The room had fallen into a deep shade of plum during the winter nights. It was mixed with an eerie blankness, but that might have been due to her cataracts.  The light that Emily caught a glimpse of  shone through the window to the right of her and it came from the parking lot and there stood a single flickering light pole. Even though that hint of light was faded out by blinding snow it found its way into her room and illuminated all the machinery that lay beside her. It was about three  in the morning and she could tell by the faint sound of footsteps pacing back and forth down the hallway that the hospital staff was wide awake and already making their rounds to all the early bird patients.
Emily’s nurse, Rhonda, would make the rounds into her room in about 10 minutes and deliver a grand and shining tray that held the arsenal of medicine she would have to take throughout the day.  Emily had grown tired of the same old routine not just because of the petty senior activities like bingo, arts and crafts and therapeutic petting with the farm llamas, but mostly because she was no longer the one in charge of the medicine she was regulated to take. When she lived back at home her husband had  remained at her beck and call handing over all types of medication and allowing her to slip deeply into an overdosing which eventually led her into the hospital bed she lies in now.
In her mind Emily was entitled to as many pills as she wanted because she had suffered from alzheimer's for nearly three years now. All of her family and the hospital staff thought  that she was crazy but Emily knew the truth about her rapidly declining mental state. She decided it one night when she had called her husband into her bedroom to give her usual dosage of 2 A.M. and not even after a minute he entered the bedroom he had faced her only for her to say, “I have alzheimer's, what’s your name?” That was her final act of the night that ended her up in a place where all of the other neighborhood senile citizens came to spend put the rest of their short lives.
Of Course Emily felt entitled to taking pills to suppress her illness in the meantime while she waited for the sweet relief of death to come and whisk her away in the middle of the night. This was another fate that Emily had diagnosed herself  with.  Not fully awake yet herself Emily took the time to rub her sore eyes with her long gangly fingers as she continued to survey an unfamiliar room. At the same time she took in the scent of an unfamiliar aroma, a stagnant one, as it seeped in beneath the crack of her bedroom door and lingered with the stench of stale urine, IV drips and miscellaneous odors of janitorial cleaning supplies.
During her short time at the new hospital Emily had  memorized the schedule for each medicine run, activity session and meal course. She carefully tucked all of the information into the back of the mind that she claimed was weakened by an illness that robbed her of her memories and filled her with forgetfulness. When she had come around fully she wiped the exhaustion from her eyes and took notice to Rhonda, her usual nurse. She came with boths arms filled bearing the gifts of medicine and sedatives. “ Just what the doctor ordered “ Emily laughed silently to herself as she slithered beneath the blankets again like lucifer's serpent himself, scheming and plotting.
Rhonda Grayce, a  nurse who was always cheery and jubilant,  was a heavy set  blonde hair belle from southern somewhere, but what she carried heavy in her weight she doubled it with her great personality. Rhonda hit the light switch with the back of her elbow and turned to Emily’s bed only to see a smile pile of lumpy blankets moving up and down slowly from Emily’s raspy intake of breath.
Any nurse in her right mind would have turned heel and walked off in the opposite direction seeing Emily’s way of saying you're not welcome in my room, but Rhonda, who was always ready to take on the day with a smile, set down the medicine and turned the raggedy lump with a smile. “Why good morning there Ms. Emily” she bellowed with a tinge of southern accent , “ why, don’t you look as snug as a bug in a rug, hahaha!” Rhonda's laugh sang out and filled the room but it only made Emily cover her ears in annoyance. “Time to put on a show,” thought Emily to herself.
Making her way from beyond the safety of her coves Emily peeked her only peeked the top of her head from out of her covers. Her eyes squinted and glared at the large, giddy southern bell, “ Don’t look at me, who are you?” she said in  a hushed tone that was almost inaudible and quickly hid beneath the covers again. Rhonda continued to stand there with a smile on her face. Emily once again and peaked out from her covers.
“ Don’t look at me, who are you? she hissed. “Ba ha ha ha!” A laugh erupted out from the depths of the rotund women as she wiped a single tear from the corner of her eye. “ Oh Miss Emily, I love how you play hide and seek everytime I see you I guess that means even you can have a sense of humor at your age.” Emily watched Rhonda with a glare as she danced her way across the room and over by the windows. Rhonda took hold of of the thick cloth curtains and unveiled the early rays of morning sunlight, which shone brightly onto her rosy cheeks lighting her up like a christmas angel in July. Emily on the other hand held up her bony limbs in defense against the force of overbearing light, “shut the damn curtains!” exclaimed Emily and this made Ronda jump as she closed the curtains on demand and made her way back to Emily’s beside where the she- snake lay coiled and waiting.
