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I have to admit that I've never been a fan of many things, I'm what most people would call a recluse. I prefer to spend my days in the privacy of my own home, talking to my wife or the cat whichever happens to be home at the time. On the rare occasions that there both out then I spent most of the time talking to myself. My wife, Alisha, is always telling me that I shouldn't talk to myself, you never know who's listening. But I never really listen to hear, sure, I have to admit that she has a point, you never know who is listening. There used to be a time when someone could voice there views on current events and politics and government policy and not worry about who was listening, but that was a long time ago, we voted that privilege away decades ago.


By we, I mean as a collective nation, I was still a toddler when that vote was being cast, my father sometimes tells me of the "good old days" when I go to visit him at the home, something that I do on a regular basis, ever since mother died 5 years ago I've been afraid to leave the old man by himself, he's prone to bouts of depression. I don't blame him, like me his whole world was his wife and his family. His children are adults now and his wife died, I'm amazed that he hasn't opted to apply to the easy way out. I've never asked him why he hasn't but I know what he would say if I did. "Eh, do you realize how badly your mother would kick my a** if I went the easy way?" he'd laugh with his old pipe nestled gently between his lips, "I fear your mother more then I do a few years of loneliness." he'd smile and take a long drag of that pipe.

My father is an interesting character to say the least, he's the last remants of a by gone era. Though he was born in this country he still speaks with a heavy Spanish accent, sometimes when he gets really upset he sounds like a bad re-run of Ricky Ricardo or something. It's something that my mom used to say to him when she was still alive, it used to drive him through the roof. "I'm Mexican dammit, not Cuban!" he'd yell, but he wasn't really angry I could always see the smile in the corner of his mouth when she comments like that. My father, his name is Lorenzo, isn't techinically a Mexican, he was born here in the states and he considers himself an American through and through. "Your grandparents shed blood, sweat and tears to get here, I'm American as apple pie." he'd say. I never got the chance to meet my parental grandparents they died in a car crash a year before I was born, to this day my dad still keeps and old phtograph of them by his bed, he always says "Buenas Noches, Ma...Pa" before going to sleep every night. What can I say we are a family of soft hearts.

All this talking about my dad reminds me of a conversation that I had with him about a week of so ago, it wasn't anything too strange, which is why I seem to have pushed to the back of my mind, but now that I remember it I think that I'll jot it down for memory, I'm prone to forgetting things anyway, it's the reason I still keep a hand written journal. That and I love writing, actually writing, with today AI based PC's everything is voice command, and touch screen prompts, hell they stopped teaching penmanship in most schools back when I was in high school. Sad, I know, but that's progress I suppose.

Now back to the point that I was trying to make, I arrived at my dad's nursing home around 5pm, I was earlier then usual but Alisha had gone out with some old college buddies for a drink and the cat was as always too aloof to even acknowledge my existence, so I decided to pay my dad an early visit.

Let me explain a little something here, my father was always a methodical planner and even during the Second Great Depression, which threatened to collapse the economy of most of the industrialized countries of the world, he was able to save up his money. Whenever I ask him about it, he just smiles and shakes his head. "I learned it all from your mother." My mother? I would think, she was an impulse buyer, so I never really saw her as a planner, but then again I never really understood the relationship dynamics between my mother and father. It was complicated to say the least.

"You're a little early tonight" he coughed lightly as he pulled the pipe from his mouth, I always thought it strange that no one ever told him to stop smoking that antique thing, but I suppose so few people smoked now a days that no one really seemed to mind his dirty habits. When my dad was a young man there had been speak of banning tobacco altogether, but that plan never came to fruition, by the time I was in my early teens, the habit of smoking had started to fizzle out, no great social change people just moved on. It's not like the big tobacco companies fizzled out or anything, they owned other companies and never even winced as there cigarette sales dropped into the basement. I think the world at large just didn't really care anymore. But my father always spoke of the art of smoking, so even now in his mid 80s he smoked and he loved it.

I found my dad like I did every time that I came to see him, sitting in a chair in the farthest corner to the room. He always sat there, usually reading some old novel or something, facing the window and smoking. "So what bring you here tonight, the wife not given enough love." he laughed as he slowly rose from the chair. The years had not been kind to my father, years of smoking and drinking and bad eating habits tend to do that to a person. Where once he had been tall and powerfully slender, now he was just bony and slightly hunched. My father had never been a fast walker, said he preferred taking his time, but age had now slowed him down to a snail's crawl. His ice blue eyes still that held that same power and wisdom that they always did, his eyes always struck me as being older then the he was, but I suppose seeing all that he did was bound to leave that person with sort of piercing stare.

"She's out with some old college buddies." I answered shaking my head of the thoughts that had been racing through it only a moment ago. "Besides, you know that I love keeping you company." I added as I took a seat at the couch in the center of the room.

"So, why aren't you partying with some old college buddies, isn't that what the reason why I paid a small fortune for you to go?" he laughed as he made it to the couch after what seemed like an eternity of him walking. "And here I thought you took out that fourth mortgage so that I could get a better job." I laughed as I patted his knee. When I wasn't at home talking to myself or visiting my Dad I was a Construct Engineer, I had the distinct privilege of being on the team of engineers that build the first fully automated construct a few years ago, unfortunately I was only on the team, the only people that got the fame and glory were the two gentlemen that led the team. You know the supervisor types, we do the work, they get the million dollar bonus and a new pair of tits for there wife. But that was the nature of the manufacturing world, I had made peace with that fact a long time ago.

"You know I'd rather spend my time with you then getting s**t faced with a bunch of self obsessed comic book geeks." I laughed as my dad silently re-packed his pipe, he would do so three of four time before I left. "So anything new happen while I was out?" I asked him as he lit the pipe. I knew what he was going to say even before he said it, it was that perverted smile that gave him away. My dad had been a profound skirt chaser in his day, and like with any old man from Chihuahua, as he would say, perversion only got older with age. "Have you checked out the new nurse they hired last week. I think she likes me." he winked.

I could not help but laugh as he said this, my dad was under the impression that every single woman in this place was out to sleep with him. Had he been thirty years younger they might have, he was after all loaded beyond belief. As if on a cue, the soft hum of a female's voice wafted into the room. "Do you require anything at this time sir?" My head turned and followed the voice back to it's source and I for a moment I was completely speechless about what I saw before me.

She was a gorgeous creature, inhumanely so, now that I think about it. She was tall, only a few inches shorter then my own 6ft 3 inch height. Her long dark brown hair reached down to the small of her back, it was held loosely by a red ribbon and even without touching I knew that it was as smooth as silk. Her eyes were an ice blue, like the glacier water from the north pole, it was mesmerizing to see. Her soft white skin, almost shone under the soft light of the artificial sunlight lamps that were over our heads. She wore like all nurses did, a light blue smock that covered her figure and made it look like old same featureless column, but even with that one I knew that underneath she must have been built like the Venus herself.

She smiled at me softly, she must have known that I was gawking at her like a 15 year old would the captain of the cheerleaders. I shook my head, this wasn't the time or the place for such impure thought I reminded my self.