What If It Is?

I find pink puke all over the toilet bowl. Dadda ate old Onam fare and upchucked. He doesn't tell me anything about it though. And I don't mention it. He doesn't bother to put the dog's food to cook as he normally does. So I do it. The dogs are fed properly. Not the paltry amounts that he thinks are enough for them despite the fact that he does not pay for their food.

It is a strange situation. He is getting deliberately crueller to them. Tells me to give them away, put them to sleep. I think he wants me out. And in the next breath, he demonstrates some form of frailty. This push-pull thing I have lived with my whole life. Co-dependent is how someone characterised the whole relationship. And I know, once I have left, I will not be coming back. For any reason.

Sick? In hospital? Dying?

Too bad. Why is that supposed to be my problem?

Yes, I'm mad.

But mostly at myself for being so sluggish and staying for this long. I should have moved out by now. Instead, here I am on the sofa, bout the only thing I can say I achieved for today is to feed and walk the dogs. My phone battery is almost dead as the charger is in the office. I was supposed to go get that early this morning. Instead, I slept till noon.

The other thing I achieved...is finishing Joan Didion's Blue Nights. Which I loved. I love how she repeats certain words and phrases throughout the book. You can tell she was crying when she wrote it. This incredibly painful memoir about the death of her only child. 20 months after the death of her husband.

There was no warning for one. And 20 months of warning for the other.

But death, that great emptiness, that great bourne from which there is no return, that great silence, that great nothingness beyond....we tell ourselves fairy stories to believe it is not the end.

But what if it is?