BOO

I called Sylvia

My 93-year-old friend

around 5 PM.

Someone picked up the phone

but I could hear nothing.

For the next four hours

each time I try to call

her line is busy.

Finally around 9 PM

I could stand it no longer

and coaxed DeRay to ride

down with me to check on her.

He’s worn out.

He took Aunt Olive to visit Uncle Grant’s

grave on his birthday.

Sylvia probably just left the phone off the hook

but I have to know.

“If her light is on,

we’ll know she’s OK,”

DeRay reasoned on the way down.

The light is on.  Good.

But we’re here, we may as well know for sure.

Ring.  Ring.  Ring.

Pound on the door.

Stillness.

I go next door.

I know who he is because I hear Sylvia talk

about him all the time.

He doesn’t know me from Eve.

He suggests I pound on the window.

I pound.

Stillness.

I pound on the door again.

I walk back to the car.

“The porch light came on,” DeRay observed,

“maybe its action activated.”

“If its action activated,

it would have come on the first time.”

I walk back, pound again

and the door opens.

“You scared me.”

“YOU SCARED ME,” I retaliate.

We turn her phone off,

thankful that’s all it was.

“Would you put drops in my eyes?”

She couldn’t even open the drops,

let alone put them in her eyes.

What was the doctor thinking?

She has been weak and sick

for over a month now;

hasn’t been able to go to church,

even while she is Gospel Doctrine class president,
who has the arduous responsibility
of assigning the prayers and telling the jokes.

I wish she weren’t alone in that big house.