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A (very) short story
To hear a word
She forgot herself softly near the end, a feeble shadow trying to eat walls. And afterwards defeated, she'd sit slumped tired waiting, for the next bout waiting. And in the end she died in vomit.
How to watch an old woman crumble, is to bring her whiskey and watch her slur her regrets. But hidden in bile, and drunk in the next chair, they're not easy to hear. And to hear a word artfully slipped from a sour mouth stealing sympathy, is to know her deceit. And I left on a Sunday night.
Alone at night decades she passed in that house, with a black and white TV jumping lines across the soap operas. And a pension affording seed for the pigeons collected punctual at four everyday. And cats ill-fed and names forgotten. And a tin of tomato juice rusted-ancient offered at a tense family gathering. And grey tasteless served up at a surprise visit from a grandson, name confused.
And throughout all those years growing taller watching her wither; through all those familial Sundays and school holidays; through all the pets dead and wept over drunk, through it all who to trust this paper-skinned hunchback? No one.
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