THE BOY ON THE BIKEOutside my window, to the right of my bed, I can see the rolling hills and a vast expanse of grass that leads to a dirt path. I sometimes tell myself that maybe they've forgotten about me, the abandoned living. I don't know. I don't know anymore what to think. Perhaps I am already dead and the only thing alive is my mind. But then, why would nurse Reinhart change my bedpan, turn me over for access to my puckered old a*s, as dry as a hardened apple? Why would she do these things? When I ask her why I am here, she squints and grunts and 'hrumpffs' around the bed, adjusting things that I cannot see but only feel. Her fingernails trace isosceles triangles upon my side, stomach, and buttocks. Her hands are cold as the beckoning dead. “The incisions will be here and here and h
