Copyrighted by Asher Linda, February 8, 2026

Avvy was picked up by her free senior citizen assistants hired for her by the county. She did not want to be critical or hateful, but due to their behavior, at times, well often, to Avvy, an empty paint bucket had seemed to have more common sense than this couple put together. However, they safely made it to her medical appointments on time, and she was grateful for that. ‘I shouldn’t be so hard on them,’ she thought. ‘They are just trying to make a living.’ Avvy was suppose to be finished for today with her appointments. There were only two. She would be ready to go home and rest.

This was not going to happen today.

Avvy was caught off guard. “We’re through. Where are you going now?”

“No, we’re not going to take you home,” Marcus said.

Alexandria sneered and piped up, “No, you said you couldn’t breathe through your nose, so we made an appointment to take you in to see the dentist.”

Avvy hissed, “There is nothing wrong with my teeth. That has nothing to do with my nasal congestion!”

“We’re just lucky to get you in on time!” Alexandria dramatically gasped, beaming with pride, believing she was a genius of medical appointment scheduling and control.

The couple escorted Avvy up to the waiting room. From there she walked forward to the receptionist, who was a blonde-haired young man with small gold-toned hoop earrings.

“I’m Avvy...”

“Yes, we were expecting you. Go and have a seat and I will tell the doctor you’re here.”

Avvy was going to her seat, thinking the young man named Collins was not as brain dead and insensitive as her traveling companions.

The couple had no authority to make such decisions for her. They did not have a medical power of attorney to allow them to take control over her and decide on their own initiative to make unnecessary medical decisions for her. Avvy was still competent to handle her own life.

She believe this was a test to see if they could start taking advantage of her.

Avvy turned to ask a question, but Collins had already sprang out of the office chair and left. A middle-aged woman with light brown hair dressed in a nurse uniform sat in his place.

Avvy stepped forward again. “Where is the restroom?”

The woman didn’t even hesitate. “It’s down this way.” Without looking, she took her thick ink pen and pointed over her right shoulder to the hall behind her.

“Thank you,” Avvy said in a polite business tone.

The interior of the office and the hall were newly redecorated. The top portion of the walls were painted gray, the lower part of the walls were covered in padded gray burlap.

She went down the hall and followed a trail of doors, none of them leading to a restroom.

Avvy came back to the nurse she had just asked for directions. “Where are the restrooms? I didn’t see any.”

“They’re in the next building,” the nurse said, without looking up or apologizing.

She walked down the hall, perturbed, and ran into the dentist. He was an early middle-aged man, heavy-set, leaning against the wall as she spoke to him.

Avvy said to him, “I’m your next patient, but without being able to go to the restroom, and the length of time it takes for whatever kind of procedure you were going to do, I have to cancel.”

The dentist only stared, his eyes looked straight ahead without focusing on her, nor did he answer her.

Avvy walked away from him, wondering if his behavior was from fatigue.

Right now, she didn’t have to use the facilities that bad, so she stepped outside to see where the other building was.

There was an old yellow brick building resembling a castle with rounded ends and straight walls with windows between the ends. There were vines, alive and dead, trailing up the two-story building. The building appeared to not have received upkeep for years.

“I’m not going in there,” she whispered.

She turned and walked toward the first building to finally go back home, as she wanted, according to her own original plan.