My Son Is A Beast

I hope the woman that the main character is based on found peace at last when she left this world.

“My son is a beast,” Miss Evelyn says as I’m changing her sheets. 



Uh-huh. I’ve heard it all before. She’s a quieter person now, thanks to new medication, but the subject of her monologues once she warms up, is the same. Her son is a beast. Her daughter-in-law is a demon. Her grandchildren are monsters.



I decide this isn’t just dementia talking. I’ve been an aide at the retirement center only a few months, but I sense she must have been like this most of her life. Bitter. Paranoid. Frightened, really. All the other dementia patients have intervals of grace when the world and its inhabitants seem benevolent, or at least neutral to them. But not Miss Evelyn. Like the fairy tale Snow Queen, she must have a piece of enchanted glass in her eye that makes everyone look wrong. More than wrong – evil, hideous.



I finish the corners, all spit-spot like I do for my own granny’s bed when I visit her. Now, I give the worn flannel an extra pat. She’ll find peace later in this freshly made-up bed, Miss Evelyn will, in body if not mind. That’s all I can do for the poor thing.

 I long to brush the grey tangle reaching her shoulders, but I know she doesn't like anyone to come close.

“Is there anything else you need, Miss Evelyn? I’m going off my shift now.”



”Why would you want to do anything for me,” she spits out, and a bit dribbles down her blouse. Automatically I reach over to dab at the spot with my cloth, but her arm cuts mine off with a karate chop movement.That bony appendage of hers is strong. Maybe it has to be, to fend off a legion of imagined enemies.

I notice the cotton of her blouse quivering.

“How about a sweater,” I suggest.



“Sweater can’t warm you up from the inside,” she says.
”when the spectres that run this place keep it so cold. What do they care, they’re never even here.”


“I can get you tea or coffee,” I offer.

She frowns up at me. “You part of that coven in the kitchen,” she asks, “the witches trying to poison me?”

She's added spectres and witches now, to the malevolent non-human beings tormenting her.

No ma’am,” I answer. She turns her face away from me toward a white wall devoid of photographs or art. There’s nothing personal in the room at all, except a cheap black Halloween mask with a thin elastic band, on the bureau. Curious.


I don’t know how much longer I can keep this job. It pays university students better than other places in this town, but some of the residents are too depressing to be around. Most are physically debilitated or lonely and that’s sad enough. But Miss Evelyn is hardest of all for me to handle. Spend time with her and one begins to see a world populated by mythological creatures, and I'm not talking about unicorns and helpful little elves darning socks while you sleep.


When I open the door to leave, she begins her litany. “My son is a beast! “ she screeches. “His wife is a demon! My grandchildren are mons- -“ I shut the door but still hear her ranting. Maybe I should suggest they up her medication dosage again.

There’s more action in the hallways today, Sunday, than I’m used to. Visiting day. I usually work Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, but am doing a favor for another aide.



I’m on my way to the staff check-out desk, when I spot them. The tallest one has an enormous bovine head on a man’s body. Then I have to duck as three small winged monkeys fly at my head, hissing. The only thing I see of the one in the rear is a slender darkness. Even its shadow has bleeding red eyes.



They’re all heading toward Miss Evelyn’s room.