Clifford's Spiral: Chapter 7

Oh, no. More of those perplexing spirals!

Chapters are serialized here for paid subscribers.

About This Novel

In Clifford's Spiral, the stroke survivor’s past is blurry, and his memories are in pieces. He asks himself:

Who was Clifford Olmstead Klovis?

Stroke sufferer Clifford Klovis tries to piece together the colorful fragments of his memories. Why is he seeing spirals everywhere?

Chapter 7

The Gatsky grandkid was playing in the middle of the freeway. This wasn’t necessarily dangerous. Although their drivers might be near-blind or almost deaf or both, the electric wheelchairs moved slowly. The boy would be agile enough to dodge them. The pace of the few ambulatory dodderers wobbling their way on walkers was glacial and likewise posed no threat except to themselves should the little brat miscalculate in his trajectory. If he progressed as far as the nurse’s station, which the residents referred to as downtown, the situation would become more perilous. There the freeway merged and widened into a busy, lushly carpeted interchange, patterned improbably with palm fronds and royal crests. Past that nexus, the carpet extended over the enclosed pedestrian overpass to the Mauna Loa Room, where the nightly buffet had a Hawaiian theme on Fridays, presumably in anticipation of the weekend, which staff saw as no vacation at all since hordes of loved ones and their brats would be descending on the apprehensive residents. That’s when the traffic would be loud and confusing, even to the residents who navigated the route to their food with regularity.

Mauna Loa was where the residents dined who were not either housed in Clifford’s assisted-living wing or residing in the hotel-like environment of the “ambulatory apartments.”

The electric wheelchairs were equipped with warning horns, which in such situations created a chorus of honks not unlike a gaggle of taxis at rush hour in Manhattan.