Heart was drifting down the drain. The TV was dead. There won�t be anything left to eat. It is official: there�s nothing left to eat. Everybody needs something to grasp. But the TV was dead. How long will it take her to go insane? How long will it take for her son to call the retirement home and come in grinning and hissing �it�s better this way, you�ll see, it�s better this way...�? It was not... It was not about her being obsolete. She had given up trying to see her granddaughters, given up counting the days to next Christmas. But there was courage still. So many ideas on old age, all filled with wisdom. It�s not about wisdom, it�s about them wanting you to resign.

Body had been silent till then. The second part of a century had passed with her looking forward to some final doctor�s order, to finally sigh and resign. But she was ok, in pretty good shape, still breathing. The irony of it... Nothing to do with regrets, no. Everybody figures you must consider your life with its ups-and-downs, memories in old photographs, quiet smiles. But the moment you start thinking this way you�re already dead. And she was so not. How could she convince others though? She poured herself another whisky and looked out the window. Here they were, bending down, nervous looks behind their shoulders, hands tight on the purse. Afraid of youth, afraid of robbers, afraid of their own body failures, of their hesitating walk, of the concrete surrounding and them not being here, for anyone. Old, bitter, useless. She was not this way. TV was dead and it was over. There�s no point in pushing age away. No pills or medicines worth this idea, that you are alive and capable of love and kindness, that you must carry on for someone somewhere and that someone is you. She sipped on her whisky. What was she supposed to do? Family did not care no more, she could have died now and they would have mourn her and so what... Headache. Another whisky. Subscribing to some cruise around the globe, maybe flirting with some retired policeman and see them both, hand in hand, image closing down as the curtain falls. There was resistance, there was bitterness and resistance in here, and misunderstanding and too much alcohol and days passed without seeing anyone, with hopes of someone knocking at the door, with bird feeding and talking to the cat, the fish, even to goddamn pictures of a husband long-gone and misunderstanding of everything, of youth�s so brief flings and her own contradictions, bitterness and desperate desire to love, and the helplessness at a world that had grown so simple, shrinking to a two-room apartment, to a daily hello to the neighbours, a weekly talk with the maid, an annual meeting with her relatives and a constant sinking in the TV, but oh god, TV was dead... And there�s no more whisky.

She galumphed to the door and left the apartment.