Psyquester 3

Doris is the nurse's name. I know this because it is right there on a little green nametag suspended from one of her chipper little knockers. There is no last name on the tag. Perhaps she is like me and does not have one. It is rather appropriate, when you think about it, that I have no last name. Who ever heard of giving a carrot a last name. An eating, breathing, shitting carrot, but a carrot by any other name is still a vegetable. I have overheard the nurses discussing a doctor by the name of Kevorkian. Doctor Death, they call him. Where is this liberator and his marvelous machine when you need him?

I am being wheeled back to my room by a big, ugly redheaded attendant named George, and I hate it. It must be time for bed. Nights are the worst times. It does amuse me though that they think I need rest. Do I overwork during my hectic days? Is my pace killing me? Should I see a doctor so he can tell me that I am pushing myself too hard and need to slow down? I am already in retrograde.

Good old George doesn't give a fig about anything except his diddly schedule. For all he cares I could just as well be a crate of dead fish being hauled to a cat food factory. At the same time every day, he motors me down the hallway to my room, where he boosts me out of my chair and dumps me unceremoniously onto my bed, what the hell, he can't feel it. I know how George thinks; it is painted on his face as bold as a VanGogh self-portrait. I am less than a carrot to George. I am a carrot worm sucking up somebody else's oxygen, eating food that should be for human consumption, and taking up space in an already overcrowded world. George would like nothing better than seeing me gag on my own juices, turn blue and cease to be a drain on society, and especially on him. I wish George had the balls to do it himself. I wouldn't hold it against him; in fact, I would love him for it. I have been trying for as long as I can remember, which is either a couple of months, or years, or . . . to get inside George's head and plant a seed. Every evening at this time I concentrate with all my energy, trying to translocate my desire into his feeble brain, and occasionally I can detect a troubled, confused look in his eyes. I'm not sure if I cause it or if it a natural occurrence for George.