Home (a story by Petty)

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Ssssh Orwell can't you see I'm writing!

(Thanks for reading as always, makes the whole process seem less isolated knowing I can get some sort of -almost - instant feedback on here to it)

Don't push ya luck, Scottie, don't push ya luck!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:
But her eyes were alive, sparkling and seemed always to be filled with the sort of inquisitive wonder you only normally see on the faces of small children. But of all her features it was her smile that was most striking. Some smiles can light a room. Betty's lit up your heart.

Thanks, Petty! Home is wonderful, and full of hope. My mom is going into Assisted Living next week, and my 14-year-old daughter Becca sounds a lot like Betty. She doesn't speak and has serious cognitive delay. When I was a kid, we would have used the term "mentally retarded" in the States. She faces a lifetime of care, and mom will too, at some point. I hope they are cared for by someone like you.

I'm very encouraged by the love that shown to the residents throughout your story. It's a wonderful thing to see kindness in a world that doesn't always encourage it.

You should know that your actions (and your story itself) have helped to build of The Kingdom Of God here on earth. Building it for me, and Betty, and my daughter. I hope I don't offend you or anyone else by saying so. What you've written has had a profound impact on me, and this is the only way I can express it.

Thanks!

-Paul

Thanks for those words Wobbit. They are appriecated.

Paul, I feel the same. The only tragedy is that Petty is writing it, not me. I'd be proud to put my name to Home {{{mmmm ... and probaly will... mm... Retirement Villa.... Old People Mansion.... something will come up... )))

Orwell-

I like Old People Mansion. That really captures it! Keep up the good work, Orwell.

Maybe I should try to write about real life and try to reach people emotionally instead of telling jokes about a fantasy world. Hmmm.

Jokes are so much fun, though.

Don't encourage Orwell into plagarism Wobbit. Or you might find The Wobbit a Parody by Orwell turning up on the bookshelves!

Plagarizing The Wobbit! It would serve you right, Orwell!

If anyone could find a literary agent to represent The Wobbit who could in turn find a publisher, I would GLADLY give them a generous percentage of the gross. But any percentage of the book's current gross would probably not pay for an evening out!

Seriously though, it would be ridiculous (and very difficult) for anyone to plagarize a story as deeply personal as Home.

Fab as usual.

I have to say the gentle intro into this world is pulling me further and further in. I find I am curious about all the residents we are meeting, what are their stories and what will we find about them. Equally the revealed relationships within the workforce have me wanting to know what is going to happen. Keep it up!

I find the mirror it holds the most intriguing thing, like all good writing it is about human nature as much as anything else. The key case in point here being Betty. We all know people who (to a lesser extent than this) have had difficult lives, yet maintain a positive and sunny disposition. Conversly there are those who seem to find everything hard, lurching from one percieved drama to another. It always makes me resolve to focus on the positive and try to be that sunshine for someone! (I don't always suceed, but I try!) Or in the words of a sign I saw this week - happiness is not a destination - it is a way of life. If we could be more self aware about how the way we deal with the 'stuff' that happens in our life effects our experience of life itself we might all try and be a little more content!

Wow! There you go, highest compliment I can pay, good writing leads to deep thoughts about life itself!

Thanks everyone, both for taking the time to read and for commenting. Should be a new chapter up soon(ish).

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Thanks everyone, both for taking the time to read and for commenting. Should be a new chapter up soon(ish).

That's what you always say! And not just about Home!

Chapter Five.
Julia the Reasonable.

