The best thing about dementia is that you can really wind people up. Take the old woman I sit next to at breakfast. I’ve asked her seven times this morning what we’re having and had seven different responses – a personal record. Yesterday I only got her up to five, but I think she’s on to
It began with a simple statement. An uncontroversial statement, as so many conversations do. “Hey, I bought that T-Shirt,” I said, standing in the kitchen doorway. She was peeling the dead outer skin from an onion with a knife and her fingers. It came off in one piece, revealing a layer as white and perfect
Theodore shuffled backwards into the lee of the narrow wooden shelter. He inhaled the familiar scent of old oak. The floor was slightly sticky, but other than that this shelter was one of the better ones. The overhang and the shelters in the row in front obscured his view of the podium, despite the slight
Blood oozing is not a big deal—even when there’s a lot of it. It’s torn flesh, capillaries, minor damage. Looks worse than it is. But when it keeps pouring out and doesn’t stop, you’ve ripped a vein, and that’s a bitch. Protocol is clear: clean it out, numb the spot with Lidocaine, suture it. Scott’s
I feel the flutter of feathers against my skin and I awaken. # His body was mottled, pale beneath his clothing but yellowish in other places as if the sun couldn’t decide whether to rest there or flee. Other times, when he was angry or lustful, it was stained red, like the juice of dried
I thought we were waiting. For it to be over. For things to go back the way they were. When you stopped messaging, the lie I told myself was that your phone was broken and you couldn’t get it fixed. Deep down I was sure you were sick. I tried very hard not to imagine
London’s lights slap against my face as I rest my forehead against the window. My eyes drop open and shut, filled with flickering bars of fluorescent lights and blurred reflections of myself staring back at me. The Uber driver hasn’t said a word, and neither of us has asked him how his night has been
His students argued that he should take the day off. Answering emails at 10 PM on a Saturday was unacceptable. Two students created a PowerPoint and presented it to him and the rest of the class—the theme–It was time for him to find a social life. Middle-age was not scary. They used the Toulmin Model
Pompadour, Caesar, Undercut, Crew. French Crop, Ivy League, Mid fade, Buzz. I guess it starts with the smell of American Crew and sweat. At least, that’s what my mind stretches for as I look back- I’ve no sense for certain, what with the throbbing drum in my head and the hallucinatory quality of my vision.
It was the summer I turned fifteen, our first summer at the lake house and – as my father insisted on informing us as we drove through the thinning traffic on our way out of the city – it was the summer that the ISON comet, long predicted to be among the brightest ever seen,
