by Kell Willsen
Miss Meera Jones, room 37, was back from breakfast; having been washed, dressed, and medicated as per usual. The new carer really was very good, she thought. Efficient, gentle, and with a wonderful memory for what made the residents happy. Such a nice young man, and marvellously self-effacing. He had one of those faces that won't stick in the memory no matter what; broadcasting "I am not important or memorable" to every subconscious in the area.
Miss Meera sighed inwardly at the decline in standards since her time at the Academy. But Doctor Clarivos was not a man famed for subtlety.
She spent the morning in her room, gazing out of her window at the busy streets below. Her family had tried to get her into a care home out in the countryside, but she'd refused to leave her city. This community care home was overcrowded, poorly funded, and lacking in all the amenities of art and nature that other homes provided. The staff were stretched thin, and rarely had time for more than a word or two of conversation during their duties. So if Miss Meera wanted to spend all day quietly in her room, no-one here had the time or energy to object.
The world outside her window was as hustling and bustling as it had been in her day. Things looked and sounded different in many ways, but the essentials hadn't changed. People were still people, and Miss Meera still loved them dearly. She watched a mother struggling along with a baby in a buggy and two older children tagging along behind, all loaded down with shopping. A casual thought nudged the oldest child's foot from going off the edge of the pavement, averting what could have been a nasty fall. Another effort steadied the cyclist who'd been distracted by the family, and was losing his balance. And so nothing happened, and the day was uneventful for all concerned.
The new carer was still on duty at lunchtime, and Miss Meera scanned him quietly while he helped her on with her slippers and prepared to escort her down to the dining hall. She found what she was looking for on a pendant he wore, and gave it a mental tug so that it spilled out of his shirt as he bent over her.
He apologised and moved to tuck it away, but Miss Meera stopped him and admired the pendant. It was engraved with her own likeness - or at least, with Mesmera's likeness, from back in the day.
"Who's your lady friend?" she asked, as she turned the psychic presence on it down from "PAY NO ATTENTION!" to "who, me?"
The young man's face broke into a nostalgic smile. "That's the fantastic Mesmera," he said. "She saved my grandma's life more than fifty years ago. If not for Mesmera, my mama wouldn't even have been born."
He brushed his thumb over the face on the pendant before tucking it back inside his shirt. "I found this in a jumble sale a few years back, and bought it to remind myself how much one person can affect the lives of others."
Then Miss Meera Jones was seated at her table, and the nice young man disappeared back into the crowd. She idly wondered what his hero name was, but she didn't really keep up with that scene these days. Young things running about in costumes and saving the world.
Miss Meera smiled, and reached out a mental hand to stop old Mrs. Brampton from spilling her soup.