I was on my official break. Granted it had come so late in the morning it was now knocking against lunchtime but I was grateful still. I had taken the time to make a sweet, milky cup of tea, it had eaten up five minutes of my fifteen, which was another gripe I had with Management. In the old days before our move here we would all have our own mugs in the cupboard in the dining area and stick the kettle there on a few minutes before break, so when you went on it your tea was ready. Having a mug from home also gave you a sense of belonging and of homeliness. But we had been banned from doing this and now we had to go all the way to the staff room, which was a crammed little room on the top floor, and use the 'facilities' there.
I went outside again so I could have a smoke but truth be told I would have been outside even if that were not the case, I couldn't understand those who took their breaks in the building, for me anything to get out of there, to feel the fresh air on my face blowing in from the sea was essential to my well being. I couldn’t face twelve hours in there without respite. I just couldn't. And deep down I was beginning to wonder, and admit to myself that I was wondering, how much more of this I could take at all. And it wasn't because of John. I didn't reflect on John's passing. He was not in my thoughts in any shape or form as I sat down on the edge of the kerb, that would come later, tonight no doubt, when I was lying in bed, in the dark at home, exhausted yet unable to sleep.
The smoking area, where I was sitting, was another bone of contention I had with Management. We had been confined to the side of the building, away from the sight of any arriving visitors lest we offend them with our vile unsociable habit. The side of the building was where the staff car-park was. When the Home had been built they had promised that the ground adjacent to the car-park would be landscaped gardens which the residents could sit in, or be taken for walks round with a dedicated smoking area with seating and shelter.
I looked around me at the piles of rubble and mud which surrounded the car-parks edge, it was left over from the construction, well over a year ago now. Huge heaps of spoil piled up and left. Pools of muddy brown water gleamed at their bases. There was no sign of any gardens appearing any time soon and certainly no seats or shelter.
There were several cars in the car-park, a small blue Punto which was Lucy's. A solid silver Volvo which belonged to Patterson, a red mini which was Stacy's and several others most of them belonging to staff from the bottom floor and Management. There was one I did not recognise however, a silver Lexus. Visitor parking was at the front of the Home, where at least some pretence at landscaping had taken place so I doubted it belonged to a guest.
I pulled my jacket in tighter around me and sipped my tea, the sky was still heavy and grey but the clouds were moving fast overhead making fleeting patches of blue as a strong southerly wind came in from the sea. I took out a cigarette and glanced at the time on my mobile phone which I kept in my jacket, I had five minutes left. I wasn't really in the mood for another cigarette, it not having been long since I smoked two in a row after dealing with John, but God alone knew what time of day I might get my lunch break at and therefore my next smoke so I lit it anyway and forced myself to puff on it.
I was sitting on the edge of the car-park, on the kerb, fortunately it wasn't raining beyond the occasional stray droplet, which may well just have been spray blown in from the sea. I was huddled for shelter near the kitchens which were located at this side of the building. There was a door which led from the kitchens to the car-park, as on the far side of the car-park were the refuse skips, next to the door at about thigh height was an outlet for steam and there was usually a constant stream of hot air billowing from it, it was on days of inclement weather (which was most days) the best place to be near. It was therefore the one place you were not allowed to be according to Management (furthering my belief they spent a great deal of their time working out what tiny small moments of comfort we got and removing them) on the basis that smoke from cigarettes could get blown back through the vent into the kitchen, thus causing a Health and Safety Hazard.
I had decided against trying to argue the physics case against smoke going into something which is blowing hot air outwards and I had done with this rule what I did with so many others, I ignored it and tried not to get caught breaking it. Why is why I moved from my seat near the vent to one further along the kerb next to Lucy's parked Punto when I heard footsteps approaching around the corner of the building, even above the clanging and banging coming from the kitchen as lunch was prepared in a flurry of swearing that marks a cook at a work.
I need not have bothered worrying however as it was only Susan, a resident from the bottom floor out for a cigarette and behind her Amy, a middle aged woman who was one of the carers from the bottom floor and whom I always got on passingly well with. It was hard to tell as she was a woman of few words. The only staff members or residents I really knew from down there were the smokers as there was nothing like being ostracised to the exterior for forging a sense of comradeship.
Amy was a big woman, broad and wide but not fat, she was the archetypal care worker in fact, there was something of the matron about her but without the sense of strictness. I said, “Hey,” to her in friendly greeting as they approached and she hey'd me back but didn't say anything more.
Susan on the other hand couldn't have been more the opposite physically to Amy or in talkativeness. She was a tiny little woman, lucky if she was five feet, with a small wiry frame. She was tough as old boots and had a naughty sense of humour. She was, like all those on the bottom floor, sound of mind and in her case, despite having smoked everyday of her life since she was thirteen, fit if not healthy of body too and would regularly walk with a carer the mile from the Home into town to do some shopping when the weather permitted. She was seventy eight but she was also slowly dying. She had bowel cancer which had begun to spread. She was no longer quite as hale as she was when I first met her, although if you didn't know you would never think it.
She never seemed to dwell on her fate and although the cancer was aggressive enough to have spread it was yet to take a hold in a way which greatly impaired her.
When it did, with luck, it would at least be swift. I liked Susan, she was fun and engaging, always wanting to talk to people, I didn't like to think of her having a long drawn out passing, wasting slowly away before my eyes. And it wasn't that you thought of it all the time, or consciously even at all, but somewhere in the subconscious you were always aware that you were talking to people in the last days of their lives.
