The Villains

I got so annoyed this weekend at some visitors, an arrogant couple who stood in my way while I worked and treated me like the hired help as they pressed my confused stroke patient for details on how to run his business while he recuperated. 

 The main antagonist was tall, lean, fashionably dressed, sported turtle-shell glasses, oozed false bonhomie, and wore an oily, skeletal smile like Jeff Goldblum. His partner was a dark, stolid woman, silent and brooding, planted squarely in my path. She forced a constant detour while I cared for the man in bed. The pair would have been instantly recognizable as villains in any Disney movie. 

I couldn’t help but think they took advantage of my patient’s condition to shoehorn their way into his affairs.  I worried he’d recover his senses and return to his convenience store only to discover himself bankrupted by this conniving duo.  

Ultimately, I did nothing. I cared for my patient’s immediate needs, threaded around them, ground my teeth in silence, awash in their fetid, unctuous wheedling of him punctuated by their supercilious demands of me.