was definately wrong.
    As I got to my station and let everybody else know that I was there, I started my morning routine. Since everybody was already out of bed, I had to make their beds. I did this and my closet organization work and then noticed I had some free time left before breakfast. I decided to go visit John. I went to his room, but strangely enough he wasn't there. I decided to ask the nurse where he was, maybe his family was visiting him in the family room or he was watching tv with the other residents at the entertainment center. The nurse gave me a grave look and said
    "I'm afraid he's passed on."
    "What?" I asked, confused.
    "He died last night, in his bed. Heart attack." I couldn't react. I stood there, in shock. John? Dead? He couldn't be, he was like the father I never had. He can't be dead..
    After a moment I tried to gather myself. It didn't work so well. I went to the phone and called Cindy, my supervisor.
    "Johns dead. Could you excuse me for the day?"
    "Oh.. sure hun, I'm sorry. He was a good man.."
    I hung up after she said that. Yes, he was a good man. A great man. I ran down the stairs as fast as I could, I had to leave that place. He was dead. He couldn't be dead! John couldn't be dead! I ran out of the door, I had no destination. I looked up at the sun, shining bright and then shielded my eyes. Confused, I stumbled into the road, where a bus was coming at me, full speed...