Return To Oz

1.

    Nothing was ever enough for Uncle Henry, and frankly I couldn't wait for him to fall asleep. He sat, propped up by pillows in his old age, staring at everything and absolutely nothing- all at the same time. Gone were his strong cheekbones and jaw set in stone. In they're place were sunken cheeks and shaky lips. His hair, although it had been grey for sometime, was thinning and falling out in odd places. I couldn't remember a time when he wasn't old, but I'd never seen him this sick.

   "Pass me my crossword, Dorothy." He muttered, smacking his gums together like he was waiting on a fine meal. "I could waste away at this rate."

   I passed him his crossword puzzles and went back to gazing out of the circular window, opposite his small bed. For miles around, as far as my eyes could see, there was nothing but deep blue sea to keep me company.

  "Shit!" Henry burst, slapping the crossword into his lap. I rolled my eyes, smiling. Sometimes he was all the way there, coherent and his old self. Or more of a shadow of his older self, I could see him now. Slowly tending to the corn, watering each stalk back at home. Chewing tobacco on the old porch, cursing at his crossword puzzle. That was Uncle Henry before the storm. This man was almost an entirely different person. He'd stopped tending to the farm a year after the storm, and a year after that he'd taken to drinking. By the time I got away from the Kansas prairie and the sorrow that was Uncle Henry, he'd shriveled up into an even older man and I could no longer take care of him.

    "Em told me to stop doing these years ago. They don't do nuttin' but speed my heart rate up." He chuckled, relaxing back into his mountain of pillows.

   "She did, and you never seemed to listen." I said. Uncle Henry had an odd way of bringing up Aunt Em whether he was having an old senile moment or not. I always entertained him, no matter how much it made my heart ache. "A fast heart rate is the last thing you need. Your supposed to be resting."

  "Resting?" He scoffed. "There's nothing to do but rest on this dump."

"Was there anything else to do on the prairie? Or in my apartment for that matter?" He shrugged, and closed his eyes. Done with the conversation.

   I bit my lip and took a moment to scrutinize the room. He was right for the most part. The walls were beige. The room had little to no decoration, and the window didn't give much to look at. And that was just the room. The entire ship was mediocre. The food was bland and presented unceremoniously. The staff was dry and unwelcoming, and the activities lacked any real creativity. I didn't know if I would last another day on this ship, let alone another three. But it was my last option. I'd finally started a life, far away from Kansas and I kept finding myself back there, taking care of Uncle Henry. I needed him to be well taken care of, so that I could focus on myself, just for a while.

It sounds selfish when you say it to yourself like that.

I'd spent a big chunk of my life caring for Uncle Henry. I would continue to do so. I just couldn't babysit him any longer.

  "So this resort.." As if on cue, Uncle Henry spoke. "Whys it so far away?"

Of course I'd been waiting for him to ask me this. We'd been aboard the ship for a day already, but he'd been too busy mumbling about fixing the front porch step to get around to it. The Wallace Home for the Elderly was a world renowned resort nestled in the heart of Australia. A co-worker had written a very detailed article about the place, and after further inquiry I decided it fit as a home for my former guardian. He deserved it. It was a paradise for the old, full of things to do and beautiful places to rest. It only took me a couple of months to send in an application for residence, and after a few payments, the home sent two tickets for a cruise ship across the ___ to Australia.