Mama Always ~ L.A. Brown, Author

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...

The trending word since Robin William's passing is: Depression. There, I said it, and you know, I probably can say with some certainty that a good portion of the world population either has it or has dealt with it on some sort of level. Actually, according to the CDC, over 121 million  people worldwide suffer from some form of depression. That's some substantial numbers. Someone once said that the funny people of the world have so many masks that they forget who they are, they get lost in the "funny" because that is what distracts them from the depression. When there is no longer a response to the antics, the jokes or the anecdotes, reality hits. Depression hits with all its got. That is not to say that all funny people have depression. That is to say that this is one example. Depression rears its ugly head in many forms. PTSD. Post-Partum Depression. Bi-Polarism. SAD. Psychotic Depression. Neurons that don't fire properly. A wronged spouse. A child of divorce...