“Oh aye, its the skivver,” Susan said to me in her broad Glaswegian tones and using the colloquialism for the work-shy, “let yi oot the madhoose huve they?”
“Aye for good behaviour,” I replied with a grin and she grinned back at me.
“Fer you? A' doubt it. Hey, its bloody freezing oot here,” she commented taking a cigarette out from a pack which she kept in a pale blue cigarette purse. I offered her a light and she gratefully accepted, I cupped my hands around the flame, but it still blew out and it took a few goes before she finally got a draw from her cigarette.
Amy stood beside her. Susan certainly didn't need a chaperone for going for a smoke so I assumed she also was on a break. “You on your break?” I asked to confirm this.
“Lunch,” she replied, “I got the early.”
“Lunch?” I replied with exaggerated shock, “lucky you, this is my first break.”
“But its twenty to twelve,” she observed.
“I know, tell me about it,” I agreed in an exasperated tone.
“I don't know how you lot cope up there,” she said with a shake of her head.
“Oh that's easy,” I replied with a shrug, “we don't.”
She nodded at that and lit her cigarette. I was half way through mine and soon it would be time to get back to the madness, but not quite yet, I moved back from the kerb a bit and lent against the outside wall of the Home and tried to enjoy the few minutes of calm I had left.
Susan watched me for a moment and then asked, “Youse busy up there?”
“As always,” I replied and exhaled a faded stream of pale blue smoke which the wind whipped away immediately.
“Thu've got me daeing the dishes noo,” Susan said with a nod at Amy.
“She's working for her keep,” Amy said with a half smile.
Susan I knew liked to help out, she sometimes went up to the laundrette to do ironing, when we could keep it secret from Management whose Health and Safety officer would have kittens if they knew, but it was good for Susan. Keeping up activities, staying in the game in any shape or form was one of the most important things in keeping people alive in a way that mattered, it was one of the most important things we could do in care work or at least in my view it should be. We really got the time and almost anything the resident actually wanted to do or enjoyed doing we invariably were not allowed to do for some stupid reason dreamt up by an idiot in an office somewhere who had never seen the inside of a real Home in their life.
“Wish we could get our lot to do that,” I responded, “or maybe not,” I added after reflecting on the thought of letting Anne lose with cutlery and plates, “I hope you are demanding a fair pay from the staff.”
“Aye, I was goin' tae ask fer a lumber aff a' wan a thum instead o' ma wages,” Susan grinned at me then jerked a thumb at Amy, “But check oot whit A've gut tae choose frae, she'd crush me like a wis a grape and the others urnae oany better. A kike 'em slim.”
My brain had one of those moments where it did an internal double take as it processed the implications of this. “I didn't even know that she was your type,” I said eventually genuinely surprised. It was one of those odd things but when confronted with old people their sexuality doesn't tend to come into your reckoning unless its very obvious as with some effeminate men.
“Yi dinae?” Susan said seemingly surprised, “aaw look at yer wee face, bless yi son, yer actually shocked.”
“No,” I insisted, and I wasn't, not by the fact she was lesbian at least, just surprised at the surprise, as it had never occurred me one way or the other, and being confronted with it out of the blue was proving hard to process, “each to their own and all that, whatever makes you happy doesn't bother me,” I managed rather pathetically falling back on clichés.
“Ah well these days it doesnae maik much odds noo does it?” Susan said with a regretful sigh, “No likely to get a lumber aff anywan noo, no wi this auld body. I dinae want it, why wid oanywan else?”
“Must have been tricky for you,” I said now I had a bit of time to digest the idea, “back in the day when folks were less tolerant I mean. At least it's better now if you do meet someone.”
“Aye,” she said slowly, “but there's sumin't tae be said fir sneaking aboot an' daeing summing yer no meant tae be daeing. Yi know whit a mean?” she asked raising an eyebrow and I nodded in agreement, “Wi use tae go tae the dancin', that wis Helen an me. She was ma bird like. She wis frae East Kilbride, but A dinae hauld it against her. She goat a joab in the same carpet factory A wis in an goat put oan the line beside us. That's life fir yi, Ah mean whits the chances o' that happening, that sumwan else same minded as me wid get put right beside us? Bit there you go, she did. And she wis a right wee doll tae. A cracker, ah the fellas were swooning oe'er her and aye asking her oot, but I knew wi she wis knocking them back,” she paused a moment and I didn't say anything, letting her talk, after a moment Susan said sadly, “She passed awa', whit, must be nearly twinty year ago noo,” she stopped again and looked wistfully up at the cloudy grey sky, “the cancer it wis, same as me,” she stopped again then went on in a happier tone as memory took her from grief to better times, “Wi'd go tae the Barra's, tae the ballrooom and the Palace, ah they auld places. An' wi'd dance ah night wi each other, this wis when they had proper bands oan, live wans I mean. Rare it wis, an nae one had oany idea o' course, twa women dancin' wis common enough, back then yi didnae dance wi a fella right aff oanyway, yi went up wi yer mates first and they's come up tae you. O' course we'd just knock them back or yi'd kinda dance away frae em, as if accidentally like, cause the flairs wir fair heavin', averywan went tae the dancing, and then wi'd jist end up back, dancing wi each other again. And naebaedy ever knew or foond us oot. Bit wi knew, yi know? And that wis a canny feeling, like summin we shared, oor wee secret. Yi couldnae beat it.”
“I can see the appeal in that” I conceded, “But at least these days you could get married if you wanted, or met someone new, well a civil partnership anyway which is pretty much the same thing.”
“Nah,” Susan said with a swift shake of her small head, “I a'ways thought wan the advantages aw liking wimin wis a would never huve to marry oany of them. Ne'er culd abide a' that marriage crap.”
I drew the final puff out of my cigarette which tasted of filter so I stubbed it out, I pulled my phone out from my pocket and checked the time, “Well ladies, its been a pleasure as always but the nightmare beckons once more.”
“Gie em hell frae me” Susan said. I nodded at her, smiled and headed back in thinking, “well you learn something new everyday.”

