“Dad?  Are you ready?  It’s time to go.”
    Alvin opened his eyes, lifted his head upright, and sat up in his wheelchair.  He watched as his son brought the last pair of suitcases into the wood-paneled living room and set them down next to him.  Alvin straightened the dark blue blanket lying across his lap, swept the last few remaining strands of white hair on the top of his head back with his left hand, and adjusted the oxygen tube in his nose.
    “I know you don’t want to go to Forest Hills, but it’s what all of us think is best for you.  You understand that, don’t you?”
    Alvin tried to respond, but little more than a slow, raspy voice came out.  “I…  I…can’t…” said Alvin, pointing to his wide, open mouth over and over.
    “You know what I mean, Dad.  I know you can’t speak anymore since the accident.  You don’t need to remind me.”
    Alvin slammed both of his fists down hard on the arms of his wheelchair.  He turned his head to look out the front window of his living room, frowning at his son’s silver sedan in the driveway.
    “We don’t like it either.  But you can’t take care of yourself anymore now that Mom’s gone.  And we can’t take care of you all the time.  We have our jobs and families now.  We have our own responsibilities.  It’s the best thing for everyone.”
    Alvin looked up at his son and scowled.
    “The best thing for you, I mean.”
    Alvin looked away from his son and then crossed his arms on his chest.
    “Just wait, Dad.  You may learn to like it there someday.  Now let’s get you into the car.  They’re expecting us by noon.”
    Alvin’s son started to push him toward the front door, but Alvin grabbed the wheels to stop the chair.  Alvin turned around to take one last look at the inside of his home, which he assumed would be for the last time.  He silently said a fond farewell to everything from the plastic-covered furniture to his wife’s elephant figurine collection, let out a long sigh, and then took his hands off the wheels, letting his son push his wheelchair out the door and close the door behind them.

It’s been weeks since Alvin began his new life at the Forest Hills Nursing Home, and he still hasn’t adjusted.  Alvin sits in his wheelchair all day, listening to the faint buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead while staring out the big window of the recreation room, watching cars come and go across the parking lot.
    “Do you see anything interesting out there today, Alvin?” asked Nurse Edith.  “Not yet?  You let me know if you do, okay?”
    The nurses tried to get Alvin to participate in several different activities, but nothing sparked his interest.  They enrolled him in a painting class, but he would just slump down in his wheelchair with a brush in his hand and a blank canvas laid out flat on the table in front of him.
    “What do you feel like painting today, Alvin?” asked Nurse Arlene.  “What about a boat?  Do you like boats, Alvin?  Everybody likes boats.  You’re out there on the lake.  Out in the sun.  The wind in your hair.  Do you want to paint that?  No?  Maybe something else then.”
    Another day, the nurses got the wheelchairs and recliners of all the residents in a big circle in the recreation room to play catch with a beach ball.  But whenever someone threw the ball to Alvin, he either kept it or threw it on the floor.
    “C'mon, Alvin!” shouted Nurse Gertrude.  “Don’t be like that.  Other people want to play.”
    The nurses wished they could have signed Alvin up for the Saturday night sing-along, but since he could barely speak, let alone sing, that wouldn’t work either.  Alvin sank deeper into depression, and the nurses were running out of ideas.

“Good morning, Alvin!” said Nurse Gladys, opening Alvin’s curtains and letting the sun shine in his bedroom window.  “How are we doing today?”
    Alvin silently laid on his back, staring at the ceiling, looking as grumpy as he possibly could.
    “That good, huh?” said the nurse sarcastically.  “I’m sorry you’re so miserable here, Alvin.  I wish there was something we could do to cheer you up.”
    Alvin grunted and turned on his side, away from Nurse Gladys.
    “We’re gonna get a smile out of you one of these days, Alvin.  I just know it.”