While Ronda fumbled around with  medicine and mixing it into applesauce the sight of a small, bright orange container caught the attention the attention of Emily and her gaze locked onto the the item like a red dot from a sniper's gun locks onto its target, deadly and ready to strike.With a careful hand and Ronda’s attention occupied, Emily reached out in an attempt to grab the pill bottle but failed in her efforts when Rhonda turned around. “ C’mon now Miss Emily time to eat up here comes the plane”. Emily was not amused at the sight of the idiot nurse who was making airplane noises  at an 83 year old woman in a nursing home and proceeded to pull the sheets back over her nose and inquired again, “who are you?” Ronda being Ronda laughed off the phony play and continued to make airplane noises at the elderly woman. The two women continued to have a child's quarrel over a spoonful of applesauce meanwhile someone was making their way down the hall and towards Emily’s room. The figure stood stopped abruptly and looked beyond the doorway and witnessed the happy, fat nurse trying to shove a spoon down the patient's throat and the patient using every kind of curse words and obscene gestures towards the idiot nurse.
With a knock at the door, both stopped mid- argument and turned their attention to the small figure in the door, “ahem” coughed the small women, “ I hope I’m not interrupting anything. A stagnant silence lingered between the space of the three women as the small woman examined the situation of the larger nurse who seems to have climbed onto her patient's bed in order to spoon feed her bony patient. The silence lingered. . . . .  “who are you?! yelled Emily from across the room. Ronda recognized the tiny woman and came to her senses as she climbed off of the elderly Emily and attempted to quickly fix her appearance. “Oh Miss Suzanne, what a lovely surprised!” Ronda’s pleasant greeting was not reciprocated by the tiny woman who then made her way into the room and stood right by Emily’s beside. The nurse examined Ronda up and down looking closely at her dishevelment after the physical altercation she got into with Emily over a bit of applesauce.
“That's Miss Brady to you Rhonda, you really should address your superiors with more care next time.” Blood rushed to Ronda’s face and continued to fill with embarrassment as Mrs. Brady continued to reprimand her and while the conversation continued  Emily was left in the middle of the conflict,arms crossed and face pouting like a child. When Mrs. Brady finished her beratement of Ronda she turned her attention to Emily and the two women locked gazes. Their scowls both easily matched. “ So Emily, it’s been awhile since I’ve last visited you in the west wing and form these notes from the past few weeks it shows that you have made little to no progress on your recovery.”
Emily could sense where that b**** of a nurse was headed with the conversation and she didn't want any part of that so Emily did what Emily does best. “I don’t know what you’re talking about”, she spoke in a hushed tones, “what do you mean a few weeks I only arrived not even two days ago and I don't recall ever meeting you.” Mrs. Brady was becoming more vexed at the old stubborn coot that sat before her. “Oh Emily but it’s the holidays and wouldn't you rather spend it celebrating with your family than having to to lay in a hospital bed all day long?” Now she speaking in a condescending tone and Emily didn't care for that one bit. Emily had no retort, instead she retreated into her covers because he couldn't stand that sight of that woman for one moment longer.
Ronda, who had continued to stand idly by finally snapped out of her daze and put on a big smile again, “we'll Miss Suzan. . uhh. . Mrs. Brady, you know as well as I do that Miss Emily here is a special case and don’t know much at all with her brain being funny and all.” Mrs. Brady rolled her eyes at the round nurse and with a condescending reply she said, “you really buy into all that who are you crap don’t you, southern bell.” Ronda continued to smile as Mrs. Brady flipped through the sheets of paper attached to her clipboard, “and what’s with these new notes about the medicine dosage, she needs a surplus of sleeping meds?” Emily chimed in, “I need my sleep you know, what's the point of not remembering faces  if I'm not able to recognize my own beautiful face.”  
Mrs. Brady now had her hands on her hips and a furrowed brow lined her forehead, “Emily please you really don't need anymore sleeping pills than you already do that’s just how you ended up here in the first place.” Emily peaked a little beneath the covers, “ I don't remember how I got here” she said in a playful tone. Uuuuuhh, the long groan escaped from the tiny Mrs. Brady who turned around and made her way to the door but before she left something stopped her. She turned around slowly and with a sly grin that stretched across her tiny face, “Oh and Emily before I forget to mention it, your husband called the front desk and he plans on visiting you in the hospital this year to celebrate Christmas with you.” Emily’s eyes widened and she couldn't bring herself to say a single word. She was utterly shocked. Mrs. Brady gave her final farewell before departure, “have a Merry Christmas , Emily.” With those words she was gone.
