An Excerpt From An Outsider's Dietary Aide?

I could have selected any number of pleasant details to be grateful for; the way Violet always smiled when wheeling in for supper, the reassuring comments provided by the cooks and aides at the end of each day, or the smell of freshly cut veggies that Ruby boiled for her potato soup. Instead I wore the title, ‘Dietary Aide’ the way a mule wears a cumbersome parcel cinched to his back, and I wallowed in subjective sympathy through the first few weeks of employment.
Had I not chosen to acknowledge and despise the unpleasant smell of the place, that stale aroma of denture cream and expired lavender tea bags, I may have more promptly noticed the hydrangea bushes that grew, in their modest, graceful way, outside the front windows of the facility.
No, this hum was different, heavier, magnetic.
Oliver walked briskly into the kitchen and ordered us to wheel the residents into the hallways immediately.
“It’s just a tornado warning.” he said with such urgency that my hands began to shake.
It took less that 15 minutes for the staff to move all residents to the halls, and after everyone had been accounted for, Oliver locked the foyer doors. A number of employees had been assigned to supervise each hallway, and I found myself in the East wing, along with many hungry, anxious residents. The supervisors and staff members stood huddled in a corner, straining to hear the updates on Oliver’s handheld radio, while the residents sat, confused, beside the doors to their bedrooms.
I sat on the floor between Arnie and Myrtle; her eyes invariably glazed at the hand of excessive painkillers, and his fixed fondly on her body which, despite its relative immobility, he still must have deemed beautiful.
“Is that the same wedding ring you’ve always worn?” He asked her