Anthological

a look into your future

Words: 1,283

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0.     You wake up. It is New Year's Eve.

AM

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    Six o'clock. You stand up and walk into the  kitchen. The house is empty; you gave the maid today and tomorrow off. Spend time with the family, you know. (Spend time, before they're gone.) You open the fridge, stare at the food. Three eggs. Crack, crack, crack. Whisk; you like them scrambled. Frying pan, spatula, plate. You take it to  the dining room.

    You eat slowly. You have a glass of juice; coffee is bad for your stomach. You sit there for almost an hour, eating your eggs and drinking your juice and trying not to think. Chew, chew, swallow.  You don't know if the repetitive actions comfort you or annoy you. (Chew, chew, swallow.) You honestly can't tell anymore.  

You brush your fake teeth after.

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     Seven o'clock. There's nothing to do for about five hours. The kids (and their husbands, and their wives, and the grandkids, and their kids, and the significant others) are coming tomorrow, January first. To celebrate the new year in the old house, the house where it all started. You snort. Superstitious nonsense, that's what it is.(As if your disregard for superstition had stopped you from praying to any and all gods above when your beloved was about to die, no?) 

             You're still bored. You look at your  bookshelf. Try to read all the book titles and debate the merits of reading each one, but in the end you pick one at random. The book you pulled out  carries a certain amount of sentimental value, makes you feel, makes you remember. That doesn't surprise you. When you've owned them for so long, every object has sentimental value, and when you've been here this long, nearly everything makes you remember. Well, as long as you're one of the lucky ones that get to keep their memories into the late stages. 

You sit down (With pillows to support your creaking, barely functioning back) and begin to read.

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       Ten o'clock. You look up, disoriented. You're almost halfway through the book. In younger days, you could've finished this entire short book in more or less the time it took to get you to read these chapters. But being able to read this long without  falling asleep  is, at your age, a miracle. You're not any less thankful for it. Bookmark the page; read it later. Stand up, painful cracks from joints. Stretch.

       You take a shower and idly shampoo what's left of your hair. The wrinkled skin; after all this time, still disorienting to see.(You're not getting any younger, aren't you?)  You're not sure what you still expect to see, it's been like this for a couple decades already. (You expect to see your twenty or thirty year old self, the self you like to think is your real self.) You get dressed, comfortable clothes. No one's home anyway, who cares about fashion? Certainly not yourself.