CHARLES BUKOWSKI – HELL IS A LONELY PLACE (short stories) ENG

…

Charles Bukowski

Hell is a lonely place

(short stories)

He was 65, his wife was 66,

had Alzheimer’s disease.

He had cancer of the mouth.

there were operations, radiation treatments

which decayed the bones in his jaw

which then had to be wired.

Daily he put his wife

in rubber diapers

like a baby.

Unable to drive in his condition

he had to take a taxi to the medical center,

had difficulty speaking,

had to write the directions down.

On his last visit

they informed him there would be another

operation: a bit more left cheek

and a bit more tongue.

When he returned

he changed his wife’s diapers

put on the tv

dinners, watched the evening news

then went to the bedroom,

got the gun,

put it to her temple,

fired.

She fell to the left,

he sat upon the couch

put the gun into his mouth,

pulled the trigger.

The shots didn’t arouse the neighbors.

later the burning tv dinners

did.

Somebody arrived,

pushed the door open,

saw it.

Soon the police arrived

and went through their routine,

found some items:

a closed savings account

and a checkbook with a balance of $1.14,

suicide, they deduced.

In three weeks

there were two new tenants:

a computer engineer

named Ross

and his wife Anatana

who studied ballet.

They looked like another

upwardly mobile pair.

…