Member-only story
Last Price: Chapter Ten
Shiva and his lute
The following evening Shiva found himself watching TV again. Only this time he was being paid. Not that payment made the experience anymore pleasing. He scanned over the spacious lounge of Park View Lodge. Five residents were slumped in various stages of consciousness. A dense fog hung over them, only accessible to his eye. He looked over at Tom, his work colleague for the shift. There were few signs of animation. Half a cup of coffee lay abandoned by Tom’s feet. And his eyes were rapidly losing the battle to remain open.
Shiva looked from the residents to Tom for a second time. It was puzzling. Tom went home at night, unless he was doing a ‘sleep in.’ Tom got paid for being there. The residents did not. Was that all the difference there was? This mental health business was very subtle. Shiva considered that going crazy was an experience common to most people at some stage in their lives, and one that was necessary in order to grow, in order to be healthy. So why were they here? What were their stories? Their spark of creation was dim, certainly. But no more than Tom’s. Shiva scanned across from Tom to residents, residents to Tom and saw little difference.
Several times in the course of the shift Shiva had attempted conversation with his colleague. It had been hopeless. Tom’s responses made up of a random series of grunts and sighs…
