Frail

She worked her way over to her favourite chair, moving from prop to prop. The kitchen worksurface along to the doorframe, the doorframe to the mantlepiece, each inch hard won. She paused from time to time to check her balance and her progress, to catch her breath. She waved me away, her determination silent and slow. Finally, at the mantlepiece she would have to launch herself into a lurch across the floor, free from hand holds or leaning points. The last precarious feet as nervewarcking as any highwire act. I held my breath as she swayed,  turning and piroutteing as she fell into the chair. This her kitchen where she had for years held court, this her domain. This now her world.

 

She breathed heavily, exhausted by the expedition. Her chin was sunk against her chest, her thin, thin grey hair no modesty for the nakedness of her skull. Frail, her fingers great knotted bunches of knuckles and swollen veins.

 

She looked up, her eyes finding me. The irises seem to have blurred into the whites but the pupils were pin sharp. She took a shallow breath and with a curl of her lip,

 

“I hate you”