Cameron Morse, “The Lost Horizon

The Lost Horizon

Cameron Morse

Grandma Agatha died in Shangri-La Rehab & Living Center. She packed her cheek with roast beef and choked in Shangri-La, where she didn’t know any of the people

parked in wheelchairs, entangled with breathing tubes and IV stands, slumped around the common room, staring blankly at the screen or dozing to the chant

of a live Chicago audience: Jerry, Jerry, Jerry. Who was Jerry? she had wondered. Who were these visitors asking, “Do you know who I am?” She could only guess

who the white-bearded man was who wanted to have sex with her. She didn’t remember him raping her in the basement bedroom, didn’t remember hissing, “Stop it, Bernard. I said

stop it.” If she had, she may have taken Shangri-La to be a safe house, a refuge, not a place as alien and unfriendly as a lamasery in the Himalayas where immortals waft above bamboo groves, white

as her husband’s beard, in their ethereal robes.