And what about this?

I swear there are whole days they just zap away from me.

For instance, where is Thursday. Can anyone account for me on Thursday? And yet, on Friday, there don't appear to be gaps, or any missing items. For instance, we all react to a news story the same way, as if we are hearing together any tidbit for the first time.

I remember Papa returning from the woods with a brace of pheasant, and Mama saying, Goodness, where has the time gone? And I never understood until now, waking up this morning and certain it was Thursday, but learning they are saying it is not.

I wonder who I can trust around here. Minnie seemed like a good bet but that did not pay out.

"Don't we all claim to be doctors of some kind?"

That was what Frida asked me at breakfast today, when I started to explain how I got here. I will be frank: it made me angry, maybe in a way I haven't been angry in a long time. If there's one main problem I have with the people here, it's that when they hear a question like that, they will just nod seriously as if it contains some kind of elegant wisdom, and is not preposterous.
Let me tell you what I think about that. I think, what I think, seriously, is that even if I were in a coma, or dead, I would be alert enough to think that was a stupid question. I do not claim to be a doctor of any kind at all. I once told a cop I was a judge to beat a ticket for failure to yield in a traffic circle, and another time I bought a seal and pretended to be a notary, to expedite a little deal I was making, but I do not claim to be a doctor of any kind. I don't say I wouldn't be good at it, or that I don't privately go around diagnosing people, or even that I'm above a little autosurgery when I have a deep splinter or suspect blood poisoning, but just that I don't do it under the guise of some phony legitimacy. I took my tray and went to another table, but I'd lost my appetite by the time I sat back down.

What you want to know I can not say

It is still this season, but everyone wants to push me into the next. The man who claims to be a doctor claims to have my best interests at heart but even an idiot knows that winter follows summer, so he must think I know less than an idiot.

I know this much: when autumn rusts the trees and grasses outside, the season here, in the cafeteria and the day room and our quarters, will remain chrome-bright and stainless. I can resist winter here. That must be worth something.