Bone Broth

The cold hangs outside the doors as winter pulls the snowflakes from the skies. The wind heaves a chilled breath, threatening to reduce life to a sleepy end.

Along the dimly lit hallway of the Veterans Hospital, we stand front to back, a motley crew united by the shared experience of waiting. The air is thick with the scent of ancient sweat and the murmur of hushed conversations.

The walls, nicotine-yellow with age, seemed to close in on us, while the green and white linoleum floor beneath our feet bore the scars of countless footsteps. Across from us, a lone clerk darted back and forth behind bullet-proof windows, her movements mechanical and devoid of warmth.

Winter coats cling uncomfortably to our bodies, the warmth of the crowded space quickly turning stifling. Old souls, relics of a bygone era, clinging to our paperwork in a world of advanced technology.

And so, we wait.

My eyelids drooped with fatigue, the monotony of the wait threatening to lull me into a stupor. Could I fall asleep standing up?

Then I hear my last name.

The sound of my name jolted me awake, and I stumbled forward as the clerk motioned for me to approach her window.

“Go to the door on your left,” she instructed, her voice devoid of empathy.

Confusion clouded my thoughts as I scanned the hallway for the door she mentioned but found none. With a resigned sigh, I reluctantly obeyed, feeling the weight of the eyes of the others in line behind me.

As I moved away from the window, a door appeared at the end of the hallway, seemingly materializing out of thin air. A woman stood beside it, gesturing for me to approach.

“Over here,” she called, her voice gentle and inviting.

With a sense of trepidation, I crossed the threshold into her office, leaving behind the hallway. The space was bright and quiet.

She motioned for me to sit on the metal chair before her desk, her smile warm and genuine.

“I’m sorry for the wait,” she said kindly. “I know how it feels to be overlooked.”

I frowned, taken aback by her empathy. “What do you mean?”

She chuckled softly. “Once we hit sixty, it’s like we become invisible, isn’t it?”

She understood, she saw me. I nodded slowly, the weight of her words settling heavily on my shoulders.

But as she reached out to touch my hand, a chill crept over me, and a sense of unease washed over me. I tried to pull away, but her grip was firm, her touch like a winter’s snow against my skin.

“As I said before, we are invisible,” she stated. “In the old days the elderly got less meat because they could not work for it anymore.”

Her appearance began to shift before my eyes, her features twisting and contorting into something grotesque and otherworldly. And as her teeth elongated into sharp points, I realized with horror that she was not what she seemed.

In that moment of terror, I felt myself slipping away, my very life essence fading into nothingness, growing invisible, as her dark eyes bore into mine.

Now, just a specter, devoid of flesh and skin. My visage, a memory hanging limply within my vaulted skull, long and short bones suspended, waiting to be cracked open.

I see her timeless face, marked by laugh lines, as she murmurs, “It takes so damned many of you to make a decent bone broth.”