After lunch one summer afternoon, members from a local farm sanctuary brought a group of small animals to visit the residents of Forest Hills Nursing Home.  The sanctuary staff, which consisted of a young woman and a couple volunteers, brought in rabbits, guinea pigs, and all kinds of different birds.
    “Good afternoon!  How is everyone?  My name is Jamie, and I would like to introduce you to some of my friends.”
    The nursing home staff put everyone’s wheelchairs and recliners in a big circle in the recreation room again, and the farm sanctuary’s staff gently removed each animal from their cages and handed them to each of the residents.
    “Please be very careful with these little guys,” said Jamie, helping to pass the animals from one resident to the next.  “They’re still pretty young, and some of them might be a little nervous since they’re around people they don’t know.  But they should be fine.”
    Alvin joined in viewing and holding the animals, but showed little interest in the presentation.
    “Before I forget, I wanted to mention that, as much as we love each and every one of the animals in our care, we unfortunately can’t afford to keep all of them.  So if anyone here is looking for a little furry or feathery friend – hint, hint – they would love for you to adopt them.”
    Alvin perked up upon hearing the young woman’s offer, but he didn’t feel like any of the animals were right for him.

Near the end of the farm sanctuary’s visit, Jamie brought in a cage larger than the others.  Inside the cage was a large yellow goose.  Jamie carefully placed the cage on the floor in the middle of the circle of chairs.  She unlocked the door to the cage, but before she had a chance to open it, the goose head-butted the door open and flew out.  Flapping her huge wings and honking loudly, the goose ran across the room and headed directly toward Alvin.  She flew up into Alvin’s wheelchair, sat in his lap, and immediately laid her chin on his left shoulder.  Everyone in the room was shocked –  no one more than Alvin himself.
    “I’m sorry if she startled you, sir,” said Jamie.
    Alvin was surprised, yet intrigued, by this new visitor, who was suddenly sharing his wheelchair with him.  He raised his hands up and away from the goose, not wanting to scare her.
    “Her name is Georgina, but everyone calls her Georgie,” said the animal handler.  “Someone gave her to us recently when they weren’t able to take care of her anymore.  She’s very lovable and very protective.”
    Alvin slowly lowered his arms, gently laying his right hand on one of Georgie’s golden wings and using the other to slowly stroke her head and long neck.  After a few minutes of having the goose in his lap, something happened that no one in the Forest Hills Nursing Home, neither the nurses nor any of the other residents, had ever seen before: Alvin smiled.
    “Looks like you have a new friend, Alvin,” said Nurse Gladys, smiling at him and petting the goose’s other wing.
    Alvin looked up at Nurse Gladys and smiled back at her.
    “I told you we’d get a smile out of you, Alvin,” said the nurse, winking at him.
    Alvin continued to pet Georgie.  He liked that she was warm and soft and that he could feel her heart beating delicately against his chest.  He also liked that she made him feel wanted.  And loved.

It wasn’t long after that Jamie announced that they had to leave.  She and her assistants started collecting all the animals and returning them to their cages.
    “I’m sorry, everyone, but it’s getting late, and we have to get all these cute little babies back to the barn.”
    Alvin was heartbroken after hearing this, losing Georgie so soon after meeting her.  He wished he could have spent more time with his new friend.
    “I’m sorry, Alvin, but Georgie has to leave now,” said Nurse Gladys.
    Jamie lifted Georgie off Alvin’s lap, took her over to her cage, placed her inside head-first, closed the door, and locked it.  She picked up the large cage and headed toward the front door.  “Bye, everyone!  We hope to see you all again soon,” said Jamie, waving to the residents.  She then walked out the door after one of her assistants held it open for her.
    Alvin rolled his wheelchair over to the big window and watched as Jamie loaded Georgie’s cage in the back of her light blue van.  After the van pulled away, Alvin turned his chair away from the window.  His newfound smile was gone.

Days passed, and Alvin went back to staring out the big window of the recreation room all day, watching the cars coming and going across the parking lot again.  As dark clouds rolled in and turned the sky gray, Alvin watched as raindrops started to sprinkle on the window.
    “You’re missing Georgie, aren’t you, Alvin?” asked Nurse Edith.  “Maybe you’ll see her again someday.”
    Alvin didn’t respond.  He continued to stare straight ahead, looking out the window, as the light rain turned into a heavy downpour.  He closed his eyes, dropped his chin to his chest, and sighed.

