Nurse Bucket (Draft 1)

She glided around the Rose Room like a fish in water. The brown glittering lipstick coincided with her nail polish and her starched nurse’s uniform fit like a straight jacket. There was never a tear in her hoes, or the slightest displacement of curls in her perfectly molded bun. This physical perfection of Nurse Bucket was as tantalizing as the ever-distant opportunity of freedom from the Villas nursing home, my current habitat.

The first day I arrived at the Villas I was greeted and escorted to my room by Nurse Bucket herself. I was overwhelmed by what seemed like an uncanny aura of kindness. A year later as I hobbled around on crutches from a fall down the stairs, I began to dislike, even dread her flawless tights her sparkling lipstick. And a year after that not even my wheelchair could veer me wide of Nurse Bucket.

Everywhere I went she was too: always watching my sugar intake, bed time, medicine and eventually even social life. Nurse Bucket seemed to have forgotten the simple need and want of adults controlling their own lives. I was not alone in these thoughts; meals were spent in corners all over the Rose Room whispering over Nurse Bucket’s newest manipulation. Comparisons of life with Nurse Bucket to that of a hospital bed and life support filled our every thought and a minute without her presence was a blessed one.