Literary Fiction

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For anyone with interest in Alzheimer's and/or dementia, this book is a must read. This Fictional Biography is now available on the Amazon.com and other online distributors.

Fictional Biography

Excerpt
(Excerpt from chapter 2, "Alzheimer's")

Dad is sleeping. His kindly face completely relaxed. He doesn’t have any more problems to solve. There is even a suggestion of a smile on his face. He always liked to smile. At least, he kept this little memento.

My thoughts drift back to suicide. Am I sinning just by thinking about it? And then I sit up, as if facing an interlocutor. In my mind’s eye I see an old man with a long grey beard. A man we all admire. Socrates. When faced with the alternative of compromising his beliefs, Socrates unflinchingly drank poison hemlock. Did the fact that he was condemned to death absolve his action?

Then I see another ancient.

Buddha ate tainted rice, fully aware of the ensuing consequences. He knew he would die. The kamikaze pilots are believed to rise directly to paradise. The Moslems and the Christians also reserve this reward, paradise, each for their own martyrs. Even for the premeditated, fully-aware-of-the-consequences-of-their-actions martyrs who die fighting, killing, murdering . . . on the opposite sides of a theological argument. For the countless martyrs of the ‘Holy’ Crusades, the Jihäds. Martyr-knights, their hands covered with blood to their noble elbows, serving their respective gods.

I AM THAT I AM. I am a jealous God. Allah is One God. Presumably so is Krishna. And Vishnu and Brahma and...

I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.



(Excerpt from chapter 7: "The Institute")


Bart and Steve have gone on ahead to install the carpet in our room.

The carpeting has to be laid on the sly. We asked if we could furnish our room at the Institute, at least partially, with our own furniture, and got permission but they don’t know about the carpeting. By the time management sees the carpet, the two hospital-type beds, the desk, a cabinet with eight drawers, two armchairs and some other bits and pieces are already pinning it down. It’s also glued to the terrazzo floor. I imagine that for years to come, our room will be the only one with wall to wall carpet.

"But it’s unhygienic!" Sister in charge declares.

"But it makes them happy!" my boys counter unanimously.

"But it just isn’t done at the Institute!" she insists.

"But we just did it," they state the obvious.

"But...."

Bart and Steve decide that the Senior Sister of the Order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary should have the last word, which they promptly ignore. The damage is already done, and Jan and I will be happy. As for the Sister? Well, she came three times that first day to gaze at the carpet, waved her head from side to side, as though not believing her own eyes. The Sister obviously considers it her duty to make sure that everyone live as long as humanly possible, in dull, sterile, hygienically exemplary conditions, no matter how miserable it makes them.

I try to explain it to her.

"We have no desire to live long, Sister. We have the desire to live happy."

"But...."

The sister is very good at ‘buts’. But what about cleaning? But what about the bugs? But what about the extra dust? But what if you spill something? But what will other people say? But... Had I not been brought up right, I would suggest that the good Sister’s a pain in the butt. Or buts, in her case. No wonder Sister finds it such an innovation. Nuns don’t have carpets in their cells.