#6 China Cat (What a Place to Die)

came twice a week, brought her candies, and talked to her snotty. Carolyn was dying; what a place to die. They gave her bags of blood and put compression stockings on her. It was expensive. China knew Carolyn was dying because she listened to the doctors that came. ‘…do you still want food...water…blood…medicine…oxygen..’ Carolyn said yes to them all. She didn’t want to die.

They gave her bags of blood in the middle of the night, hooking it up, and forgetting about it, then the alarm would go off. During the day, they stuck her with needles, tubes, and pills, which made her cry. It took six of them to get a catheter in, and another six to get an IV needle in, and they changed it once a month and tested her blood at least once week. She screamed and cried every time. They put a ventilator in, but she didn’t like something sticking out of her face, so she kept tearing it out, and every time they caught it, they put it back in. They sang it was the doctor’s orders. She learned to stay quiet. The only thing she enjoyed was her food, but she kept forgetting she was given breakfast, and she kept getting fatter. She probably crapped at least four times a day, and it stunk. It smelled like strong cheese. China guessed it was the laxatives flushing out the ammonia. She stayed quiet all night, but the ventilator was loud. Carolyn probably listened to the drama in the hall. China wouldn’t complain about the noise, as it wouldn’t do her any good anyway, and she wanted her to live too.

But Carolyn died. Carole stole her plants as soon as she did, so now she had two of her own to put on the window sill. It took her nine months and fifteen hours to die. She died during the night, but had to wait for the coroner to pronounce her dead, so officially she didn’t die until after breakfast was served. They acted like they just found her. The ventilator was curiously pulled out though the machine still ran. They shut it off, took all the tubes and needles out of her, and drew names for the breakfast. She could have died at home, but the family wouldn’t have it, instead they brought her to this looney bin. It was close. All of her cheques were redirected to Heaven. They called the family, and they were, at first, pissed off, because it wasn’t a visiting day, but they all came, and cried like they should. It’s all they had to do, because she had made her own funeral arrangements, and it was all paid for. China was there for Carolyn’s last words, ‘…I was worth every cent…’

They replaced her with Caitlin right away; by night actually. China wondered if she knew someone died in the bed she slept in. Of course she did; she was one of the hallway people, but she didn’t care. When she threatened to slit Carin’s throat, Carin beat the crap out of her. That fixed her for a while, then she started picking on Colleen. Caitlin hadn’t figured out that Colleen was Carin’s main squeeze as she was mostly out in the hall. Carin really beat the crap out of her for that. By the time, she noticed that China was much smaller than her, she had been beat up too much to do anything, so she just went out in the hall, and then slept all day. Carin had cured her of her behaviors.

Carin and Colleen were more than just close friends; they were lovers. China never saw them make love, because they always kept the curtains around them closed, but she heard them rustle around and talk afterwards. They always met in Colleen’s bed, which had Cora on one side, and a wall on the other, so all they had to do was pull the curtain at the foot of the bed. Carin and Colleen got together almost every night, but China didn’t know if they actually did it every night. They had found in each other a buffer, a safe harbour. The storm could rage on if it wanted. China wondered if their love would survive the outside. At least, there was a lot of love in their room to counter act the weird night man, and Carole stealing her plants, but there