When I got back on the floor Lucy and Alma were already moving residents from the lounge into the dining room in preparation for lunch which was just over ten minutes away.
“I've got good news and bad news,” Lucy said to me as I came into the lounge.
“Oh aye?” I said suspiciously.
“The good news is Andy is coming in to help out this afternoon,” she said, and couldn't prevent herself from smiling and I could swear her eyes actually twinkled, or at least they gave that impression.
“That's good,” I said in a flattish tone, we certainly needed the extra hands, but I could do without those hands being attached to the rest of Andy. I didn't like him, and the reason I didn't like him was that he was effortlessly likeable. He told jokes where everyone laughed when if I had told the exact same joke it would have been to polite smiles or general silence, he always had a good line in patter and although he was a decent enough looking bloke he was in my opinion nothing to write home about yet the female staff, and Lucy in particular, would flirt outrageously with him, which always bothered me.
I justified this bothering because I knew Lucy's boyfriend and he was a good guy although not a close acquaintance, but truth be told it was simple jealously. Stupid as it is when you are the only male on the floor and all the rest are female there is a certain idiotic masculine sense of power in it. When heavy things need moved and tricky lids need opened its you the women come to. Even though you know they are perfectly capable nine times out of ten of doing it themselves and are just using you to save themselves the bother, you still choose to play the game. To be the big man, head of the harem. Another cock in the hen house stirred up something base and probably ancient and best left alone. The upshot of which was Lucy's good news was pretty much the same as bad news to me.
“So what's the bad news,” I asked.
“The Suit from Head Office is here somewhere,” she said, “so don't do what you usually do,” she warned.
“What do I usually do?” I asked.
“Get yourself in trouble,” she responded with a stern look in her eyes.
“Fine,” I said raising my hands, “I will be as meek as a mouse. Just so long as he doesn't ask me any stupid bloody questions or get in my way,” I added.
She rolled her eyes at me, “Just go get me the hoist and give me a hand with Harold over there,” she said indicating the sleeping Harold in a huge armchair by the window, he was our fattest resident but other than that no trouble at all as when he wasn't asleep he was eating, Lucy flashed me a deliberately sweet smile, which I choose to accept, I smiled back and with a rueful shake of my head went to get the heavy hoist.
When we had finished manoeuvring Harold from hoist to wheelchair I took him to his place at the table and was about to go give droopy faced Adam a hand to his place but Lucy stopped me. “Could you go see if Stacy needs a hand,” she asked.
“Sure. Where is she?”
“Trying to persuade Julia to come for lunch,” she said and that was all that needed to be said. Julia was by far our most difficult resident to deal with. I nodded and quickly set off for her room which was at the end of the long corridor through the fire doors, furthest from the doors leading downstairs and the lift as possible.
Julia was never a problem in the mornings. She liked to sleep late and she would have her breakfast on a tray to her room which she would get up, eat at her small table and then go back to bed. But once she was up and had dressed herself it was often a very different story. And today of all days was going to be one of those days.
I could hear trouble before I even got to the door. “I have to go to the office,” a loud voice said firmly and a little menacingly, that was Julia.
“You don't have an office any more Julia,” that was Stacy in an insistent voice, “the bloody fruit and veg shop's a hairdressers now. You, live, here, now,” she said with deliberate slowness. She was dealing with this all wrong. I opened the door just as it really kicked off, that last bit had riled Julia.
“Don't you talk to me like that. You're just a young girl. I was running my own business before you were even born,” Julia snapped waving a finger in Stacy's frustrated face.
“Well you don't bloody well run one any more,” Stacy responded, and hit Julia's waving finger aside, too hard I thought.
Julia turned to me as I came in, “And whose this now? Someone else who won't listen to sense?”
And there was the problem, because from Julia's point of view we were the crazy ones. And that was what made her so hard to deal with.
“I'm just here to escort you to lunch,” I said with a smile.
“I don't want any damn lunch,” Julia retorted and actually stamped a heeled foot on the floor. She was smartly, if strictly dressed in a skirt and blouse with a black matching jacket, she was thin and tall with long hair which was once black but now silver, she had it tied back I a severe ponytail, she had a silver butterfly brooch pinned to her jacket , she looked and sounded perfectly sane, “Look I simply want to go to my office and get some work done. My husband will be there and he will wondering where I am by now. I don't like him to worry. What's so difficult for you about that?”
