Romper Room winds down as Miss Nancy spins the magic mirror to see who’s watching her from the television world. “I see Jimmy, Valerie, and Timmy.” And the list goes on.

Good grief, I’m an old lady in her fifties, yet the Keeper expects to entertain me with this children’s program?

Life is unbearable stuck in this wheelchair. No, stuck in this broken body for half a century, my every need satisfied by another human being. Please bring me a tissue, a glass of water, something to eat, take me to the bathroom, put me to bed and don’t forget about me in the morning.

The television announcer says, “Time for the news, but first, a word from our sponsors. Stay tuned.”

Finally, a program worth watching. If I can listen to the news, I could suffer one more day.

“Now, now, puddin’ pop. Is your show over?” The click of heels grows closer.

The scent of sickly-sweet perfume overwhelms me, causing my lungs to constrict. A coughing fit follows.

“Are we catching a cold? Let me get your shawl.”

I maneuver the oxygen mask on my chest to my face with crippled hands. The coughing subsides. The unnecessary shawl arrives.

“Do you need anything else? Some fresh tissues?”

The tissue where I’ve hidden pain pills stays wadded in my fist. Does she know? I make a sign for a drink.

“Water for my sweetums, coming up.”

Being an invalid wasn’t always insufferable. Father, when he lived, would turn on the radio for us to listen to world events or entertainment. We carried on conversations with my limited ability to stammer out a sentence or two.

Before Father retired from his medical practice, he told me about his research on the human brain, the surgeries performed, and the patients healed or lost. Details about procedures and the science of healing gave me much to learn.

My dear Mother read to me daily, starting with devotions. When Father went to work, she’d read books such as Alice in Wonderland and Little Women. And classics like Moby Dick. She knew my taste in books, and we’d devour them.

The Keeper, my guardian, does nothing to brighten my day but delights in giving me sticky sweet nicknames and pretending I’m a bright three-year-old. I pray she won’t change the channel or turn off my only source of adult conversation.

“Here’s your water. Time to take your medicine.”

I hold my breath against the fumes that flooded my lungs earlier.

“Oh dear, let’s turn the telly off. We don’t want to fill your pretty little head with the terrible goings on in the world.”

I shake my head and signal my unhappiness, begging for the news to stay on.

“Sorry, darlin’, your show ended. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

With a simple click, the ominous sound of the grandfather clock echoes in my head.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

She places a pain medication in my empty hand. My treasure of pills is up to five. Is it enough to eject my soul from its broken body?

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

What would it be like to end the pain and see my parents and brothers in heaven?

“Take your medicine.” The Keeper’s voice beside my ear frightens me, and the vision of rejoining my family disappears. She plumps the pillow between my back and the chair and lifts me to put my butt against the back of the seat where it belongs.

Pain spreads throughout my body – mostly under my arms and rib cage. It doesn’t help that I’ve squirreled away my painkillers. Gravity tugs my body causing me to slip. My bones rattle together within my frame. Bedsores ache, though medicated and bandaged.

I do as she commands and swallow my pill. Oh, I hadn’t meant to do that. The rest must follow. Better now than to have her discover my hoard of tablets in worn-out tissues.

Some days it’s hard to get the medicine down, but not today. With the Keeper’s back to me, one pill right after the other slides down my throat.

She turns in time to see me drinking water. “Let me take that old tissue, apple dumpling.”

I smile at her for the last time. My head feels light, and my eyes are heavy with sleep. I lean my head against the back of the wheelchair, in a favorite sleeping position. If I could write a goodbye poem, it might go something like this:

A bright-eyed girl with a lifetime to fill went on a limb for a whirl,

soared through the air for a thrill.

A thunderous roar broke her crown;

After decades of decay, the dame drowned;

Don’t fret about her fleeing, for it is rapture.

I soar through the heavens and take in Earth’s blue, marbled beauty. Luna is not far; Jupiter’s red storm and Saturn’s rings are next. Where do I go first? The universe is mine to explore. A bright twinkle twists my attention – a beacon draws me to my childhood home on Moss Swamp Road.

With a wink, I’m at the front of the house. It’s void of life. A jungle of weeds and overgrown hedges can’t hide the neglected house left to rot. Memories flip like a photo album.

I was thirteen when I snuck outside to swing on a hot summer night wearing a long white cotton nightgown. Sitting next to my memory, we rock back and forth. The girl beside me isn’t aware of my intrusion. She’s an echo of the past.

My appearance changes to my young self. A sigh releases pent-up tension. I run into the moonlit yard, turning right in front of the wrought iron gate. On the sidewalk is an outline of a hopscotch game. I take a few turns, appreciating the skill and agility missing in my old life.

Beautiful gardens colored by another memory surround me—lights twinkling from each window. My family held intellectual parties inviting doctors, professors, and interns. There were times the house reverberated with conversations of new medical techniques and dreams of when women would win the right to vote.

Satisfied, I return to the porch and swing. As it turns out, thirteen is an enjoyable age to recollect.

A shadow blocks the moonlight, casting a strange shape on the ground that moves swiftly. I brace for impact, but nothing happens. It’s gone. No. It’s circling the house.

The memory evaporates, and I’m on the porch of my abandoned house. A loose shutter bangs, yet there isn’t an evening breeze. The midnight creature swoops onto the porch; its claws wrap around my throat. It chokes and lifts me.

My fingers grip the floorboards, and the bird of prey stretches me beyond my spirit’s capability. A horrible rip fills the air. Desperate, I thrash until my hand grabs the swing’s chain, yanking it from its bolts. The freed end of the swing slams into the porch, breaking planks. I scurry into the dark opening.

Above me, the fight continues. Peering through the gaps in the boards, I see myself throwing a chain around the feathered menace and pulling it tight. They hold each other in a standoff. How can I be in two places?

I take a quick inventory of my life force.  I’ve splintered from my soul, a fraction of my original size, still an image of my thirteen-year-old self, but faint, feeble, fractured.

“Don’t leave me.” I spring from under the flooring and pounce, but my other self vanishes.

The bird struggles against the chains breaking its bindings. I may never be made whole, but I’ll give myself a chance to escape. I wrap my form around the bird’s sharp beak and impede its progress.

The creature swipes me against a pillar and soars high until it is a speck in the sky. Weakened, I can’t get past the front door. Laying down, I weep until I howl in disappointment. What have I done? Will I ever find myself?

A far-off thunder hushes my wails. I sit up and count the seconds that pass, one-one thousand, two-one thousand. The house shakes like horses are stampeding across the rafters. The front door slams open, sucking everything into the kitchen.

The other me is hanging on to the black cast iron stove. A chair strikes the back of my legs and sends me to the floor. My fingers dig into the linoleum, slowing my progress into its open maw of a tornado. Strength built from pure desperation keeps me from flying into the void. I can’t fight this long.

The other me climbed into the black cast iron stove oven and slammed it shut. The oven vents through the ceiling to the outside and the heavens. She might escape.

The oven door shrieks on torn hinges. Ash and cold coals pour out into the funnel, but nothing else.

The winds stop, and blue skies appear through gaps in the boarded-up windows of the house—a scream of agony breaks the silence. It’s my other half. I soar to the top of the roof but see no sign of the bird or me. I’m alone in an empty house without knowing if my soul exists.

A sadness settles in my stomach, and I sink through the rafters to the bedroom that once was mine.