Harold

Harold was old. At 60 he'd lived a hard life that left his body a painful, creaking wreck in half a dozen places. He went into the home that year. Hours passed like days between enrichment activites and watching his new aquictances --he would not deem any of the half lucid beings friends-- slowly rot and die or die and rot.

By 70 he had settled into routine, ready to die. Dry backgammon and chess games melded into the worthless televison that played hours a day. New residents came in and went out, Harold paying his hostlie stare over their crunched up bodies so like his own.

When he was 80 the home started running out of money. There were less staff, less residents, more stinking death. The TV got worse. Things broke and weren't repaired. His sheets were changed less often. Harold wondered whether the maggots would eat him as they had other bodies in other squalid rooms with peeling wallpaper and broken ACs.

Harold was 90 when the home sold. A new crop of staff came on, bringing constant noise for Harold didn't know how long. They sat him in the common room for a time and when someone finally led him back to his room it wasn't his room any longer. The wallpaper was stripped off, the walls painted, bed changed out for a smaller one. The room was smaller too. A dividing wall ran it's length.

For his 100th birthday the staff organized a party for him to grumble through. The home was crowded, then. Other residents enjoyed his party as an excuse to be festive and drunk. They were allowing drink now, the caretakers. It lifted peoples spirits on occasions like this, but not for Harold. He did not drink.

Turning 110 Harold was ready to die. More ready than he had been ever before. He had seen it far more than he could remember now, knew someday he would be restlessly tired and lie down, glad to get it over with. But the tiredness he had seen again and again never came for him. Everyday he got up, played his little games of checkers and slot machines on the thing a caretaker had given him. He ate. He was bathed. He slept. The end would not come.

120. Harold would lie in bed all day never minding the sores waiting for death to come. It would not. Inevitably an orderly would come in and hustle him around, give him pills. No matter what, Harold kept on living. Ready to die and yet still...