Her husband, Jack, had been dead for five years, the office and fruit and veg shop, one of three businesses she had owned and run in the town, were all gone or had become something new, but there was no point telling her that. This however didn't stop Stacy trying.
“You don't have a shop any more,” she said as if talking to a child, “you live here now. You've been living here for six bloody years.”
“Don't be stupid,” Julia dismissively, “I have not.”
“Look,” I intervened, “why don't you go and get lunch and I'll phone for a taxi,” I suggested reasonably. Julia considered my proposal but then said, “No, I can get something out of the shop when I get there and I can get my own taxi thank you,” she said and it was perfectly reasonable, except none of it existed any more, “Now I really need to get the wages done today. They have to be in the bank by five o' clock.”
She picked up her coat which she had laid out on her bed for herself and went to go out the door. Stacy grabbed her by the upper arm, this is exactly what I had hoped we would have avoided, and what Lucy had been hoping I could avoid when she sent me, this was where it got really difficult.
“Get your hands off me,” Julia snarled and wrenched her arm free of Stacy's grip.
“You need to come with us for your lunch Julia,” Stacy insisted.
Julia made to open the door but as she turned and pulled the handle I did what I had to do and hated myself for doing it. I put my foot against the base of the door and prevented her from opening it. She tugged at the handle in confusion for a moment then saw my foot. “Let me out of here,” she demanded.
This was not going to be a pleasant experience. “I can't Julia,” I said softly, “you have to go to the dining room and have your lunch.”
“I am going into town,” she said and pulled on the door handle again harder this time and I had to press harder against it in return as it banged in its frame.
“Let me out” she demanded again more angrily this time.
“Julia,” Stacy soothed, “we're trying to help you.”
“I don't need your help,” she shouted back,”you can't keep me in here. I'll call the police.”
And if she could have got to a phone she would have too, she had in the past often enough that the police knew who she was now.
“Why don't you stay here for a bit Julia,” I tried, “And I'll bring your lunch here.”
“I don't want any fucking lunch” she yelled straight into my face loosing her temper and flecking me with spittle which I couldn’t quite avoid without moving to far out the way to keep the door closed against her constant tugging on it.
Suddenly she began banging with her fists ferociously on the door and screaming “Help! Call the police!”
If she turned those fists on us I would have to restrain her, always a worry as fierce as she could be she was also old and frail. And besides all my sympathies were with her, from her point of view she had been perfectly reasonable, she had to go to her office and get some work done, and two strangers were holding her hostage against her will. But the truth was later today she would probably think she had to be elsewhere for some other reason with just as much urgency, always she had to be elsewhere it seemed with work to do and deadlines to meet. She wasn't ever aware of where she actually was. She had no idea she was in a Home, or that she was ill in anyway. She would become confused for periods of time, and whilst she never seemed to suffer the complete forgetfulness of others she forget everything outside the immediate moment she thought she was in. She could probably right now tell me every item in the office she thought she had to go to, exactly what work she thought she had to do, which wages and to whom and for how much even. Yet she couldn't remember her own husband was long dead and buried and her shops with him.
But she could seem very plausible, she was our biggest escapee as she had conned visitors several times, and a new start once, into letting her out by seeming perfectly reasonable, and she always dressed immaculately in one of her many business suits. I always thought she must have been a formidable woman in her time when she ran three thriving businesses, two of which she was already running on her own before she got married in a time when that was by no means common. And I was also glad I had never had to work for her.
She hammered on the door again then pulled on the handle with her whole body.
“I'm not letting you out of here Julia unless its to go for lunch,” I insisted against her fury, “You can do what you want after that,” I added, “go to your office if you like. I'll order you the taxi myself, “ I said gambling on her having moved on and forgotten all about this by the time lunch was over. But she wasn't buying it today.
“If you do not let me out I will scream this hotel down,” she threatened.
“You're not in a bloody hotel Julia,” Stacy pointed out, “listen to me, you are in Ashlodge Care Home. You live here now.”
