The Haunted Asylum

Chapter One

Today marks the first day of summer. I should be excited. I should be thrilled. Everyone I know is going to sleep in and stay up all night. Not me. I am going to visit my grandmother. I am not too thrilled about that. She is sick and needs tending to daily. I ask myself, "Why can't my parents do the job? " I am just a teenager who needs to have fun. I will be graduating as a senior in a couple of days and am I happy about that? Oh, yes! Does that mean no more school for me? Um- not really. I am starting college in the fall and had already filled out my applications, and scholarships to the University of Houston. Because well-that is where I will be going to get my nursing degree. I aslo ask myself, "why did I even choose this field?" I hqve a pretty good, strong stomach for someone my age. Most tens these days throw up or faint at the sight of blood. I can handle blood, urine, fecal matter, and snot. Bit throw a dog or a cat in front of me that coughs up a hairball and I run the other way.

My gradmother is really weird. I mean, she's a lovely lady (sorta) but she's weird. She always has this look on her face that haunts me in my sleep and when I ask her what's wrong, she snaps back to reality and says, "Oh, no dearie. Everything is fine." She's there but she's not there mentally. It's like she's gone off to some far off distant planet, and only returns to Earth when you say her name or snap your fingers in front of her. She gets up really early, like five o' clock early, wants her bath, wants breakfast, do her laundry, do this, do that. It's really exhausting and by the end of the day, I am wore out and too tired to do anything except take a hot alcohol and Epsom salt bath, dig underneath my warm bed sheets and play youtube videos until I fall asleep. Then it happens all over again the next morning. I don't get to take naps, because when she's getting her naps, I have to take her dog, Martini out to go potty, or finish her laundry, or start the dishes, or water her plants. She is always up to something.

Which brings me to another topic. She doesn't have a dishwasher. I am her dishwasher. She is still "stuck" in the old days, I guess. She doesn't know what facebook is, she doesn't know what instagram, snapchat, twitter, or youtube is. She doesn't have a flat screen, hi-definition television. She doesn't know how to use a computer, or even a Samsung Galaxy tablet. She doesn't have an iPhone. Her phone is a plug-into-the-wall rotary phone. She doesn't even have caller id. I am worried aout her most of the time. After all, she still is my grandmother.

Before she got sick, she used to visit mama, papa, and I for every major holiday, and I enjoyed her. She joked about the old days, watched movies with me until midnight, and used to make some of her awesome apple pie. But after she suffered a minor TIA (or a stroke) she did a complete 360 turnaround. I don't even know who she is anymore to be honest with you. It's sad. It's like a demon took my grandmother's body and took control of it.