Kit Duggan: Marshmallow Frozen Night Night: Parts 1-3

1.

David refused medication but once, at night, before the blood shrieking lady down the hall started up
After the last of the tapioca and ice creams had been dealt
An intricate arrangement of a dozen or so pillows snugged him sleep along with the mellow yellow hydrocodone splotch and marshmallow frozen night night
Rising to the flash bang mornings I would often announce looks like another day in paradise
Eh, David?

He forced a sitcom plaster of mood
Finding farce and picking places
To dry slop sarcasm or comic vitriol down his slack gullet

We clash chess and I am confident then outmaneuvered as the duel squares expanded in entrancing enchanting gallivanting angling hexagons for supplanting aggrandizing lexicon.

He told me never challenge an ex-con.

2.

In our near-sterilized and medicated paradise, my friend David acted a child who crowned himself king of the sand box

Within this rock smash grain conglomerate square he built castles of contrived comic belligerence and dug tunnels inches deep that led no place though he often insisted the opposite.

He taught me the crucial variation between Registered Nurses and their counter-part Registered Nurse Assistants

R.N’s bring pills at strict intervals and are all buisness/R.N.A’s have to bring low-fat ice cream or no-fat tapioca or diet soda whenever you press the red button.

He illustrated how to occasionally hide coveted opioids under tongue so they think you took them when you really never did

Then sedulously explained how a good roommate might remove it from his gob and generously plop it in the palm of his paralytic counter-part.

Little bit of spit won’t kill nobody.

3.

Was it envy emitting from the brooding gaze of David when I began to rise covertly with daring frequency in late November?

How I ripped myself out of bed as if rusted anchor from a nest of ancient coral each jagged morning

While he darkly muttered obscenities regarding the opening salvos of would be-Sinatra R.N Tony’s routine sun rise serenade

"Here goes the prick again. You know, I see you Peter Parker from bed to sink there, kid. Tsk Tsk…Still got those yellow socks. Going to mangle the new hardware so soon, huh?" He slopped from the serrated edge of his slumber crust mouth.

"They ran out of beige, is all. I’m not going to let the progression of my come back be dictated by the degree of neon wool around my feet, thanks. Or you, David, for that matter." I managed to exhale or sputter while grasping for a small protruding hook meant for coats on the east wall.

Would-be Sinatra Tony then burst in to our room, pushing a creaky cart bejeweled with touch-screen computer monitor and belting out an off-key rendition of 1954’s ‘Fly Me to The Moon’.

"…Let me play among those stars
Let me see what spring is like
On a-Jupiter and -"

His usurpingly gay energy is abruptly met with a thick, gurgling moan expelled from the gullet of David.

"I need you to shut it fast with the crooning before noon, Franky."

"Only you and a few other non- catatonics ever have complaints about the wake-up show." Beamed Tony, glancing at his notes while applying latex gloves.

"Rest assured - we’re a small but concerned minority, Tony." I offer from the sink after emphatically ejecting tooth paste. “Can’t you ever sing something a little more up beat? It’s always love and eternity with you."

David snorted and returned to nesting within the outfit of pillows adorning his custom order low pressure slumber station.

"That’s what the older folks need to hear," Tony shrugged, turning his attention sinkwards. “And what exactly are YOU doing? I know I’m not seeing a high risk kid skating about willy nilly unsupervised on MY shift."

"I ain’t high risk. Wrong socks, is all. I can’t take all this protection!" I exclaim bitterly while watching a bloodied string of tooth floss weave like confetti down to its waste basket grave.

"That’s what they all say," Grinned Tony, extending an arm towards me and removing a thick set of keys from his scrub pocket.

"Tell you what…Let me give the assist back to bed and I’ll cough up something yellow I happen to know you won’t have a problem taking. "

"It’s either valium or syphilis, kid. Could be both around this festering joint." Came the muffled gruff voice of my roommate.

Wincing, I relent and shakily reach for the latexed magenta fingers of the now softly crooning male nurse.

"In other words - - hold my hand."

Kit Duggan blogs at http://wedrownpebbles.tumblr.com