AMOS TROTTER 11: THE SETTEE

THE SETTEE

                                                    Amos Trotter 11: THE SETTEE

                                                             A Short Story By

                                                                  Paul Broad

Breakfast was over at Shady Rest Assisted Living and Nursing Home. Not ready to return to my room and knowing it was too early for anything organized to have been started, I was taking a pleasant break sitting on the hall settee waiting for whatever disaster might crop up on this day. I kept a rotating glance up and down the hall to see if anyone was there. I adopted the air of casually admiring the artwork (English hunters, mounted and following the hounds behind a haggard fox), scrutinizing the pattern on the vase, (resisting the urge to check the bottom for the ever-present 'Made in China' stamp, and gently toying with the fabric of the settee just to keep my hands busy.

There were two reasons for this. One, you never know when some trouble may creep up on your blindside. And two, I didn't want anyone to catch me in what to them would look like me engaged in a conversation with myself.

If someone in the hall were to see me they would not know that I was in a conversation. It just happened to be with George Dubois who had just materialized sitting beside me on the settee. George was a resident ghost in Shady Rest as well as my sometimes advisor, sometimes critic. I was consciously keeping my lip movement to a minimum to disguise our conversation should anyone be spying on me from a place of concealment. Some people kept their eye on me like the car wreck you just can't avoid looking at. They had some crazy notion that weird things seem to happen to and around me. They were not altogether wrong. It's not my fault.

"How do they know where you are?" I had just asked George, referring to his friends. His friends were other ghosts that had stopped by recently to say hello as well as check out one of the few among the living that could see them. "I mean, I know you are normally around Shady Rest all the time, but they just popped out exactly where you were?"

"Deh you go again, Mista Trotter." He said slowly shaking his head. "You jus gots to have the reasnin what cause everything doan you? Shawt answer, I gots no clue whatsomeveh. It jus is. If I wants to visit a spell wit them, I jus turn and take a step and there I am, right where they are."

Well, that's a little short of satisfying George." I would expect that anyone who had navigated the transition from this existence to the next one would have gained some understanding of how this stuff works. "You need to make inquiries so you can pass it on to me." It was low but I am pretty sure I heard a 'hmmmph' muttered derisively in my direction.

I heard a noise from around the nurse's station, so I turned my attention pointedly in that direction barely aware of the response from George. I did get the drift of it, centered on the fact that he had never had an obligation to educate me and felt no great need to start now.

I was startled by movement on the other side as Patrick flew up like a whirling dervish, which is his normal speed. My eyes opened wide as, before I could distract him, he sat squarely on George Dubois. Or, I should say, sat through him, in him, I got a little queasy.

"What the heck Trotter?" Patrick said. "It's just me. You look like you've seen a ghost." And I am sure I did, horrified at what might result from the intermingling of the living with the spirit of the dead.

Before I could do anything, George simply stood up. "Doan fret yo'sef Mista Trotter. Ain the first time I been sat in. It doan hurt an ain likely to be the last. I see you lateh." And, with that, he blinked out. Still not walking through a wall, George could use a little work on his grand exits.