That was never going to work and it didn't now, Julia just ignored Stacy altogether and turned her attention back to me. “Are you going to let me out?” she asked.
“Are you going to come for lunch?” I countered.
“I am going into town.”
“Then I am not opening this door,” I replied firmly and quick as a rattlesnake and before I could raise a hand to prevent it she slapped me, flat palmed and with considerable force across the face. A rush of sharp pain ,shock and almost immediate rage whelmed up in me, I grabbed her none to gently by the upper arm. “That is enough of that,” I snarled then got a control on my annoyance, “ Stacy go get Lucy, tell her we need something to calm Julia down.”
“Let me go,” Julia said writhing under my grip and raising her other hand ready to strike again, I could feel her last slap hot on my face still. I grabbed her other arm too and had to all but drag her back from the door so Stacy could get out, even so Julia still made a determined effort to break my hold and make her escape. “I'll have you arrested for this,” she promised.
“Hey, you're the one who used violence,” I pointed out.
“You can't keep me here,” she protested then started shouting at the top of her voice,”Police! Help! Help! Police!” Then she screamed a tearing crying that must have been heard throughout the entire Home.
Lucy seemed an age in coming as I held Julia who would periodically fight against me or start screaming and crying. And the whole time I felt nothing but miserable restraining like that and listening to her cries alternating between anger and pleading. I couldn't risk letting her go as I knew well enough she would just bolt for the door and if I choose to stand at the door and just let her free in the room she would either attack me again or start throwing random objects at me.
Eventually there was a knock on the door with Julia in mid-scream. Lucy came in, she had a cup of water one hand and two pills in the other.
“What's all this screaming?” she demanded and Julia stopped, “ooh sore one or have you been using blusher,” she said noticing the red strike mark on my face.
“Let me out,” Julia demanded.
“Not until you've taken these, Doctors orders,” Lucy replied and held up the two pills, she then offered the water to her, unfortunately when Lucy had come in and stopped Julia screaming I had relaxed my grip and now she got got away from me. With a sweep of her hand she dashed the cup aside, splashing its contents across the bed and leapt for the door. But Lucy was quicker than her and slammed it shut with her hand and held it there and Julia bellowed in rage.
I grabbed the cup of water and took it into the bathroom an refilled it at the sink. I was trying not to think about what we were doing next but took the full cup back into the room. As I sat it down on the dresser within Lucy's reach Julia began raining a furious series of blows down on Lucy who squealed and raised her arms to defend herself shouting, “Grab her from behind.”
I did a she asked, grabbing hold of both of Julia's flailing arms preventing her hitting out any more. “You ok?” I asked Lucy, who looked shaken, her hair was ruffled and she was red in the face now too, “Yeah, bitch. I'll be fine, still not as bad as the one she got you,” I laughed at that and Julia struggled and I had to pull her arms back slightly and down straight by her sides, pinning them there, she squealed and tried to pull away but I had her firm.
Lucy then grabbed Julia by the screaming face and holding her by the chin tipped her head back and then using a tongue depressor Lucy shoved it into Julia mouth as Julia twisted her head back and forth and kicked out at every opportunity, this went one for a minute or so before Lucy finally managed to get the depressor properly in place and quickly she shoved the first of the pills into Julia's mouth and poured some water in after it. Julia tried to spit the water back up and out but Lucy had her head firmly back now and she was forced to swallow. Lucy repeated it with the second pill then we let her go and stepped back.
Water was dripping from Julia's mouth, her shoulders were heaving up and down as she drew in deep breaths, recovering from her struggles. Lucy nodded to me and we quickly opened the door and got out the room. Lucy closed it behind her and locked it. This was technically not just against the rules but against the law. If there was an a emergency she could be stuck in there, but we had no staff to spare to watch a door and if we didn't lock it she would be out as soon as we were gone. And as she had once been found trying to open a window to climb out of, not realising we were high enough for the fall to kill her, it was a lesser risk than not locking it. Besides it was only for half a hour or so by then Julia would have been as good as lobotomised when the medicine took effect and the door could safely be left unlocked again.
Just as Lucy turned the key Julia hammered on the door once more and yelled, “You bastards!”
“Yeah,” I replied through the door, not feeling at all good about myself, “sometimes we're paid to be.”

