Peggy’s Prompt—beside her chair

 beside her chair


Beside her chair, she kept all the necessities for her day—cell phone, keys, glasses, a bottle of water, the morning newspaper, the TV remote, a stack of library books, a package of peanut butter on cheese crackers, some grapes. Other than potty breaks, which she kept to a minimum by being sparing on her water intake—perhaps not such a good idea, but what can you do?—she was set until Max came by, bringing their lunches. What she would do without Max she didn’t know. He was so faithful, so diligent, so kind—so different than he’d been before her decline. Well, sometimes adversity brings out the best in people, even the adversity felt by other people. Anyhow, she was grateful. Max was coming through in the clutch. She just hoped he could last until all this was over. This long decline which only had one ending, but which at the moment felt so far off. Despite all her infirmities, as long as she didn’t try to do too much, she didn’t feel all that decrepit. Just a little tired. Maybe a twinge of pain if she moved her neck in just the wrong direction. But not bad, really, if you don’t mind sitting in one chair all day long (except for those inconvenient and complicated potty breaks), doing essentially nothing but existing.

Existence had never held a whole lot of charm for her. At least not the “mere” existence she currently had. Existing and living were two distinctly different things to her, and what she now had was not living, it was existing. And it was boring. Not to mention it made her feel guilty. She had been the doer, the go-to person, the achiever, the too-busy one in her past life. No more, though. Now she moved like a sloth, in slow motion, carefully. Can’t afford to fall, she knew. That would be the end, for sure. On the other hand, what would be so bad about hurrying up the arrival of the end, she wondered. In so many ways, the end of her living had already arrived. About the only thing left was the complete shut-down of her internal organs. Really, she was only a baby-step away from being dead as she was. Still, she hadn’t really given any serious thought to squirreling away a stash of pills to hasten the inevitable. Of course, she’d long since passed the time of being able to obtain those pills for herself, and who wants to put up with pain in order to save the pill for later. Oh what a quandary, she thought. I might just as well try to take a nap.