Wednesday's Words on a Friday

 The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by River and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are:

1.klutz  2.cream cheese  3.twilight  4.buzzing  5.trouble  6.dominoes

and/or:

her/his/my house has many rooms, some are less immaculate than others

Charlotte's colour of the month is Vivid Tangerine for September

Here is my story:

The day of the Beach Trip had finally arrived, as with Christmas for a young child, it had seemed to take forever, but now the "Twilighters" were readying themselves to be helped into the bus. A group of men and women aged between 80 and 95, in their "twilight years" had been dubbed Twilighters several decades ago by a new worker and the name had stuck.

Bags and pockets were checked to be sure everyone had what they needed for a day at the beach. Forty minutes ago we had all been lined up in the TV room being slathered with sunscreen. Alan Miller, the comical klutz who was always dropping things, declared the sunscreen looked a lot like cream cheese and it was making him think of getting a second breakfast.

Sally Walton, who would be in charge of us today, told him if he did that he would miss the bus and have to play dominoes with Terry all day. Alan immediately stood straighter and closed his mouth, all thoughts of cream cheese and bagels gone for now. The rest of the group also decided to behave.

No one liked playing dominoes with Terry, rumors had spread that he "wasn't quite in the present" and playing dominoes was all he ever did. His random ramblings and occasional tantrums were confusing to us and Denise had once pointed to her own head and described Terry as "having many rooms, but some were more chaotic than others."

It wasn't his fault of course, the trouble was a head injury, followed by a couple of strokes, had mixed up his brain. He was never violent to others, with tantrums mostly being a thrown handful of dominoes and some smacking of his own head. An aide was always close by to be sure he took his medication and to remove him to his room if necessary. 

As the vivid tangerine bus pulled up and we prepared to board, I checked my large bag one last time to be sure the little redheaded dolls were tucked into a pocket. I planned on having Nurse Evelyn help me to the damp sand where I could build a sand castle and position them to look as if they were building it.

Nurse Evelyn always took photos during our outings and I could give mine to great-grand-daughter Helen when I gave her the dolls at her next visit. Helen was five and the only one who had shown any interest in the redheads. I knew she would care for them and take them places as I once used to. A buzzing sounded, followed by a whoosh and the bus doors opened.