Sarah's zombie

Sarah started working supporting individuals with different disabilities and long-term conditions in their own homes. One of the patients was a 50-year-old man who had Huntington's disease.

The girl had to support him in getting out of bed, dressing, and preparing breakfast, lunch or dinner. Due to the advanced state of his disease, he was not able to eat or drink on his own. His body would jerk involuntarily at all times. He was clumsy, and he stumbled all the time. And he was a punk. Sarah had to learn how to fix his hair, creating the perfect Mohawk he was never satisfied with. And when he wanted to go to a concert, two voluntary support workers had to accompany him. 

One of her colleagues liked punk music, too. 

"Please, I would like you to come with me," Eric begged the girl.

So they went. An underground club full of loud noise, crowded with 200 hundred Mohawks, all leaning into each other. Elbows and shoulders jostling her. And to her surprise, the patient seemed to be an important guy in the crowd. People would approach his wheelchair and talk to him. Sarah and her colleague would take turns giving him alcohol from a plastic bottle while Eric drank from his own glass. And she didn't want to be there. Someone gave the patient a small bag, and he handed it to Eric. He opened it and put a pill in the patient’s mouth. He started mumbling something to Eric, and at the same time, he pushed his arm to get more attention. Eric looked at the girl. 

The girl said, NO, NO, NO!!! Swinging her arms. Her colleague smiled while the patient kept pushing his arm with his. Eric put another pill in his mouth. 

And she wanted to cry and run. The patient would get angry at her when she refused to give him more alcohol, and he called her bitch, as he used to do.
Sarah would say she needed to go to the bathroom 15 times in one hour, and go outside to smoke cigarettes she never smoked.

The day after, Eric was in the hospital in a coma. 

 The following day, before going to work, Sarah sent her resignation letter in an email to her manager. She was preparing the same patient lunch in the kitchen when she received a text from another colleague. "He is dead. Fentanyl. Sorry". The girl stared at her phone, and the picture of Eric looking at her before taking the pill came to her mind. She thought he was not saying, "Don't say anything". He was saying, "Should I?". Sarah heard the patient calling her from the living room, but she didn't reply. 

"Come here bitch", she didn't go. 

Ten minutes later, as an electrocuted zombie may walk, he appears in the kitchen. They stood in front of each other without talking. The only thing Sarah had in mind was, "Fall, please fall. Fall and hit your head," and she waited for that to happen.