An Ordinary day

SO this is a homeless hostel. SO the accommodation here is basic with rooms to share, communal facilities and rent to pay. Does it somehow mean that anything goes? Does acquiring the label of “a woman in crisis” instantly negate all the other rules that normally regulate the interactions between humans? I am boiling with rage here today and at times I feel a strong urge to throw up.

Jodie rolled out of bed her dishevelled usual self. Smoking her cigarette eagerly, like a meditation, she proceeds to tell the worker how she’s only got 12 more days before she has to move out. And guess what, the fiancé’s family have finally, and I mean FINALLY come up with an offer to help. A bond for a place for the lovebirds and rent- paid for as long as necessary. “So they’ve saved you like little children” interjects the worker, looking rather aghast. “No” Jodie says. “They decided to help. They have helped his other siblings but have never done anything for David. So they decided to help. They are after all multi millionaires!” I feel the wave of heat rising in my stomach. Jodie must be around fourty, with grown up kids for Christ sakes! Not to mention on the Disability Pension for a mysterious brain condition that stops her from being able to work. Apparently. This isn’t going to be a good day. I seem to have run out of compassion.

Just then things turn for worse. Melanie emerges, mumbling. Plants herself in the seat next to me, lights the cigarette and begins the moan. She asks the worker for a lighter plastic cup to use to make her coffee in… Her own bone condition is playing up today. She is finding it a struggle to hold the mug of coffee. “I am disabled you know, I should be in the wheelchair really!” It is about then that the nausea advances.

In my bedspace first I punch the pillow, then take a deep breath. I fight the desire to run back there and slap these children around the face a few times, then shake them by their shoulders and shout in their faces “get real! What are you doing to yourself! Wake up!” Instead I pull out the box of hair dye and retreat into the bathroom. Cant stand it when the roots are showing. And the grays.

Downstairs all is set for the communal Sunday brekkie. Everyone seems chilled out and there is much joking about getting sucked into Jodie’s schemes of helplessness, all so crafty you totally see how she’s made a career out of it. I suppose with all that time on your hands certain skills are always learnt. Important life skills. Like conning others into giving, making, gifting things to you. Its so smooth most of us are totally unaware we’ve been doing it. Even the workers laugh incredulous as they recall how the Sunday before they were mopping up Jodie’s fiancé’s blood and running down the street to save her. Supposedly. Melanie burps loud and makes a comment about her bowel movements. It makes me look at my sausage and bacon in disgust and others swiftly attempt to move on to other topics. Felicity pipes up:” Well, lucky that with my Bipolar I wasn’t really paying much attention and missed that”. I stare at this woman for a long time as I cant face my food- is she for real? I wonder if I have somehow taken the wrong turn on my way to my intended geographical destination and ended up on planet Saturn. Or Mars. Or somewhere much much deeper into the dark recesses of the Universe where I now live with mutants and cripples and plain weirdoes. God I need to get out of this place.