Walker Wars: How Insane Writers Get Their Ideas

(Note: I just read a report that says dark humor is a sure sign of encroaching dementia. If true this musing is proof that I'm doomed.)

This evening I meet with a small group of fellow writers and as I walked out with my companion, the conversation turned to the subject of nursing homes and their probable inevitability in my future. I bemoaned my lack of wealth that ensures dependence on government handouts, my introverted personality that does not enjoy being forced to mingle with others in a crowded environment, and my encroaching old age.

Me. Probably Just A Year From Now

On the way home, I envisioned myself, deaf and haggard, pushing a walker ahead of me while the rest of the doomed, the despairing, and the despondent sat about me or meandered the hallways while the halls echoed with the continual cries for nurses, bedpans, and assistance getting up from where they had fallen. 

(Note: This is not what nursing homes are actually like (I visit all the local ones professionally), but I'm a writer. I make my money from melodrama, hyperbole,  and conflict, not writing prose that would even give Pollyanna sugar shock)

Then my inner vision panned back and I took in the Pleasant Valley Retirement Community where I was a resident, abandoned by the staff after a zombie outbreak.

Suddenly, the camera zoomed back in and there I was with the remaining three survivors of the Daffodil Wing preparing for a raid on the few residents left in the Daisy Wing as we prepared to fight tooth and nail over the last case of banana-flavored Ensure.

Armed with canes and dentures, we slowly (the only speed available to us) made our way down the hallways, past the lockdown unit where the residents clawed at the windowed door. We never knew if they were zombified or normal residents that had chewed through their restraints, but nobody was going to risk opening the door to answer the question.

As we crept through the social room through the dining hall cluttered with debris from past conflicts, we met the enemy led by Mrs. Emma Plushbottom, a harridan of well-known reputation, all wrinkles and fury. 

The battle was on.

However, just as I envisioned that last scenario as combatants in wheelchairs or supported by walkers impacted each other in desperate conflict, I arrived home.

My dreams will probably be rather weird tonight.