Writing for Fun
October 2016
The Parasite - Someone or something that sucks another dry - Joan Bond
If I knew anyone that came into this category it was my uncle George. He came and lived with my mother when his wife died fifteen years ago and has bled her dry ever since.
My friends and I, all in our late fifties and on our own through different circumstances have seen her worn out with waiting on him, and handing over almost all her money for his little necessities, like the Guinness he has almost like a drip several times a day and his fags and special food, which he would not survive without and it goes on. I keep telling her to get rid of him but she can’t, he is her brother.
We thought we had to find way of getting rid of the parasite. My mate remembered a book she had read where the arsenic in bedroom wallpaper killed, but apart from them having it taken off the market he would probably have asked mum to change rooms as he didn’t like the pattern. Went into other things like ivy and mistletoe that grows and gradually squeezes all the life from the tree so we put crushed leaves of the ivy in his socks and tied some mistletoe berries under his mattress but it would take too long.
Daphne, a lady of some repute, tried to get to know him down the pub, flashing her jewellery around and saying she was looking for a bloke to take her to the Caribbean, it cost us a bit in drinks etc. but we thought it was worth it if he went. Unfortunately mum heard of what was going on and warned him off.
We managed to pick up some fleas from the dog and put them in his bed hoping he would thrash himself to death with the itching but Josie had a few on her which she inadvertently took home and the parrot had all his feathers fall out. And he used some of the swear words he had learned and shocked old Auntie Gladys, not too much though as she had taught him the words in the first place.
A month ago poor old George suddenly just up and died, no apparent reason, unless the doll in his likeness with pins in had worked, then a month after, my mother died as she said. She had lived for George and couldn’t see anything in life without him.
Well!