It smelled of old people.
There really isn’t any other way to describe the way a nursing home smells. Like cooked meat and sickness with an undertone of bleach. One of those smells that makes you want to turn tail and run as far away as you can to some where not so sad.
I walked down the halls slowly, clutching my portfolio of pamphlets to my chest. The halls were the usual white with floral trimming and the occasional picture to make the place seem more like home. I cringed and sped up every time I walked past a room and some one inside called out to me so that by the time I had reached the dining hall my feet ached.
The foom was half filled with half awake senior citizens all staring at me oddly. Brushing a stray piece of hair out of my eyes and behind my ear I walked through the doorway and to the nurse standing at the podium at the front of the room.
“Hello,” I smiled and shook her hand.
“Hello doctor,” she smiled back before turning back to the lively crowd in front of us, “All right every one lets give a warm welcome to Dr. Uma Snow; she’s going to be talking to you all about the dangers of fatty foods.”
There was a small pause before two people clapped, one grunted, and another sat with his head back drooling in his wheelchair.
I cleared my throat, “Hello every one, as you know I’m Uma Snow and I’m here to talk to you about the perils of fatty foods.”
Silence
“Well as you know, these types of foods are all around us,” I handed pamphlets from my portfolio to the nurse who proceeded to hand them out, “Potato chips, cream, butter, chocolate…”
They all looked back at me blankly. Wrinkled faces and age spots marked their ages on their skin. I hesitated for a second when a kind looking old woman in the frond row smiled up at me.
“I- I have to go,” I stared blankly at the people before me and I walked back out through the door and down the hall past the rooms and into the parking lot.
These people had lived for so long and put up with so much and now they lived in this terrifyingly sterile place. They didn’t deserve a PhD to tell them that they shouldn’t eat the things that still brought them some happiness.
Because the truth was I know that’s what they all knew.
1 comment:
Watch your verb tense. You've got smelled and smells in the first two sentences.
A bit cliche " to turn tail "
This needs explaining "I cringed and sped up every time I walked past a room and some one inside called out to me "
Make sure you consider that the nursing home is your audience, not just your subject.
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