For this weeks Flash! Friday we had 310 words to write about the following. I really loved the name of this place, the Odd Fellows Home for for Orphans, Indigent, and Aged. That greenhouse really spoke to me to…
An Oscar worthy performance
Oscar shuffled to the counter, dodging hordes of screaming orphans. He hammered the small bronze bell with the zeal of a hungry woodpecker. The nurse at the desk looked up from her crossword, “What now Oscar?”
“Someone stole my medicine again!”
“Are you sure you didn’t swallow it?”
Oscar scowled indignant, “I think I would remember if I had taken it!”
“Remind me, what is the medicine for?”
“My Alzheimer’s!”
She sighed to herself. How many times did they have to play out this scenario? She did her best to act concerned, “Why would someone take your medicine?”
“Because they want me to forget. They don’t want me revealing the secret of the greenhouse.”
Not the greenhouse conspiracy theories again. She played along in the hopes he may actually commit to a theory today, “What secret Oscar?”
“I’m the only orphan left from all the boys I came here with. The greenhouse took them. Dark things are hidden in there.”
She made a mental note to increase his anti-depressants, “It’s not a great place to hide something, it’s made of glass. The only thing in there is our award winning roses.”
He leaned over the counter, “I need more pills. I can’t forget, I must never forget.”
The nurse reached under the counter. She shook out two blue pills and handed them over with a cup of water. She said, “Swallow them.”
He did so and stuck out his tongue. Placated he wandered off and she went back to solving seventeen down.
Oscar went straight to the garden shed and dragged the limp body of the orphan from under the tarp. He ground up the body in the wood chipper, ready to fertilize the roses. Nothing made them bloom quite like fresh blood. He quietly muttered to himself, “I can’t forget, I must never forget.”
