Quick short story for all of you...

New Texas

The clock struck six.

It had to be done.

The old woman turned and smiled at the nurse who was scheduled to keep tabs on the residents that had gathered for the bi-weekly game night. It would probably be a quiet night, so the nurse had brought something to read to pass the time. There were probably fifty residents in the room at the time, no one would notice if one was gone, at least not right away.

Mary Ellen had had enough of this place with the strict schedules for everything. She was tired of having to eat at a certain time, watch television at a certain time, heck, if they had their way, she would poop at a certain time. As for visitors, they were welcome, within the time frame, of course, but hers only came once a year on the anniversary of her coming to this ridiculous excuse for a living center.

She had planned for quite a long time to leave this place, but finding the opportunity when she would not be missed straight away seemed to elude her on more than one occasion. Her friend, Carol, who had just recently arrived, was finding the charm wore off quickly. For Carol leaving was as simple as walking out the front door; she checked herself in, she could check herself out. Mary Ellen could not do the same since it was her children, Bobby and Becky who had her placed there. They would have to have her released into their custody, which they would never do as it would hinder their social lives.

“Carol, I have an idea that you might think is out there, but I have to pitch it to you anyway”.

“What can I do you for, Mary Ellen” she said, as she paused the old movie about road trips that she was watching .

As Mary Ellen explained her hair-brained idea of leaving to Carol, she was sure that she would be laughed at. After all, Carol seemed to like it here and got along with everyone, why would she want to leave. Imagine the surprise that Mary Ellen received when Carol said, “let’s do this thing”! After weeks of planning down to every last detail, they were ready to put the plan into action.

Carol was ready with her end of the escapade. She was a fan of practical jokes, so the plastic barf on the floor was all the diversion that Mary Ellen needed to slip out the front door. As the mahjong board was being set up, Carol started coughing and gagging, then threw the plastic on the floor. Instantly the other two residents reacted, the old man began retching, the old woman quickly grabbing her walker to get out of the line of fire. The nurse, observing the activity, lazily picked up the phone to ring up housekeeping to clean the mess up and then went back to what she was reading. Perfect. Everything was going according to plan. Becky and Bobby would surely be surprised when they showed up for their annual visit to find her gone, or maybe they would be glad, she wasn’t sure. What she was sure of was that she was a burden to them and she was tired of the boredom that came with each yearly visit.

Mary Ellen Kane was born to greatness, or so her mother had always told her. She would grow up rich and pretty and smart and have all of the fellows following her like hound dogs that were thirsting for water. The problem was, Mary Ellen wasn’t rich and she wasn’t pretty but she sure was smart. Smart enough to win a scholarship to MIT and graduate with honors and a degree in astrophysics. She was a major player in the re-vamped NASA program and was the first woman to walk on Mars. As for having the fellows follow her like thirsty hound dogs, well, there was that, but only because she was smart and now pretty famous. The richness part came after she discovered a quantum flux that helped re-launch the space program and bring it way above its previous glory. That’s when she met a man who so swept her off her feet that she gasped even to this day at the suddenness of the whole romance. Robert Kane was handsome, rich, funny and absolutely in love with Mary Ellen from the moment he set eyes on her. Plainness aside, she had a wit and charm that far outweighed any cheerleader, movie star or even, in his opinion, princess that had come down the pike in the last two hundred years. After a whirlwind romance, they were married and began to rebuild NASA together.

Within two years they had a family of two more, Robert Junior and Rebecca, Bobby and Becky for short, and they raised the children to love the stars as much as they did.  Time went on, the children grew and the love of science became apparent in everything they did.

Carol Harp was Mary Ellen’s assistant on the Mars program and her best friend. Together they were always laughing, sharing bits and pieces of gossip about this person or that or even playing practical jokes on the more stodgy of the scientists. A few were not amused, but Robert would watch and wait to see who would be at the unsuspecting end of one of their jokes, smiling because he had been at the butt end of a couple of them more than once. They never took them too far, probably the barf in the microwave was the worst of it, and usually no one was hurt, except for the time the plastic roach was put behind one of the coffee pots and Dr. Wineman found it. A new pair of loafers, dry cleaned pants and some cold compresses later, apologies were made and promises put forward that plastic roaches would no longer be used in the kitchen. Carol’s and Mary Ellen’s friendship would far outlast any kudos that came for either one of them, any relationship, even time itself, according to those who knew them best.

Shaking off the memories of husband, kids and NASA, Mary Ellen quickly slipped out the front door and waited beside the already in bloom rose bushes on the side of the building. These were the prettiest in New Texas, she thought, because the blooms were so big and fragrant that you could smell them as soon as you hit the circular driveway to the home.
 She thought back to early spring of 2140, the biosphere on the Mars Colony had just been completed. The Mayor of New Texas, as it had been named, dedicated it to Robert and Mary Ellen for all of their hard work, compassion and dedication in seeing that this colony would not only exist, but thrive.
 She remembered when Robert donated these bushes to the retirement home, a new hybrid that bore her name. A few months later he died in a fishing accident. Mary Ellen grieved so deeply that she stopped doing what she loved, stopped taking care of herself or her home to the point that Bobby and Becky were sure that she was a danger to herself. So they put her in this retirement facility where she could be watched 24/7. The only thing that made it bearable was that Carol soon followed, but of her own accord. Three years and two yearly visits from her children later, here she was, no less lonely for her beloved Robert and determined that she was not staying there one day longer.

As Carol rounded the corner to meet up with Mary Ellen, she saw the familiar look of sadness on Mary Ellen’s face. “C’mon, Louise! You and me, well we’ve got some road to tear up!”

“You’re right, Thelma, we do and it’s a long way back home to Houston!”