Elmer clutched the edge of the cafeteria table and lowered his skinny, wrinkled, ancient ass onto a folding chair. He flutterblasted a sharp, dry fart from his weary posterior. It swirled in his diapers like a Depression era dustbowl.

“Ah fiddlesticks. I cain’t even sit mah old butt down without risking a hem’ridge anymore. That ‘un almost tore me. Oof.”

White clad orderlies delivered trays of bland, saltless food guaranteed to make bedpan duty less goopy and keep the old fucks’ heart rates low enough to be considered merely semi-catastrophic. Yet no matter how flavorless or inoffensive the culinary fare, the elderly residents would still rupture and croak with metronomic frequency. It was important for the sales force to keep a steady stream of corpses in waiting signing up. Otherwise, cash flow would dry up faster than a menopausal pussy.

One such orderly, Roy, had scored his employment at Shady Oaks via a family connection. His uncle was the “hospitality director” and had hired his sister’s son as a favor. Roy was a nasty little shit with jail tattoos and a barely repressed heroin reflex. For him, access to the aged and helpless was a golden opportunity to vent his misanthropy and sadism upon a captive population of the withered and feeble. It was bully heaven.

He stood near the door of the cafeteria, mop and bucket ignored at his side, arms crossed, looking with contempt upon the assembled group of the unloved and forgotten. Although their children may be waiting for each one to conclude life with a merciful death, Roy liked to imagine better methods of passing for each than a gentle cessation of breathing during restful sleep. These were still daydreams. Roy had not yet graduated from skinning squirrels and stomping cats to real thing: killing actual people. He knew the time would come very soon. A man could only hold such urges at bay for a limited amount of time.

He scanned the liverspotted crowd, pondering potential first victims. His eyes settled upon good old Elmer.

Elmer was eating his tray of chicken, corn, and jello with a moderate amount of success. The onset of Parkinson’s disease had begun, and his motor functions were starting to deteriorate. As he lifted a spoonful of corn to his lips, his hand shook, causing suicidal kernels to dive from the lip of the spoon. They would bounce from the trampoline of jello and launch onto the table. Elmer’s adam’s apple shook and swayed, causing his neck to take on a decidedly turkeylike appearance. Roy mentally dubbed Elmer “old gobbly.”

Elmer tried to spoon his corn into his mouth, licking his thin dry lips to help the corn stick when his aim was slightly off. He looked much like a lizard, running his thin tongue over his nearly nonexistent lips. Lips which sunk in when his dentures were out, like now. He didn’t need them for food this soft.

To Roy, Elmer looked barely human when he tried to eat. He thought it might just be fun to kill Elmer by force feeding him. Yeah... That sounded like fun.

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This first chapter was inspired by seeing an old lady gingerly nibbling an ice cream cone in front of the White Hen Pantry in Schaumburg the other day. I just started with the imagery of old folks eating and it grew from there. 10:40 AM - Bottle Rocket Fire Alarm