A couple days later, while staring out the recreation room window on one bright and sunny morning, Alvin noticed a light blue van pull into one of the parking spaces.  Not only did he recognize the van, but he also recognized the person who got out of it: Jamie, the young woman from the farm sanctuary.
    Jamie crossed the parking lot and entered the nursing home’s front door.  Once inside, she enthusiastically waved at Alvin from across the room, walked into the main office, and closed the door behind her.  Five minutes later, Jamie, Nurse Edith, and the nursing home’s manager came out of the office.  Jamie went back out the front door, walking across the parking lot toward the back of her van.
    “Alvin!” said Nurse Edith, running up to him.  “There’s someone here who wants to see you!”
    The front door opened again, and Jamie walked in carrying a large, familiar cage with an even more familiar yellow goose inside.  Jamie set the cage on the floor, unlocked the door, and just like the first time, Georgie head-butted the door open and flew out, heading directly toward Alvin.  She flew up into his wheelchair and laid her chin on his left shoulder.
    “Geor…gie!”
    “She’s all yours, Alvin,” announced Jamie.  “The nurses called your son after we were here and told him how much Georgie meant to you, and he adopted her for you.”
    Alvin couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  “This…real?”
    “Yep, this is real, Alvin.  Your kids are paying for everything.  I squared it with the manager.  You’re good to go.”
    But Alvin wasn’t listening.  He was too busy stroking Georgie’s neck and wings and feeling her heart beating against his chest again.  Alvin tried pulling the goose closer to him, but no matter how hard he tried, it still wasn’t close enough.

Georgie was Alvin’s new best friend.  They were inseparable.  They spent all their time together and never went anywhere without each other.  With help from the staff of the Forest Hills Nursing Home, Alvin and Georgie went to the beach, the grocery store, and the farmer’s market.
    The pair became the talk of the town, even becoming local celebrities.  Everyone wanted to have their picture taken with “the guy with the goose.”
    The local newspaper, “The Homewood Herald,” heard about Alvin and Georgie and decided to run a story on them.  They sent over a photographer, who could not have been any older than 13 or 14 years old, to take a photo of the two of them to include with the story.
    The young shutterbug rode up to the front of the nursing home on his bicycle.  “Is this where the guy with the goose lives?”
    “This is the place, young man.  They’re right over there,” said Nurse Gertrude, pointing to Alvin’s wheelchair, sitting in the shade of the afternoon sun at the other end of the wide porch.
    “Can I take your picture, sir?” asked the boy, holding up his camera.
    Alvin nodded, then sat up straight in his chair, put his arm around Georgie, and mustered the biggest grin he could manage.
    Click!

Alvin and Georgie were on the front porch of the nursing home again on the day the newspaper arrived with their story in it.
    “Alvin!  It’s your story!  It’s your story!” shouted Nurse Gertrude.
    The nurse brought the paper over to Alvin and Georgie so she could show them their story and the photo of the two of them.
    The story was on the back page of the paper and was titled “The Old Man & the Goose,” which garnered a groan and an eye roll from Alvin.  At least he thought the photo of himself and Georgie turned out well.
    “We need to get this framed for you, so you can hang it in your room,” said Nurse Gertrude.  “Would you like that, Alvin?”
    Alvin lifted his arm and gave the nurse a big “thumbs up” and an even bigger smile.

Alvin and Georgie’s favorite place to go was the park, so they could feed the ducks.  The nurses took turns pushing Alvin’s wheelchair down the sidewalk, which ran alongside the pond where the ducks lived.
    One late summer afternoon, while parked next to the pond, Alvin threw some frozen peas to the ducks and then pulled his old leather wallet out of his shirt pocket.  He flipped through the photos in the wallet and stopped on one.  He pointed to the photo and said, “Wife.  Mar…tha.”  He held his wallet in front of Georgie so she could see it.
    Georgie tilted her head down to look at the photo, and she let out a small honk.
    Alvin put his wallet back in his pocket and hugged Georgie.  “Love…you…Geor…gie,” he declared.  “Best…friend.”

