"Birds of Paradise/Birds of Prey" by Sherrill Alesiak

It is then, when Joella exasperates me, that I implore the gods to turn her into sea salt (You can do this! You did it to Lot’s wife!) or less dramatically, to plop her fat ass on a mule and pack her topside. During less-stressed days when all I have in mind is going to the beach, I don’t think of her at all.

Tonight she’s stressed me out by her vices that peck at me with the sharpness of a beak: overbearing, garrulous, and self-absorbed. I try to change the negatives into positives, so I repeat them like a mantra: friendly, conversant, extroverted; friendly, conversant, extroverted.  What is Joella’s hold on me? I should pack myself topside and be done with her?

Work frees me from Joella and her foibles to better concentrate on Bertrand’s dead weight that I’m hoisting onto a bedpan while he’s protesting he doesn’t have to pee, while he’s complaining his feet are cold, while he’s whining for oatmeal. I bend over him and instantly feel his hot, stale breath scorch my cheek. Mona in the next room is asking for more water. The phone is ringing. This should be a quiet night

After my shift, the minute I walk in the door, the phone will ring. It will be Joella who couldn’t sleep since her shift got changed, and now she’s a zombie, late for work again.

Initially, her friendliness, conversation, and extroverted personality drew me to her her; welcoming at long last a companion, though I remind myself that as the only other female nurse on Kalaupapa, I needed her.

© 2008 Sherrill Alesiak. All Rights Reserved.