Story 36: Muriel’s fabulous idea

This is the fourth day of seven days in which an earlier story is repeated. Today it is Story 36: “Muriel’s fabulous idea”. It was first posted on 15 November 2013.

My name is Muriel. I have a fabulous idea.

Here is my fabulous idea:

You know all those people in old people’s homes who have lost their memories? Alzheimer’s or something? They don’t know nothing. And they’re happy. Well, why not use their eyes for cornea transplants? They won’t know what would’ve happened to them. And that way they can be of some use to society instead of a burden.

And there must be other parts of them that can be used for transplants as well while they are still alive. I’m not medical. Like hand transplants or skin grafts. No hearts or livers and so on because that would kill them off. And what is the use of a dead donor that’s gone cold?

A fabulous idea, eh? Here it is:

You know all those people in old people’s homes who have lost their memories? Alzheimer’s or something? They don’t know nothing. And they’re happy. Well, why not use their eyes for cornea transplants? They won’t know what would’ve happened to them. And that way they can be of some use to society instead of a…

“Excuse me, Muriel,” said the surgeon. “Would you mind following me please to the operating table?“

2363. Get some of her own medicine

Pearl was on substantial heart medication. She was on eight pills in the morning and three pills in the evening. The pills worked a treat. She got no or little angina. She was reasonably busy and played an active part in the local lawn bowls club.

“The thing that gets me down and causes untold stress is my husband of forty-seven years. Selwyn has Alzheimer’s, has one prosthetic leg, is blind in one eye, and is incontinent. I know it sounds awful, but I wish he would die – perhaps painlessly in his sleep. Something like that.”

But Selwyn had no intention of doing such a thing. He lived on ceaselessly.

Pearl worked out a plan. She would overdose him with her heart medication. He wouldn’t have a clue what was happening. So she did that and Selwyn died “painlessly in his sleep”.

Of course, she had used up all of the heart medication that had been prescribed for the month.  Pearl died of heart disease a week after neglecting her medicine.

Post-mortems revealed the truth. As Lorna of 34 Hillsbury Crescent said, “It wouldn’t have hurt for her to have gotten some of her own medicine.”

1860. An obsession with porn

Neville knew all the online addresses of porn sites. At least he thought he did; only the free ones, mind you. He wasn’t going to pay for all that rubbish.

His wife of course had no idea. She thought he was engrossed in a computer game, or maybe some intelligent reading. After all, he was interested in animals, and when he could drag himself away from the internet he would watch National Geographic on the television, especially if it was about animals that weren’t so common. Every second animal program was about lions or elephants or giraffes. He wasn’t that interested in that sort of program. Those programs were so common they had become boring. His interest lay in the less common fauna on the planet. The program on the Australian Gulbaru Gecko for example was fascinating.

“You’re addicted to the animal in you,” his wife joked.

For a while Neville thought his wife had caught him watching the porn on his computer, but thankfully she was talking about his choice of television watching.

As time went on, things began to creep up on Neville. Was that a touch of Alzheimer’s? Was senility starting to set in? Indeed it was, and in the end rather quickly. It wasn’t long before his wife was at the end of her tether. He had to go into an environment that was both safe and secure.

In the Care Centre Neville’s lifetime obsession with porn became apparent. Looking at porn sites was all he did. Everyone could see it. It’s all he would talk about. His wife tried to get him to take some interest in the Australian Gulbaru Gecko, and other skinks, lizards, and geckos. All to no avail. For Neville it was porn or nothing.

Until the day he died.

411. Never got to say goodbye

Emily and Reuben had been married for forty-two years.

Reuben had always fed the cat. He fed the cat in the early evenings. But now he was starting to forget that he’d fed it. And he’d feed it again. Once, he fed it four times.

Then he started firing his gun. He said he was shooting the moon. It was a big balloon. He would make it go pop. Emily hid the gun. Then he couldn’t find the gun because he needed to shoot the cat, because it wasn’t eating. He’d fed it for four days and it hadn’t eaten a thing. It must be sick and dying because it wasn’t eating. He had to put it out of its misery.

The saddest thing though was that Emily never got to say goodbye. He’d gone long before he went.

107. Trash

Marcia’s lounge window looked over the street. There was a street lamp there, and next to it was a trash can. Every day Marcia watched this old man go through the trash.

He would take out all the trash, bit by bit, and carefully arrange pieces according to type. Ice cream wrappers were placed in a separate pile, as were screwed up cigarette packets. Chicken bones and waste food were heaped together.

When all was done, he would carefully return them to the trash can, sorted and orderly. Marcia knew he arranged the rest of the trash along the street. She had seen him.

He wasn’t hungry. He’d never ate the scraps. It was simply that he was old, obsessively orderly, and was suffering from dementia.

When the old man died, Marcia was at his funeral. She spoke.

“I want to thank everyone who saw this old man, in the last few years, sort the trash along the street. Although he was strange, you never made fun of him, but always treated him with kindness and respect. Thank you for your thoughtfulness and humanity. Even though he was old and different, he was still my father, and I loved him.”

36. Muriel’s Fabulous Idea

My name is Muriel. I have a fabulous idea.

Here is my fabulous idea:

You know all those people in old people’s homes who have lost their memories? Alzheimer’s or something? They don’t know nothing. And they’re happy. Well, why not use their eyes for cornea transplants? They won’t know what would’ve happened to them. And that way they can be of some use to society instead of a burden.

And there must be other parts of them that can be used for transplants as well while they are still alive. I’m not medical. Like hand transplants or skin grafts. No hearts or livers and so on because that would kill them off. And what is the use of a dead donor that’s gone cold?

A fabulous idea, eh? Here it is:

You know all those people in old people’s homes who have lost their memories? Alzheimer’s or something? They don’t know nothing. And they’re happy. Well, why not use their eyes for cornea transplants? They won’t know what would’ve happened to them. And that way they can be of some use to society instead of a…

“Excuse me, Muriel,” said the surgeon. “Would you mind following me please to the operating table?”