Later that night, Nurse Gladys went into Alvin’s room to help him into bed.  She found him sitting in his wheelchair, with the lights turned down, and Georgie lying curled up asleep in his lap.
    “Time for bed, Alvin.  Let me take Georgie so I can put her in her cage for you.”
    Alvin shook his head side-to-side.  “Not…tired,” he said.  He then repeatedly pointed to his wheelchair.
    “You want to stay in your chair?  You know I can’t let you do that, Alvin.  It’s against regulations.”
    Alvin reached out and grabbed the nurse’s hand.  “Please…?” he pleaded, looking up at her with his big blue eyes.
    After a brief pause, Nurse Gladys reluctantly agreed.  “Okay.  But just this once.  I won’t tell anyone if you won’t,” she said with a wink and a smile.
    Alvin winked and smiled back at her.
    “I’ll check back in on you two later.”
    Alvin stared at the framed photo of Georgie and himself from their newspaper story, which was propped up on a small wooden dresser next to the head of his bed.  He then went back to gently stroking Georgie’s wings over and over, slower and slower, until he eventually drifted off to sleep.

When Alvin woke up, he found himself sitting on the grass in the shadow of a giant oak tree, his back against a long wooden fence.  Georgie was lying curled up in his lap.
    “We must have fallen asleep, Georgie,” said Alvin, yawning and stretching his arms above him.  “Are we in the country?  How did we get out here?”
    Georgie raised her head and let out a small honk.
    Alvin lifted Georgie off his lap and put her on the ground next to him.  He stood up and looked down the dirt road that ran between the fence behind him and another fence on the other side of the road.  Both the road and the fences stretched into the distance as far as Alvin could see, across the flat green, wide open prairie.
    “Which way do you think, Georgie?  Left or right?” asked Alvin, scratching the top of his head.  “One way is as good as the other, I guess, at least until we know where we are.”
    Georgie shook her head, turned her head to the right, and let out a big honk.
    “Right, it is,” said Alvin, picking up Georgie.
    Alvin and Georgie started walking down the middle of the endless road.  The air was warm and humid, and there was a soft breeze.  It smelled like it had just rained, even though Alvin couldn’t see any clouds in the sky.  The lush grass fields of the prairie were empty except for an occasional oak or hickory tree.  A few more trees were near the fences, while others could be seen grouped together on the horizon, many miles away.
    “This road goes on forever.  It’s bound to come out somewhere.”

