Shit!

Thoreau's Journal: 04-May-1852

R.W.E. tells me he does not like Haynes as well as I do. I tell him that he makes better manure than most men.

==

After a while, her nap was rudely interrupted.

She hadn't remembered falling asleep, probably something that happened when the music lulled both of them into a lovely quiet space. A lot of ghosts gently entered into the space then, a familiar feeling of love and the old tenderness.  Just yesterday, he was stroking her cheek.  Some dream of their lovemaking got conjured up and she remembered the hollows and muscles of his body.

But there was something wrong.

"Shit!" he shouted.

She smelt it too.

It wasn't a metaphor or a declaration of frustration.  It was literal.  Her eyes opened and almost immediately began to water.  He had shat himself in the hospital bed in his dining room.

His nurse had called in sick yesterday and the day before. In fact, she was just beginning to regret speaking to her at all when she arrived.  She had betrayed him and somehow volunteered herself as his last living caretaker.

His face was turned to the wall, depressed and humiliated.  She jumped up, ready for the task.

"No worries, a little shit doesn't scare me. I've heard you sing,"

He smiled at that. When he looked at her, his eyes seemed to be watery.  She couldn't tell if it was his age or sickness or if he was starting to cry out of gratitude.

She gave him a tender sponge bath at 3am, running her hands over the body she knew so well.  The biceps that had always been so strong (as solid as his prick) were gone, replaced by bone and slippery skin.

She had to resist the urge to kiss all of his old freckles.

She made jokes instead, which was just as good.