Tooth & Nail

• 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝙾𝚗𝚎 •

I recently started a new job in aged care, it doesn't pay well but it gives me a great sense of fulfilment to help those in need. 

I've always enjoyed the company of the elderly, listening to their whimsical stories and worldly experiences. Most of them are so thankful for your help, and it's always nice to feel appreciated.

Mr Whitman was the first client assigned to me. I would visit him five times a week at his house as he was rather stubborn and refused to be moved into an aged care facility.

He was often passed down amongst the carers, not for any reason other than he simply made them feel uneasy. But I knew that was just talk.

I was new to the job and wanted to prove myself, so I took it as a challenge.

He lived in a large double story house that was built sometime around the turn of the century, which had mostly gone unkempt over the last few decades.

The paint was peeling in several large patches and the garden left a lot to be desired.

Hardened vines still clung to the house's decaying frame and all life seemed to have passed on long ago.

I met him for the first time in the early fall. I wasn't told much about him; only that he was almost completely blind and in the early stages of dementia.

His wife had disappeared a few years ago, they told me she became fed up with him over time and one day just packed up and left.

It wasn't just the carers and his wife who didn't like him. The neighbourhood kids liked to throw rocks at his house and come up with crazy rumours; saying he was evil or that he murdered his wife and dumped her body in the lake behind his house.

Just kids being kids, I guess.

I didn't think much of children; I was bullied a lot growing up due to being shy around other kids. I ended up spending most of my time at my grandma's rather than being around people my own age. She was the only friend I had as a kid, so aged care was an easy decision and seemed right at home for me.

During my first week at the Whitman estate I never suspected anything peculiar. He just liked to sit in his living room chair facing the south side window that overlooked a small but largely overgrown lake.

If I could say one discerning feature about the man it would be his persistent habit of biting his nails. He would sit there from sunrise to sunset staring through that dirty old window, never saying a word, just staring and biting.

Once I had to physically stop him when I saw that he'd bitten through the tip of his finger. He was strong for his age and I had to use all my strength to force his hand away from his mouth.

I remember it so clearly, that look in his eyes as his gaze snapped from the window to mine. It still plagues me to this day.

That glare held presences, it held malice, and I could sense every bit of hate through the fog in those eyes.

Weeks went by and winter had well and truly found its home within the walls of the old house. I would light the fire with every visit, which seemed a futile gesture as I knew Mr Whitman would never tend to it, leaving it to extinguish itself soon after I had left. So, I would make do by draping a knit blanket over his legs just before leaving in the evening.

He rarely ate and when he did it was always after I had left.

Upon returning the next day I was inevitably greeted with the gruelling task of swatting flies and scrubbing the grease and grime left smeared all over his cracked and aged crockery.