It's Still Life

AFTERSHOCK (168 words)

Two, I tell him. He’s asked how many pillows I sleep on.

Is that good or bad, I ask, but he’s too busy writing notes in my file to answer, and I’m wondering if I’ll be pounding my fist on the inside of a coffin soon.

He says we should do, as if he’s going to join me, a troponin blood test and a lung function test. He looks too young to be a doctor. Boyish. And his teeth are white and symmetrical. Pristine. My teeth never looked like that. Ever.

Age disrupts one’s body. Turns it spongy. Turns your blue veins into bruises as if you’ve been wrestling moose. No, I say, that’s a razor nick – can’t see without my glasses, and I don’t wear glasses in the shower, do you?

He doesn’t answer.

I know this for sure, I don’t recognise myself in the mirror anymore, and it’s not a memory thing – it’s a time thing, how everything can change in a flash.

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