My grandmother is staying with us for a week, hobbling around my house on her walking stick, her countless pill boxes littering the dining table. Her hair is soft and sugarwhite and she smells of baby powder and old age. She nods off in the middle of conversations she cannot hold. I watch her teeth float in a glass above the sink as I brush my own at night.
After a week, she will be flown off to Australia like a parcel, to stay with relatives till she dies. If she dies within the week, however, then it would be right here, in the house that I live.
She has made all funereal arrangements including the cheongsam she will lay in, as we gather around her coffin at the wake, speaking in hushed tones and weeping in appropriate measure.
There is nothing left for her to do now except hobble around and take naps, as she waits for death. I watch her as she watches me. I watch her die a little before my eyes. She never really liked me. I never hugged and smiled much, I was never one for polite manners and respecting elders. Old people never like me very much. She watches me back, her eyes glaze over and soon, she is asleep.
I wonder how it feels to know that death is so close. Breathing down your neck, hovering around you like a sombre mourning family. She isn't afraid, she isn't sad. Neither is anyone else. We will cry when she dies because that is the way things go, but we know that death is inevitable and the only certainty we have in life.
I have never been afraid of death. My own, that is. I am not afraid of dying. In every aspect of my life thus far, I have run away like the fucking coward that I am and hidden under a rock because of my ineffectuality and general failure. It is only with regard to death that I am bold and unafraid. In fact, it is what helps me along, sings my song. What keeps me alive is the thought that it will all be over eventually.
Life fucking frightens me. To death.
I have never accomplished anything in this life of mine, thus far. I was never a prodigy, I was never someone's pride and joy, I never won anything at school. I never really stood out in anything at all. Never the one who could run fast, paint well, talk loud, write poems, play ball, start fights, marry rich, win elections, rule the world. I never did anything I was proud of and I never will. I say this all matter-of-factly, not lounging around on a sad couch of self-pity and pessimism.
I am less than mediocre, I fall between the cracks. The only positive thing about living this way is the lack of disappointment you incur. Hardly do I ever disappoint because of the lack of expectations placed on me. If you never expected the dog to fetch the stick, you won't beat the bitch if it doesn't.
I used to cry all the goddamn time (till near dehydration, dammit, and had to follow up with copious glasses of water after), about being a disappointment. The Big eff-ing D-word. To my family, to myself, to anyone who cared. Hell, even to Jesus H. Christ. Then, I began to realise that no one really gave a fuck if I sank or floated. It's embarrassing thinking how I believed someone did. Bitch, you crazy thinkin' you in the game at all. I slapped myself right outta that shit. I had no game. I was never in the fucking game.
The only game I play these days is the one where I'm counting down. As morbid as it sounds, I count the days till this all ends. She's counting when she's 91. I started about 70 years ahead of time. There's nothing else to do around here anyway. I'm stuck on an island carving out my days on the trunk of a tree in multiples of five, waiting for that ship that never comes. I'm hungry and I'm tired and that neverending nap sounds like a fucking treat.
I've never won anything, I've never changed your life. I'll never be the kid who made it good, I'll never make you smile. But one thing's for sure, I know that when that train finally comes around, it'll be the best thing I ever did.
