EXERCISIN'

As the broad-backed nurse fiddled with his father's IV, Raymond caught his father staring down the open neck of her shirt. She was homely in her white scrubs with satin trim, which at this moment looked to Raymond more like a slip. His father struggled with a Rubik's cube absentmindedly as he stared down her shirt. Normally the cube served no purpose other than to ride side-car to last August's Log Home magazine on the nightstand, but today a sudden interest had been sparked in it.

Watching his father penetrate the nurse's cleavage with his eyes burned the image of his lab assistant, Clara, onto his retinas. Raymond was employed at a NOAA research center, and as the designated caretaker of his father, frequent trips between the hospital and work had tired him to the point of no longer trying to hide his advances. He had taken to openly staring down Clara's low-cut shirts. His stare was more out of routine than out of desire, Raymond thought, and he understood his father's predicament. In the past several months they had been conducting behavioral tests on the common octopus, O. vulgaris. Currently they were working on O. vulgaris’ skill in object manipulation. He seemed to be developing an ability to discern the differences between cubes and spheres, even.

Raymond's father gave up the Rubik's cube. O. vulgaris had mastered color recognition in the lab, Raymond thought, but still consistently failed on multi-step problem-solving. His father continued staring at the nurse's breasts, and smiled, almost lightly laughing to himself as he let the cube fall to his lap. O. vulgaris was more cunning than vulgar, sometimes, Raymond thought to himself. Clara had an inclination that O. vulgaris may be the only invertebrate animal that engages in play.

The nurse finished her task and turned to Raymond's father. “I'm going to have to check your bedsores,” the nurse said. Speaking to him was more of a courtesy anymore. Instead he stared at her breasts more intently as if to say “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He smiled and then settled upon a long stare at Raymond.

“Dad,” Raymond sighed, “you can't stare like that.” Raymond sighed. “I'm really sorry, he's not in his head.” The nurse seemed unashamed, almost flattered. “Roll it over,” he added. His father rolled over.

Raymond thought that the bedsores were starting to look much like the aluminum skin over the many cups of applesauce that Raymond and his father had shared in the passing months since their first night at the hospital. The edges had grown to a deeper purple, and the open sores at the center were dried and cracked, having lost the volcanic ambitions that had produced the frequent and prodigious flows of milk-colored puss in days past. The nurse finished her business and left the room, smiling at Raymond as she left.

A few moments later a short rap came on the door, and outside of it Raymond found the hospital’s Chaplain still non-denominational, staring up at the grates that covered the fluorescent lights. That was how the Chaplain prayed, staring up into the lurid shine of the fish-scale-patterned grate, his eyes open wide, chanting the names of many gods. Raymond knew this and stared up into the grate and prayed for a brief encounter.

“Hello,” the Chaplain chirped, turning his gaze to Raymond’s face. “How are we today?” Raymond had thought extensively on the word ‘we.’ It was always 'we' with the Chaplain. He had come to the conclusion that he didn’t particularly want the Chaplain to be ‘we’ with himself and his father.

“Things are alright.” Raymond craned his head in the general direction of his father’s bed. “Can the soul-doctor come in, Dad?” His father stared at last August's issue of Log Home again.

Raymond turned to the Chaplain. “He says you can come in, but no Sudoku today. He also wants me to tell you that he has plenty of brains already.” The Chaplain had taken to trying to connive responses out of the old man with Sudoku to no avail. Raymond paused for a moment and leaned in closer, whispering, “I might recommend the Rubik’s.”

The Chaplain and Raymond both took seats on opposite sides of the bed. The Chaplain told Raymond’s father that there would be no Sudoku. “We should share some words. We should talk of mercy.”

The Chaplain spoke at length about Sisyphus and of Jesus and Guanyin, babbled endlessly on topics of eastern mysticism, about maintaining a equilibrium of the soul. About vibrating positive energies through all planes of existence, about the consistency of mercy as an aspect of al religions, while Raymond's father stared at last August's Log Home, or touched his own face, or blew bubbles with his spittle. Raymond thought of O. vulgaris. Clara disagreed with him on one point. She believed that the octopus was self-aware. Raymond thought of the mirror in front of the tank, and the curious way his tentacles breached the surface of the water, reaching towards the glass.