soul market part 1

It never was easy for me to make money, I always worked hard, but the money never stayed for very long.

 I treated people around me with kindness, even though I never believed in God, I simply saw it as mutual respect, not so much a Golden rule, but I recognized that things worked harmoniously when you just treated others decently. My last job before it all happened, before it started. I was a janitor at the hospital, I had learned very early on to live inside my head, When your financial situation is not ideal, make your own world, the ideal home, inside your mind.

When I would do the rounds, and visit certain long term patients, sometimes I would just sit next to them, watch them sleep, and other times with some of the elderly I would speak with them softly, afraid to worry the orderlies. It was as if there was an unspoken principal...don't talk about dying, people for some reason like to deny the obvious, it's more comforting to be wrong, than to accept ones own end. I never was one for following social norms, I had a way with people for making others open up about unusual subjects. One man went on for 3 nights in a row about how he was a child molester, I am not a killer, or a violent man, but when I would sit there holding the hand of the kind of man who shared a room with him, I would begin to taste bitter, in my mouth.

He was dying of colon cancer, I am not sure if karma is a real thing, but every morning the nurses would remove clotted heaps of gauze and cotton, from a green pustule ever growing and rotting hole in his anus, apparently, he was only in the hospital because he was dying. He came from a prison. He was only here to die, I felt as if something poetic should happen before he actually croaked. I am not a normal man, I have always had an otherly feeling about my life, I never needed or craved love, I am not very ambitious. I just calculate. Like lining up the dominoes, each individual piece seemingly out of place but when you can see it all from overhead, it all seems so beautiful......later that night I went to visit a kindly women named Janet, Janet had been in and out of the hospitals care the last 15 years, she was Russian 97 years old with incurable brain cancer, most of the time, she had no clue what room she was in, but tonight of all nights she was more lucid than usual, as I entered the room, she looked to me and smiled. There is my guardian angel she said. I was not sure if she actually thought I was an angel of sorts, or if she was just giving me a compliment, and saying thanks in her own way, regardless I looked into her eyes and smiled, I held the glass of water up to her and positioned the straw so she could sip from it. She made an attempt to drink, but mostly it drooled down her face, even with her age, and mental state, you could see the shame in her eyes not being able to take a simple sip of water, when spending time with a friend. I took a handkerchief that a relative had once left her and used it to wipe the dripping water and saliva from her face, When she is lucid like this, she tells me stories of her younger years, I think it helps her just to have somebody to listen. This time she described to me, a small farm that she grew up on in Russia as she began to tell me about it she would lick her lips as if remembering something delicious.
She told me about apple trees and how as a little girl she would climb to the very top, to get her favorite kind, the really juicy ones.As she described how the flavors would goes from her lips down her throat, she grabbed onto my wrist with a deceptively strong grip. Her eyes locked with mine, as she asked me to reach into the drawer next to her bed, and hand the contents to her, inside was a small wooden box that I handed to her, her swollen fingers fumbled with getting the lid, so I helped her get it off...inside was a couple rolls of cash. I looked at her puzzled but curious, until she said that she knows I am a good man, every night for the fifteen years she had been in and out of the hospital I would visit her as well as all of the people, but she wanted to know why. I thought about my answer before speaking, and I said I am nobody, just a janitor. I come to work, and I go home, When I spend time with the people here they tell me about the lives they have lived, and when I listen and close my eyes I feel as if, just for a moment. That I too have lived such a great and active life. I looked back to her and saw that she was smiling,  her hands clutching the tops of her covers as if it was the only thing holding her to the bed.
While still smiling she told me that she saw something in me, she trusts me and wanted me to do something for her, she said that what she wanted me to do, was a very big favor. That only her guardian angel could do, she wanted me to go to her home that was still there back in Russia and get a bushel of apples from those apple trees and bring them back just for her. I thought maybe her mind was starting to slip again, as it often does. Her hand reached out instinctively and clutched my wrist again,still surprisingly strong for such an old woman. I opened my mouth to make an excuse, but the only one that came to mind, was that I have never been out of the state before.
I tried to pick my words carefully, but all that came out was...ok. Without warning she handed me the money, nodding her head approvingly, and fell back asleep without even telling me the name of the town, or directions. I do not speak a word of Russian, but I told her I would do this. I wasn't even sure if it really was ok to take money from a senile woman, but there is was in my hand.....the rest of the night I couldn't get what she said out of my head, or figure out why something as basic as apples would be so important to give so much money to somebody just to have them.
After work I went home, and got on my computer, I had never been out of the state let alone the country, but I didn't feel afraid, it was more because I never had a reason to leave that I never did, but now I had a purpose. I checked the prices and decided I would deposit the money tomorrow and buy a ticket the same day. That night my dreams were strange, but then again they always are, sometimes the are premonitions other times jsut messed up, tonight the old woman was dressed in a show girl sparkling dress, singing about something with beautiful young women dancing to a tune I couldn't hear, Then suddenly she held out a bright wet apple, and I could hear her say. HAVE AN APPLE! ITTTSS NICE AND SWEEEET! just then I woke up to the sound of my alarm. I brushed my teeth, and got showered, I like my showers with scolding hot water, it helps wake me up, before getting dressed I counted the money rolls, the night before  I had not noticed, that inside one of them was a scroll of some sort, I pulled it out and unraveled it. Inside was scribbled writing in what I could only guess was Russian,and in the bottom left corner was a red smudged thumbprint almost brown. I had worked in a hospital long enough to know that it was blood.