Photo Credit: EvilWata

In this medical fiction tale, a care facility cleaner juggles workplace challenges and quirky residents while dealing with evil management intent on doing harm.

This medical fiction tale is one of a collection of stories that are like “Final Destination” meets “The Monkey’s Paw” (W. W. Jacobs, 1902). As such, they are tragedies that appeal most to readers who enjoy the inexorable pull of a story arc that leads to doom. The technical details surrounding the event are drawn from real cases in the US OSHA incident report database or similar sources and are, therefore, entirely realistic, even if seemingly outlandish.

My name is Rosa, and this is my story.

I work as a cleaner at the Maplewood care facility. It’s not a dream job—I mean, who really wants to be a cleaner?—but it has its moments. The old people, the “guests” as they call them—are mostly nice, but some with the dementia are a battle. They shout at you, throw things, or even try to hit you but, like, they’re old, right? It’s not like a 90-year-old in a wheelchair is going to chase you around the building or something. Most are friendly or just quiet and sad and don’t even notice if you lift up their legs when you’re vacuuming under their chair. Others think you’re a grandkid and start sharing stories about the old days. That’s kind of wild.

There was this one old guy, Bertam, or maybe Bertram. Something like that. He was different. He showed me this badge he had that was green and blue with a lightning bolt in the middle and old photos of him and his army buddies next to a plane. He also knew a lot of dirty songs that made us all laugh. I liked him. He was one of my favorites.

My other favorite is Adelfina. She’s an old lady with green hair who used to be an artist, or an art professor, or something like that. She keeps very active and spends most of her days drawing pictures of people or carving little wooden animals. Sometimes she shows me old photos of her family, and sometimes she sings songs from her old country. For my birthday, she gave me a carving she made of an angel. It looks just like my daughter, Inez. I love that carving. It’s on the shelf in the kitchen where I see it every morning when I make breakfast before I leave for work.

But the bosses? Not so great. Our shift manager, Basil, was the worst. He would follow you into a room and try to back you into a corner and put his hands all over you. When he was around, we knew to stick in pairs and make sure we knew where he was. The women would whistle if he was nearby. That way you knew.

Basil and the facility manager were, like, lovers or something. It was strange. When they weren’t being all lovey-dovey, they were snarling at each other. There was no way to complain to the facility manager that Basil had grabbed you because she would just get angry and jealous and take it out on you. So, we learned to just suck it up and keep out of his way.

Then Eladia, a young, pretty new girl, joined us.

Like most of us, Eladia couldn’t speak a lot of English. She was also innocent and vulnerable and not very quick. Eladia was in Basil’s sights from the very second she got to work, so we all had to be extra aware all the time, watching out to protect her because she just didn’t seem to understand what was happening. Even though we all warned her to stay out of certain places and always stick with one of the older workers, Eladia would just drift off. Twice, she ended up in a room alone, and right away, Basil was in there with his hands all over her. When that happened, she didn’t scream or yell, she just cried. We only found her because someone on the crew went looking. We couldn’t complain to the boss lady, but even the guests knew what was going on with Basil.

One day, it went too far. Eladia was missing again, so three of us split up to search for her. I found her hiding in the storeroom, her uniform torn and bloody, crying in a corner. Basil was squatting on the ground in the middle of the room like a toad, a chisel sticking through his neck. He was as dead as a rock. I pulled Eladia up and out, then yelled back to the front desk to call the cops.

That was two years ago, and I think the cops have given up. They tried hard to pin the murder on me or Eladia, but it wouldn’t stick because I was with guests the whole time, and Adelfina even swore to them what time it was when I passed her room. Also, they figured out that the blood on Eladia’s uniform could only have been like that if she was under Basil when he died. They also checked out the boss lady, but she was in a meeting the whole time. In the end, they found out Basil had gambling debts, so I guess they figured someone from that bunch put an end to him.

Life moved on. The facility hired a new shift manager who isn’t such a creep as Basil was. The boss lady got promoted and moved to head office. Bertram passed away, but Adelfina, my favorite guest, is still here.

One day a little while ago, Adelfina carved a little wooden toad with a face just like Basil’s, and she laughed like crazy when she gave it to Eladia. I thought it was ugly. Eladia stared at it for a long time, kind of confused, and then she looked up at Adelfina with her eyes open really wide, and she started laughing, too.

I guess they both have a weird sense of humor.