Sitting there covered in blankets and disbelief at the impending arrival of her family, Emily had forgotten that Rhonda had been in the room this entire time. “Wow”, the sudden word broke Emily’s concentration, “Miss Suzanne sure is a fine head nurse and one that I would like to be someday.” She smiled kindly down at Emily with cheeks rosey and all. Emily glared at Ronda, “who are you again?” Ronda could only laugh and continued where she left off. She hurried around the room adjusting machines and replacing the feeding tubes in the old womans neck, tidying up as she went along, and as quickly as she moved she made her way out of the room and giggling down the hallway. The room was left empty and lifeless once again as it had before during the early hours of the morning but Emily could not settle down after receiving the news from the at witch of a nurse.
Emily was restless. She spent the majority of the day fidgeting in bed because she couldn't shake the thought of the impending arrival of her husband who at this point felt estranged and distant from her ever since he put her in this home. The more she thought about him the more she began to realize that she couldn't quite picture his face let alone anything that had done together for the past year. As a matter of fact he hasn't visited once ever since she was hospitalized despite the fact that all they use to do was argue and insult one another when they lived together under the same roof. All that she could muster from her memory was that before she left the house her husband was quit sick and for many years he was often bedridden due to the severe wound he received when he served in the Korean war. Those two were never quit the same after he returned.
While Emily continued to fidget in her bed another figure to shape in the corner of her room. She hadn't noticed the stranger standing there for at least a few minutes until he made his presence known. As she turned to face the figure a flood of emotions came rushing through her body and straight to her head and tears from her squinted eyes as the hot steams traced the length of the wrinkles all the way down her face. There remained a stagnant silence between the two that hung thought the atmosphere between them and no words exchanged for sometime as the man faced the elderly woman and continued to watch her cry. After some time, Emily wiped her tears away and fixed herself into a manner of repose as she turned to face the man before her. From what she could see from his physical attributes he was tall with a solid and sturdy build as she noticed his attire she could see that the front of his shoulders were decorated with a shiny display of medals. Moving onto his face, he had an olive complex and sported a clean shaven face and his carbon black hair was smooth back beneath a aberter that was also adorned with an array of pins and medals. 
There were no words, but then again there really didn't need to be. The handsome decorated man knelt beside Emily and took her small emaciated hand into his strong dark hand and held it with care and once again Emily found a fountain of tears to pour from her tear ducts as she could clearly make out the face of the man before her. With a large hand man leaned in to give her a gentle kiss to the forehead. How nostalgic, Emily thought, and as he pulled his large warm lips away from her forehead the man saw not an elderly woman laying on her deathbed  but a beautiful young one with features much similar to his own. His face lighted up upon recognition of the young women the and the two quickly took one another into a warm embrace with a tight grip wrapped around each figure. They remained in their tight embrace for some time until the bedroom lights suddenly flickered on. Emily was started at the sudden brights of the fluorescent lights as she looked up to see Rhonda and her chubby arms filled with pill bottles. Rhonda turned to Emily and greeted her with one of her big southern bell smiles, “Why hello again Ms. Emily, it’s time for your nightly round of pills before you doze off into dreamland.” The smile was wiped away from Rhonda’s face as she saw a frail Emily lying in bed with a wet face from tears. Rhonda suddenly dropped all of the pill bottles that she held so tightly and rushed to Emily’s side, “Ms. Emily!”, exclaimed Rhonda, “what's wrong?” Emily turned to Ronda with a sweet smile and placed a small hand to Ronda’s round cheek which was something completely out of character for Ronda and it had taken her aback in that moment. Emily whispered to the nurse, “he’s coming, he’s coming here to visit me finally after all these years.”
Confusion showed on Ronda’s face, “who’s coming to visit you?” inquired the large nurse. Emily inhaled deeply and exhaled a pleasant reply with a sense  sweet sorrow mixed in between, “my husband” she cried. Ronda suddenly pulled her face away from the sad old woman and stood up from her bedside while taking her hand from her face and placing it into her own. “Oh, Ms. Emily, you sweet confused old woman, no one is coming for you, especially not your husband.”