what she said

INT. BATHROOM - EARLY MORNING

JESSIE, an elderly, white-haired resident of the B. Retirement Community, sits naked on a plastic showering chair, the kind with a hole cut out of the seat. ANITA, a young Sri Lankan woman, stands beside the chair holding the shower rosette in her hand. She directs the water onto Jessie's body, and with her other hand washes Jessie with a soapy wash-cloth. She wears lemon-yellow latex medical gloves.

ANITA
Do you want to wash your hair today?

JESSIE
No. Not today.

ANITA
But you didn't wash your hair yesterday.

JESSIE
I did wash my hair yesterday.

ANITA
Are you sure? Didn't you wash your hair on Friday?

JESSIE
No, it was yesterday.

ANITA
You washed your hair yesterday?

JESSIE
I don't want to wash my hair today.

Anita lifts up Jessie's breasts and wipes under the breasts with her cloth before lifting up Jessie's arms and doing the same to Jessie's armpits. Then Anita rinses the cloth and starts wiping Jessie's face.

ANITA
But you don't look pretty--

JESSIE
(interrupting)
You don't look pretty.

CLOSE UP - LOOK OF DISMAY ON ANITA'S FACE

ANITA
--you wash your hair, then you look pretty.

(shuts the water off and turns around to pick up the towel lying on the bed just outside the bathroom)

Okay. You have a hair wash tomorrow, okay?

Jessie does not answer. Anita starts patting Jessie's body with the towel.

ANITA (VOICE OVER)

Jessie doesn't like me.

I don't like doing Jessie. She's not one of the nice ones.

I'm going to shower someone else, even when it gets crazy like this morning.

Sharon didn't even ring at night, just two hours before in the morning, that she was sick and not coming in for her shift. So unresponsible. And she's the duty RN.

I am so tired. I worked double shift yesterday.

I have been in Australia a year and a half now, and I have good friends, but I worry.

I can't even send money home, paying thousands a year to study here. Also rent and living costs. So expensive living here.

I must work.

I like working in the high-care ward better. You feel more useful. And they're not always complaining about nothing, not like these ones. But there's not enough shifts, and they never tell you in time whether you can work or not.

I don't like the rich people's ward. Just because they pay so much money to get in, and more money on top, some of them treat us like servants.

It tires me having to talk to them, but I try to talk nice all the time.

Professional, too. You must always tidy up the bed sheets. Even if you've done everything else, if the bed looks untidy, people will think you haven't done your job properly.

It's unfair for the kitchen staff to ask us to help set the tables before breakfast. Although they are too busy, too, trying to keep to schedule, it is enough for us to get everyone up, showered and dressed for breakfast on time.

The seepage and redness around John's catheter opening worries me.

There is a war going on at home.

I miss home. I am going home after I finish my nursing degree.

And after I get PR, too, of course.

Maybe Jessie did wash her hair yesterday.

But, she's used that as an excuse before, to not even shower. She told each of us that she had showered the day before with someone else, and then we found out that she hadn't showered for a week!

I said: "But you don't look pretty."

I meant: "But you won't look pretty, if you don't wash your hair!" To persuade, jokingly.

I need to study for my Written English test next month. My speaking is good, but my writing is not good enough.

I will go see how Sofie is doing with John.

She laughs at how I pronounce "lub" when I say "love".

I love listening to her speak. Her accent is so sexy, being Sudanese, so I tease her back.

the lost weekend

Good morning.
Hello. How are you?
I'm good.
That's the way. How was your weekend?
It was good.
What did you get up to?
I spent the weekend enthralled by seductive imaginary futures I'm too coward to attempt. Between thralls, I ate intermittently.
Oh. Really?
Yes. I managed to do the dishes but not the groceries.
That's... interesting.
Yes. It was... interesting.