After walking for what felt like hours, Alvin and Georgie came to a gate in the fence at the edge of a thick forest.  They stepped off the side of the road and walked up to the open gate.  Next to the fence stood a man, whom, for some unknown reason, they hadn’t noticed before approaching.  The man had whiskers and short brown curly hair, was wearing faded blue overalls, and was in his bare feet.
    “Welcome, Alvin!  How are you?” asked the gatekeeper.  “We’re happy to see you awake and well after your long journey.”
    “Hello, yourself!” replied Alvin, setting Georgie on the ground.  “It’s nice to see a friendly face all the way out here.  By the way, where is ‘here?’”
    “You haven’t guessed?  You’re in the afterlife, my friend.”
    “‘Afterlife?’”
    “Afterlife, Alvin, as in ‘life after death.’”
    “Death?  You mean…”
    “Yep.  Death.  As is ‘dead.’  ‘Died.’  ‘Deceased.’”
    “Dead?  But that can’t be.  I feel as alive as I ever did.  Look at this,” said Alvin, squeezing his left forearm with his right hand.  “That’s solid flesh and bone, there.”
    “You didn’t notice that you could walk and talk again?”
    “Well goodness me.  I guess I can.  In all the confusion, I didn’t give it much thought.  But I don’t know.  I’m still not sure.”
    “Would seeing your wife again convince you?”
    “Martha?  Martha’s here?”
    “She sure is, Alvin.  And she’s been waiting for you.”
    “Did you hear that, Georgie?  You finally get to meet Martha!”
    Georgie spread her wings, stretched her long neck upward, and let out a big honk to match Alvin’s excitement.
    Martha appeared from out of the trees and walked through the gate in the fence.  “Alvin!” she exclaimed as she reached out for her husband.
    Alvin ran up to Martha and wrapped his arms around her, squeezing as tightly as he possibly could.  “I can’t believe you’re here,” he said, grabbing Martha’s shoulders and stepping back to get a better look at his wife.  “You’re really here.”
    “I’m here, Alvin.  And now that you’re here too, we’ll never be apart again.”
    Alvin and Martha kissed and then hugged each other a second time.
    “Martha, I want to introduce you to someone very special.  She helped me cope after you were gone.  Her name is…”  Alvin pointed his hand toward the ground next to him, but when he looked down, no one was there.
    “Introduce me to whom, Alvin?” asked Martha.  “I don’t see anyone.”
    “She was just here.  Where did she go?” said Alvin, looking around in every direction.  “She wouldn’t have just wandered off.”
    “Who, Alvin?” repeated Martha.  “Who was just here?”
    “I…” said Alvin, flustered and stuttering, his eyes squinting and his brow furrowed.  “I can’t…”
    “It’s okay, Alvin.  This place takes some getting used to when you first get here.  But I’ll help you.  We’re together again, and that’s all that matters.”
    Alvin hung his head, feeling a combined sense of loss and confusion.
    Martha put her hand under Alvin’s chin and lifted his head so he could look at her.  “Are you ready?  It’s time to go.”
    Alvin took Martha by the hand, and they walked toward the gate.  But before they went through, Alvin stopped and turned around to take one last look at the dirt road, which he assumed would be for the last time.  He closed his eyes, and a tear ran down his cheek.
    “Goodbye, Georgie.”
    Alvin turned back toward the gate and walked through it, side by side with Martha.  The gate slowly swung closed8behind them, and they disappeared into the woods.

The end.

Copyright © 2023 Larry Dempsey.  All rights reserved.

Commentary for “Alvin & Georgie”

–Alternate titles: “Georgie” and “The Old Man & the Goose.”

–My story was inspired by a short video I saw on one of my friends’ Facebook pages.  The video had a man in his 80s or 90s sitting in a recliner holding either a swan or a goose (although the video said it was a duck) and referring to it as his “emotional support duck.”

–I had a difficult time naming my main (human) character.  He was almost called Gerald, Warren, Walter, Wilbur, Alfred, Archie, Arnold, Charlie, Clarence, Melvin, Homer, Norman, Francis, or Jonathan, to name a few.  I don’t usually have a hard time naming characters.  I remember Stanley being just Stanley in my story of the same name. I didn’t even have to think about that one.

–I settled on the name “Alvin,” which comes from Alvin Straight, the man who rode his riding lawn mower 240 miles across Iowa and Wisconsin to visit his sick brother.  His journey was the inspiration for the movie “The Straight Story.”

–Like Alvin, I had a hard time naming the goose.  I liked the goose’s original name from the video that inspired my story (“Gertrude”), and I almost used it, but I wanted to come up with my own name and not just reuse the one from the video.  Instead, I decided to name one of the nurses after her, as a tribute.

–The name “Georgie” comes from the name of a character in the second season of the British sitcom “Hold the Sunset,” co-starring John (“Monty Python”) Cleese.

–I chose “Edith” from Edith Bunker from the 1970s sitcom “All in the Family.”  Her character was actually a caregiver at a nursing home late in the series (as well as a caregiver at a different nursing home in the sequel series “Archie Bunker’s Place”).

–“Arlene” comes from the actress Arlene Martel (but frequently billed as “Arline Sax”) who played the creepy “nurse in morgue” on an episode of “The Twilight Zone” called “Twenty Two.”

–“Gladys” (pronounced “GLA-diss”) is the name of a character from the British sitcom “Open All Hours” (where she played a nurse) and its sequel series “Still Open All Hours” (where, by then, she was retired from nursing).

