The Daily Write: What they're saying (February 26, 2012. 12 minutes)

What they're saying

She had to get away from these idiots. At one time they had been lovable, but with Wink's passing, they had all become bona fide crazies - accusing her of driving him to his death. Could she help it if she was an attractive woman with a flair for the dramatic? Fact was, she hadn't forgotten who she was, and the rest of them seemed to. They acted as if they were their maladies, as if they hadn't lived scintillating lives. What was it about wrinkles and the loss of your pubes that turned people into such dolts, Rose wondered.

Why she ever let Norma talk her into moving here in the first place started to loom large in her mind. She thought she'd have some good company for Bridge and maybe even the occasional game of poker. Instead, they just sat around, waiting for something exciting to happen, like bored 13-year-olds.

"Get down from there Rosie!" Hank called up, sending him into a coughing fit that practically doubled him over. She looked down, surveying the top of his age-spotted head.

"Why should I Hank? There's nothing better about being on the ground than there is up here!" She grabbed another rung of the ladder and pulled herself to sitting on the ledge. Still got it! She thought, so glad she had once dabbled in championship weight lifting. She had quit just before it got really serious, never being fond of needles.

From her vantage point, the purple walker gleamed like a jewel next to dull old Hank.

"You know Hank," she yelled down, "it's not bad up here, you ought to give it a try. Come join old Rosie for a smoke."

A preposterous idea given that Hank was sporting an oxygen tank, but she liked to think about him back before he lost half a lung and she still had both boobs. They could have had some fun together.

She heard a scream that was so startling she almost toppled off the edge.

Norma.

"Rosie!!! What are you doing up there? Get down this instant before I call in the heavy artillery." Norma's mouth looked like a tunnel, or the gaping beak of a ferociously hungry bird.

"Norma - you really ought to keep your mouth closed, honey, it does not look good from up here," Rose shouted down, cackling at the image she had in her head of the two old birds. "I don't know what the fuss is about anyway," she said.