More sweet, sweet writing prompt action for all of you. And yes, for the record, I hate it to death! Yay!

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Target Words: frightened, listened, ran, water, crocodile, zoo, called, carrots

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Suddenly, I heard a noise. It was a low, shuffling sound. Startled, I dropped the garbage bag I had been taking out. It make a low, heavy, wet noise against the kitchen's pale linoleum, reminding me of bad murder scenes in those horror flicks they showed at 4 AM on channel 51.

Behind me, like the blonde about to faint in terror at some radioactive creature, he gasped. He was frightened of that noise, or the suddenness of the movement, or the mess of broken eggshells and used paper towels spilling out of the glossy black plastic, or perhaps merely my own curse.

I bent swiftly, picking it up. Of course it was him, I reminded myself. But I couldn't help it, being startled. His footsteps had changed so much since then. He had changed so much over the time.

He stooped down, as well. His hands were shaking, a visable reminder of everything.

"Don't worry yourself about it, Lewis," I said, probably more firmly than I had intended initially.

Lewis backed away a bit, and nodded. He continued sitting on the floor, however, as if forgetting that he was originally standing in the first place.

To be honest, it wouldn't have surprised me if he had.

I finished cleaning up, an empty plastic bag that had once carried carrots, embellished with an obviously copyright-infringed Bugs Bunny, the final piece of debris. Tying off the bag once more, I put it to the side.

Patience. That was the first thing that taught you in all those support groups. Patience.

"Now, Lewis. What was it you needed?"

I hated this part of any question. I hated this part of my life, to be honest--having to watch him, day in and day out, struggle with issues such as "why did I come out to the kitchen in the first place?" and "where is the toilet in the house I've lived in for five years?" and "what's my lover's name, anyway?"

And he hated it, too. Picking at a hole in his jeans, he pondered the question.

"Um. Hmm. Did I eat today?" he asked, eyes candid.

"Yes, Lewis. Yes, you did."

Sweet Jesus. How did it get so far?

I can remember so clearly the first years we were together in college. His mind so bright, I thought that I'd become some freakin' Einstein just if I sat by him and basked in his genius rays. Just if I listened to him, to his theories on life and society and all that jazz. Back then, it all seemed so perfect. He always smelled of ink or clay or turpentine, then. Sometimes my friends could tell when I'd been with him because my hands were stained from the ink of his pen, the marks of his craft transferring from his long hands to mine like a brand. Like I belonged to him. And I did. And he belonged to me. And we were so happy, like some shiny little married couple. It was wonderful.

But then, slowly, he started forgetting. It was after we graduated that we really started to notice it. We used to kid (God it makes me sick to think now) that he was going senile. For a while, it was nothing. For too long, it was just a joke, and then after that he went on about how it was no big deal. Even when I started to see how many holes were forming in the tapestry, he insisted it was okay.

He always admired Andy Warhol. But damned if I'd let Lewis go down the path of an early death that he ran.

Pick's disease. Fucking Pick's disease. I'd never even heard of it. And even if I had, it usually just attacked 60-year-old brains. 26. Lewis was 26.

And that day, I broke my hand punching the wall in the clinic. And the hole I made in the wall I could only see as the holes forming in Lewis' frontal lobes. And Lewis just smiled his little optomistic artist smile, and told me not to worry about it.

It was easy for him to say, in the long run. He wasn't the one who'd have to watch his lover slowly become a different person, a stranger in the shell of a body I once knew so goddamned well.

I was never the optomist, anyway.

But, slowly, I guess you learn. You become glad of little things, like all the days he wakes up at your side with a happy grin, and says "Erich" in that way where you can tell he knows who you are, and how he can still control his own bodily functions. More often than not, that's enough in life.

But always looming is that crocodile that escaped from the zoo, tailing you, waiting for you to relax your guard before biting. That knowledge that I have--that he has, too, when he's in his right mind--that such blessings will also be ripped from our hands, someday.

The diagnosis seemed to have happened so long ago. His memories and his personality kept fluctuating. Life goes on, though.

That's what he always wanted. Life to go on. But I know of things that he's set up for when he does go. I've seen the letter he wrote on that first day, a manila envelope sandwiched between Farwell to Arms and For Whom The Bell Tolls.

He doesn't even remember that anymore. I don't even know if he can read anymore. For God's sake, he can't remember why he's here.

Lewis looked up at me. He seemed so small, since then. "Perhaps..." he started, and then faltered.

"Do you want some water, or something? If you're still hungry, I can fix you something, you know."

He grinned at me softly, and reached out those soft hands, no longer roughed from turpentine and ink. I held on to them, looking at them in my own. How many times had I felt these hands on me? How long had it been?

I remembered the last time we had made love, shy and quiet and fumbling. He kissed me again, like he once did when we first made love. I did what I could. Called him beautiful, encouraged him. They had said--in all those damnable sessions they make you go to after you break your hand on a clinic wall--that sex would be different, if it existed at all. That his personality would change. That he would probably be selfish.

But it wasn't so different at all. It was just like the first time. It was just more bittersweet than anything I'd ever encountered. It was just like saying goodbye.

"Perhaps I just came to see you."

And I carressed his face. It was enough.