–I got the name “Jamie” from one of my favorite models on the QVC home-shopping channel.  She happens to be an animal lover.

–Martha is the name of Clark Kent/Superman’s mother, who raised him on Earth.

–For the name of the nursing home, I got the name “Forest Hills” from Forest Hills, Queens, New York, which is the town where Peter Parker was raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben in the Spider-Man comics.

–For the name of the local newspaper, I got the name “Homewood” from the name of the small town in an episode of the original “Twilight Zone” series entitled “Walking Distance.”

–I originally made Alvin completely mute.  But there were a few things I wanted him to say, so I made him able to speak, but only barely.  I wanted to make him sound like the grandmother on “The Waltons” after she had a stroke.

–I had Alvin’s wife, Martha, have a collection of elephant figurines because that’s what Archie’s wife, Edith, had on “All in the Family” (or at least one big one, as well as a camel and a black panther).

–The scene where Jamie said that someone gave Georgie to them because they were no longer able to take care of her was based on a real incident where my late sister, Carmen, was no longer able to take care of a rabbit she owned.

–The scene where the kid from the local newspaper takes Alvin and Georgie’s photo is inspired by a scene in the movie “Nebraska.”

–I reused the line “We’re happy to see you awake and well after your long journey” from my story “Stanley.”

–The ending was inspired by another episode of “The Twilight Zone” TV series called “The Hunt.”  In the episode, an old man and his dog die and go to heaven, but not before almost being tricked into entering hell (by pretending to be heaven).  The lines “It’s bound to come out somewhere” and “That’s solid flesh and bone, there” are lines of dialogue from the same episode.

–I originally had a dense forest on either side of the road in the entirety of the afterlife scenes, but that felt too claustrophobic to me.  I changed it to a wide, open prairie (with a few trees scattered here and there).  However, I reintroduced the dense forest idea for the final scene when Alvin was reunited with Martha.  I also briefly considered having red curtains in the early afterlife scenes, in reference to one of my all-time favorite TV shows, “Twin Peaks,” but I thought that might be a little too weird, as well as an early tip off that they weren’t in a real place.

–At one point, I was going to set Alvin’s afterlife in the town where he grew up (starting with his back against a white picket fence instead of a plain wooden fence).  I was going to have Alvin and Georgie wandering around his town, looking at the houses, and him finally finding his childhood home.  I was also going to set the scene where Alvin was reunited with Martha by having Martha come out of the church where they were married instead of through a gate in a fence.  Instead, I kept it simple and went with the country road and a fence with a gate in the woods, again, the same as in “The Hunt.”

–The afterlife gatekeeper was intended to be dressed similarly to John-Boy from “The Waltons.”  Different hair, though.

–My original idea was for Georgie to be Alvin’s wife Martha reincarnated, but then I changed it to Georgie being an angel that led Alvin back to his wife.  Georgie disappeared after delivering Alvin safely to Martha and was no longer needed.

–The story originally ended with Georgie’s disappearance and Alvin’s memory of her disappearing with her.  He was initially confused, but being with Martha again made his anxiety disappear.  Then I changed to him, first forgetting Georgie, but then remembering her right before he crossed over.  I finally settled on him being confused as to why she would have left him, but he still remembered her.  I needed to have Alvin remember Georgie and miss her before moving on.

–I was going to give the goose the same name as Alvin’s wife, but I thought that was too coincidental.

–Intentionally doubled or repeated actions: Alvin’s son and Martha both saying, “Are you ready?  It’s time to go;” Alvin stopping at the front door of his house and the gate at the end to turn around and look around behind him before going through it; Alvin having a hard time adjusting to both the nursing home and the afterlife; and Alvin saying/stuttering the words “I can’t” at the beginning and ending of the story.

–I realized that this is my third story in a row where the main character falls asleep at some point and then wakes up (well, Alvin doesn’t really wake up, but you know what I mean).  I wonder why I use that story device so often.