The CP Chronicles: Chapter Five (Michael)

You could hear his room before you saw it.

The faint static hiss of a VHS tape that had been rewound a thousand times, then the cheerful bubble-and-accordion chaos of The Lawrence Welk Show rolling through the hallway. It was always the same episodes. The same intro music. The same dancers in pastel dresses. And it never stopped.

He was probably close to fifty, whip-smart, and always in matching button-up pajama sets with the pants to match. In all the time I worked there, I never once saw him in “real” clothes. His conversations were punctuated by a stutter and frequent spits into tissues or the trash can. He wasn’t rude. It was just part of him, like the pajamas or the VHS tape.

For a long time, I didn’t think much about the spitting. Plenty of residents had compulsions or habits that made sense only to them. Then one day, I came across the note in his chart. It stopped me cold. Someone had violated him in the worst possible way years earlier, and the spitting wasn’t a tic at all — it was armor. It was his way of saying, never again.

I never told him I knew. He never spoke of it. But every time I walked past that room and heard Lawrence Welk playing, I thought about the way we see people — and how much we miss when we only look at what’s on the surface. Sometimes, the strangest habits aren’t strange at all. They’re survival.

The Email I WANTED to Send

Preface: Ever been pushed past your limit by a condescending student who blames you for their laziness? Yeah, me too. What follows is the absolutely unprofessional, completely unsendable, but 100% therapeutic draft of the email I fantasized about sending. I didn’t actually send it—because I’m a professional (unfortunately). But writing it saved me from throat-punching my laptop.

Subject: Read. The. Fucking. Rubric.

Dear J. the Fuckface,

I don’t know whether to be impressed by your confidence or concerned about your reading comprehension. Let me break this down for you in the simplest terms possible, since everything else I provided apparently flew straight over your head like a fucking weather balloon.

Yes, you were required to include five sources in your final annotated bibliography. Where was that listed? Oh, I don’t know—maybe in the rubric I told everyone to check. You know, the one attached directly to the assignment? The one I referenced multiple times? The one that starts with the words “5+ sources”? That rubric?

But sure—let’s pretend it wasn’t clear. Let’s pretend the personal video, the student example, the MLA guides, and the detailed assignment instructions weren’t enough. Let’s pretend I just threw this together on a napkin and expected you to mind-read.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t. You just didn’t pay attention. Again.

And now, instead of taking responsibility for missing obvious instructions, you’ve decided to email me with a passive-aggressive tone suggesting I “make that clear” next time. Bold move for someone who writes sentences like “I’ve took your feedback.”

Here’s some feedback in return: next time, try doing the actual assignment and reading the materials like a functioning adult instead of a discount Reddit troll. If you’d spent half the energy on your paper that you spent trying to gaslight your instructor, you might’ve gotten that A you think you deserved.

Now go forth and take several seats. Preferably in a remedial reading course.

Unapologetically,

C.

Letter to Louise

Dear Grandma Johnson,

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, but not a day has gone by where you haven’t stayed with me.

There’s so much I wish I could tell you. I wish I could sit at your kitchen table again while the smell of cheeseburgers fills the air and cats start gathering outside, waiting for their nightly feast. I can still picture you, scraping the dinner scraps into that old coffee can every evening and mixing them with canned food before stepping outside to feed your feral crew. They’d come running down the hill like a little army of ghosts, wild and hungry, but you never flinched. You treated them with gentleness, like they mattered. And they did. Because to you, everything with a heartbeat mattered.

You once told me you can always tell someone’s character by how they treat animals. You were right. You lived that truth in every way. You showed kindness to the overlooked and the discarded—not just animals, but people, too. Especially me.

When I think back to my childhood, so much of it was cold. Quiet. Missing the things that should’ve been automatic—hugs, kind words, someone to notice when I was hurting. But then there was you.

You called me Sweetie. You wrote me letters that told me I was special. You told me you loved me, and you meant it. You made me feel seen when I didn’t even realize how invisible I felt everywhere else. You didn’t just hug me—you held the parts of me that were breaking before I even knew they were broken.

Your house was magic to me. Not just because of the candy bars and the cooler full of forbidden sodas—though, let’s be honest, those were amazing—but because it felt like walking into a different world. A world where I could breathe. A world where love didn’t have to be earned by staying quiet or being good. It was just there.

You died when I was still a teenager, and it felt like the one person who truly got me disappeared. But you didn’t, not really. I carry you everywhere. I see you when I feed my own herd of misfit animals (although it is a much larger and more diverse group).  I remember your strength, your softness, your way of loving without condition—and I try every day to live up to that.

Some nights, I dream of haunted rooms. Of voices in the dark that sound too familiar. But I think if you were still here, you’d sit beside me in those dreams. You’d hold my hand. You’d say, “It’s okay. I’m here.”

And I’d believe you.

I hope wherever you are, you know how much you meant to me. How much you still mean to me. And how everything good and kind and warm in me has your fingerprints all over it.

Love always,

C.