The California Nursing Home

1

A few years ago I discovered what seemed like the best website ever. Well, the best for me at least. It targeted young people who wanted to practice their English skills with actual conversation. The site partnered up with American nursing homes, so you could video chat with the residents. Elderly people, who wanted nothing more than a nice talk and the feeling of being useful.

I've been involved in voluntary work since before I got my first bra, so you could call me a bit of a veteran on the subject. Also, I never had anyone to practice my crappy English on. Now I could do both at once? Well, that got me hooked from the get-go.

This is how I met Mr. Wiebe.

He was a different kind of old person. Super witty, sharp sense of humor, we really hit it off. He was also a retired English teacher, which was a best-case scenario for me. We started talking once a week.

Mr. Wiebe lived in a really nice nursing home in California, but we had a bit of a time zone problem. He would spend most weekends with his grandsons and I had classes all day long during the week. The only moment we could both go online was around 11 pm in his local time, which is quite late for nursing home standards. But he convinced the nurses to let him cheat the curfew and "help out the young lady on the computer". That guy could sell a bag of sand to a nomad in the desert. Talking to him was my favorite part of the week.

But then there was this one goddamned night.

It started out as usual. Mr. Wiebe was telling me about another resident who kept accusing people of stealing his napkins during meals. "I consider myself a pacifist, but that is one obituary I'd read with great delight" he said. This comment made me laugh a lot, which seemed to give him more delight than any obituary. We talked a little more until he said: "Honey, I went a little hard on the jello juice tonight. Excuse me for a couple of minutes". He got up and left the video. I checked my phone for a while. Took a sip of water. Looked back up. It was there.

At first, I couldn't quite make heads or tales of it. His computer stayed in a large entertainment room and all of the lights were off, except the one right over Mr. Wiebe's PC. The background was all dark, except for this one little white blur. I think it was already there all along, but dimmer. Now it had gotten larger. I approached the screen to take a closer look. It moved. Was it a person? It seemed to be tilting its head, looking at me. Then it moved again, walking away into a dark hallway.

Mr. Wiebe returned immediately after this. I asked if there was anyone else there. "I'm the only one bold enough to stay awake past ten. Why?".

"For no reason."

I didn't sleep very well that night.

A few weeks went by in our normal routine. I was busy with college and voluntary work, while he had discovered stand-up comedy videos on YouTube, which was, in his words, "a game-changer". About a month later we were chatting away like always. He first told me about his favorite comedians, later we talked about grammar and auxiliary verbs, which I would still misuse sometimes. After about an hour, we said goodbye and he took off his earbuds.

"Is this off? Damn thing's been acting up. I think it's turning off." He said, and left the room. I laughed as he went away leaving the computer on. Mr. Wiebe wasn't very tech savvy, although, to be fair, he did ok for his age. The lights went off and everything was dark, except for the small circle illuminated by the computer screen. I was just about to disconnect when I saw it again. That same white blur. I sat up straight on my chair. It started to grow, getting closer. Closer. It was about twenty feet from the screen now, and the image finally became defined enough so I could see what it was.

She was wearing a white nightshirt. Below it, very thin, crooked shins. She walked with a limp and had some very old slippers on. The arms were also thin and ended on bony, purple hands with nails missing. There was long, dark hair that seemed like it had never been washed in a century. She raised her head a little and I could see the face. There was a mouth, yes, a huge mouth that had been cut outwards through both cheeks. Pieces of flesh would hang loosely, wet with blood. There were no eyes, just one big stitched scar where they should be. Yet, somehow I knew, she was looking straight at me.