Diversional therapy
Our kelpie would stalk avian invaders then give chase ______simply for the sport.
I
Friday afternoonthey herd us into the Activities Room for diversional therapy ______threadbare songs ______childish games ____________Death Row Comedy Hour
It's a long way to Tipperary. ______Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do! ______I refuse to inquire.
I tell the nurse it is obscene to focus on a post-nuptial synchronised rhythmic activity in which the seat is given prominence.
'You've got a wicked mind, Padre.' 'All the wickeder for seeing you.'
Enter Big Nurse.
______Big Needle.
____________Big Sleep.
I check the stopwatch when I wake. I do not tell Big Nurse ______her response time is a personal best.
II
Some Friday afternoons I hear them coming and ostentatiously bury myself in a Sudoku, or ______slowly, aloud pray the Lord's Prayer in Greek ______— Luke is enough — hoping please God they'll leave me to it.
Or take my player and immerse myself in the lilting melancholy of a Sibelius symphony or sing along to Shosta's Siege of Leningrad until Security forces the en suite and leads me back to bedBig Nurse comes with her riot shield in a teaspoon and proffers it with honeyed words.
She does not know ______I always check the stopwatch.
III
The benchmark for banal is a nursing home Christmas.
I sit grim and stony-faced under the tinselas they sing Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and We Wish You A Merry Christmas.
'The Padre just doesn't understand Christmas.' ______I do. There's the rub.
IV
Now bewhiskered for lack of one to shave me ______bedridden, frail and deaf waiting for the priest to come ______as I so often came to others.
They told me later I had been asleep and she had not wished to wake me.
Through the pain the medication and the torpor I feel a gentle pressure on my hand. Slowly ______slightly I turn to see ______her Communion kit unopened her lips moving her prayer a silver flame into which I am ever so gently ______so lovingly ____________placed and cradled like a little child.Bathed in this delicious silver warmth my very bones glow to hear the delight of angels heralding that soon ______— soon — ____________this kelpie will run free
Fr Jim McPherson is an Anglican priest based in Maryborough, Qld.