She looked down at her spotted legs and imagined others examining her body when she died. Discarded. Laid out on a lab table or still in her bed, they’d see the purple veins, the circular patches of brown, the hair, flecks of pink. Had her legs ever been a solid shade and texture? Morbid thoughts. Yes, but when you get old you think that way. You realize nothing will ever be pretty and you’re just pretending and remembering how you previously appeared every time you get dressed.
It was inevitable. Deterioration. Ten percent loss each year. That’s what her husband said. Like the earth that flamed. Entire towns burning. It was the nature of things.
Nature, a wondrous phenomenon or the habits of humans to irreverently care for what they’d been given? She had no answers, only hope that she still had time to get inside the boat and row to safety before the waters rose any higher.
Nadja Maril is a former magazine editor and journalist living in Annapolis, Maryland. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the Stonecoast Program at the University of Southern Maine and her short stories, portions of her novel in progress, and essays have been published in a number of small literary magazines including Change Seven, Lunch Ticket, Lumiere Review and Defunkt Magazine. She blogs weekly at Nadjamaril.com and is the author of two reference books on American Antique Lighting as well as two children’s books. Follow her on Twitter at SN Maril.