[Del]'s Diary

ENTRY FORTY-EIGHT

Fill arrived after I had finished reading Logos and I stood up ready to see the Doc. Funny, how easily things become a habit, even without memory. But he climbed onto the foot of the bed, rolled onto his back and stretched.

I stared at him, unsure what this meant. “Aren’t we going to see the Doc?” I asked.

“Not today,” he drawled, still stretching and staring up at the ceiling. “He’s got a meeting with some big wigs from head office. So you’ll have me all to yourself all afternoon.”

I’m a little alarmed by this news, and I realized that I still haven’t decided if Fill is a perv or not. “You mean it’s just the two of us now?”

Fill laughed heartily, “I wish! This place is crawling with Veil bots. And they take their orders very seriously. But you are my only ward as of now so no one cares if you are on the receiving end of all my attention.”

He seemed sad when he says this. “What do you mean, ‘as of now?’” I pressed.

He swung his head at me. “I mean, you’re the last of the lot. You’ve lasted a lot longer than any of them. Which makes you their success story.”

I sat back down on the edge of the bed. “Were there many?”

Fill shrugged, “Enough”. His voice sounded thin and weary.

“Where are they all now?”

“Gone,” he said and I didn’t want to press further. Then he sat up chipper as usual and said, “Let’s play a game.” He drew a pack of cards from his breast pocket.

“What are we playing?”

“Solitaire,” he said while shuffling.

“That’s a strange game for two,” I responded.

“This is a special kind. I call it Lover’s Quarrel. Did you know that cards can talk?”

I must have been giving him a look of disbelief, because then he insisted, “No, really. For example, right now the Queen is saying to the Jack, ‘I know you are some crazy fool!’”

I laughed and he grinned. He went on to teach me the strangest game I’ve ever played, well the only one I can remember and I still can’t quite make out the point of it all. Then he made me play me the same dummy hands over and over again.

When he was certain I knew the game well enough, he did the strangest thing of all. He suddenly reached for my leg and drew my foot over onto his lap while saying, “Do you know, I once knew a woman who could play cards with her feet?” He started to insert sets of two cards facing each other between each of my toes. Then he looked up at me with his green saucer eyes, “Do you think you could play like that?”

I drew my foot away and shook the cards off. “You’ve just been dying to get your hands all over my feet,” I muttered.

Fill laughed and then flopped back down on his back. “It’s the high point of my existence. Every time I give you your sponge bath, I just can’t wait until I get to your little piggies.”

I couldn’t tell if he’s being serious or mocking me again. “Since I’m up so many hours during the day now, why can’t I just bathe myself?”

Fill considered this more seriously than I would have given him credit for. “I’ll ask the Doc about that.” Then he rolled over and sat up on one elbow, “Have you ever heard of alphagetti math?”

I responded negatively, so he proceeded to tell me all about it. And then much to my chagrin, drilled me over and over on it. At one point I even asked, “Who are you, Alex Trebek?”

This caught him by surprise and so he asked, “Do you even know who that is?”

I tried to remember but for some reason all I could think of is a moustache. Fill laughed at that. But, even though Fill was laughing at that, the sound rung hollow to me.

Fill rose to leave and something felt off, strange. I realized what it is. “No singing?” I asked while he opened the door and placed the deck back inside his breast pocket.

“Don’t feel like it much today,” he replied with a crooked smile and then closed the door behind him.

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