At long last! I will get to this in the next day or so.... {{{Why does he post things when I'm tired and busy? }}}

Look on the brightside its a very short chapter (and may therefore actually end up as half of a chapter, still trying to work that one out!)

I have probably more quibbles than usual, but I'm tired and distracted - my son's playing a war game on Xbox and yelling obscenities at his friends! (I think he's very much enjoying himself!) Anyway, I just now finished your latest instalment. I have to say, the less outright description and more you have direct interaction between the characters, the better things flow for me. Also, some parts seem clumsy,and even a little over-stated, but I'm sure you'll stream line things in editing.

Still, ever readable, and never dull. I'll read it again, maybe even tomorrow. Without the tiredness and son 's distractions, I'm sure I'll be more positive.

Btw I only read it now because I was so damn keen and couldn't wait until tomorrow, when I've got a day off!

Hey! That's actually a compliment.

See, I'm tired and not careful enough! As if I'd readily compliment you, Petty!

Dear Petty,

You are no doubt fully busy making my video, but if you were to break off from that awhile and write some more "Home", I'd be willing to forgive you! Don't let this tale rust away to nought. It has been a long time between installments!

yours faithfully,
Orwell McOdo.

I have a chapter I have been toying with putting up. (Glad you haven't forgotten it though-thanks for that)

"Toying" is cheap - "putting" is... err... more cost effective...?

Oh right, this is one of those stories-I-should-find-time-to-read threads.

yes continue Petty but dont call the next character Julia, it gives me the creepywobblers.

There is quality everywhere in Forumshirte, Amarie, but I am especially fond of "Home". Maybe it is it's 'real life' bent. Insightful and beautiful in its own way. I'm in a funny frame of mind, me-feels. My latest writings go toward the inane, but my need for 'serious' and 'real' stuff to read (as opposed to fantasy, however good) is strong at the moment. "Home" fills the gap. It's truly excellent. {{{I think Petty must have a Ghost Writer! }}}

Oh Mrs Figg - anything that gives you the creepywobblers MUST be creepy-as!

you give me the creepywobblers!

but dont call the next character Julia- Mrs Figg

Julia makes a reappearence- I can change her name if it troubles you Mrs Figg- I know Julia is the name of your favourite eel!


Praise from Orwell, wheres the other shoe falling? {{{Thanks Orwell}}}

I hoe you give it a go Amaria and, I was about to say I hope you enjoy it, and I do, but not sure enjoy is quite the right word here.

Stories about a pack of oldies in a Home? How dull! I'd never read it... How about something uplifting and joyful, Mr Tyrant...

I do have a piece Odo about a self righteous blowhard who steals a magic ice bucket and uses it make himself a forune and dominate local business. But he is finally brought down when an angry mob tear him limb for limb before and take back the ice bucket before they go on to have a big party to celebrate and the town lives happily ever after. Very uplifting, almost a WHolseome sort of Tale in fact. Was it something that like that you mean?