A Midwinter's Meandering

From atop the frost covered Stoa I would like to spend some time waxing about my friend DeRoy and The Moderator.

The TV flickered from station to station. The Hospital had a good cable package, though he didn't care for the "soothing sounds" channel.

He surfed down a channel. A woman's hands cracked an egg into a bowel of flour. A pinch of salt followed.

"Nah you fold the flour over thah egg and you keep doin' dis until you git a dough ball," the camera pulled back onto a rather comely young woman with dark, shoulder-length hair. She smiled broadly into the camera, the stage lights glinting in her eyes.

DeRoy! He flicked the channel to a music video while looking at his IV bag. There was some pain medication but nothing that should make him hallucinate.

A model danced next to a burning tree with flaming butterflies fluttering about. Crazy things the kids watch these days. The model turned as she danced and DeRoy again winked and nodded from the TV screen.

FLICK.

What the heck? Why was she everywhere?

The Weather Channel was up next and there she was again. Talking about the cold front moving through the mid-west. Her accent was still there, but less so in this personification.

FLICK.

Everywhere he flicked she was there.

"Loving wife, honored military hero. Expert wine collector and three time, ballroom dancing champion." A portrait of DeRoy took up most of the TV screen. The narrator showed pictures from a lifetime of service, though all the pictures and video was that of the same, 17 or 18 year old, petite DeRoy.

CLICK. The TV went blank.

Looking out of his door, he could see some doctor filling out paperwork at a desk. DeRoy glanced up at him and went right back to her work. Another DeRoy pushed a cleaning cart past his door.

Resigned to his hallucinations, he only flinched slightly when his nurse, looking like DeRoy padded silently into the room. His bed was elevated and she only came chest high to his mattress. He wondered if he was looking at her belly button or her eyes in real life since he remembered his nurse to be much taller.

She pulled out a syringe and tapped out the air bubbles. She wiped off the IV shunt with alcohol and inserted the needle.

"Now, you relax you som'bitch. You'all will pay for crossin' me," she whispered into his ear as his eyes rolled back in his head.

DeRoy walked in the hallway and looked around at the staff. No one paid her much attention. She rounded the corner and entered the staff locker room. She pulled up her blouse and pitched it at the woman tied up in the shower.

"Ah, quit yer whimperin'," she said as she flicked her shoes at the women as well.

She turned to an open locker and redressed. Almost as an afterthought she turned back to the woman in the shower. An 8" blade flicked out from a holster on her wrist and severed the bonds in a single swipe.

With a whip of her short hair, she vanished out the door chuckling.

After the alarms had been called off and the searched found nothing, the nurse went back to the room where The Moderator slept. As she neared the bed she dropped the tray of food she was carrying.

The Moderator lay in bed, a Sharpie had been used to draw a mustache and beard on his face. Drawn in wire-rimmed glasses completed the set.

His head had been super glued to the pillow. Safety pins had been inserted around his gown, pinning him to the bed. His toe nails had been painted as well. From the looks of it, they were blue with white skulls.

Stupefied, she slowly reached into her pocket and pulled out her iPhone. She slowly began to take pictures.

I hope you enjoyed.

Live well.

--Zavost