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Though there was a time wherein I could tie a wash-cloth around my waist, I am now a relatively hefty woman. My face is as long as my neck is wide, and my shoulders are about half the size of my stomach, and a quarter of my thighs. I resemble, to a striking extent, a bowling-pin. And though I think my very anatomy tends to bother some people, I find myself to be quite ravishing, and hold a death grip on my raddled frame as if it were the sensuous body of Aphrodite.

It’s all very paradoxical. When I was young and beautiful, I never believed I was. And now that I am a haggard old woman I find myself quite exquisite. The only thing I fear is not having enough time to truly enjoy being this vain.

Feeling strong and content is very dangerous. Not only does it make men abhor you, but you walk around with the constant, pestering sensation that something horrible is bound to happen. Which, unfortunately, it did.

I am ninety-one years old. The best age to be, if you ask me. I have learned not to trust anyone between ages nine and ninety. That seething eighty-something year gap is filled entirely with deception, duplicity, and dishonesty. My son, Roger, is the worst of them all. He thinks I am as deaf as a coot, and extraordinarily forgetful. In reality, I only pretend to be deaf because he bores me.

Roger is a horrid little weasel. I spent all my life held back by my husband, only for him to die right when I needed his help getting up and down the stairs. So when I was released from him, I was delivered right onto my son’s porch, who not only no longer loves me, but considers me a burden and an object of ridicule and shame.

I have two friends. One appointed to me by my son, the other appointed to me by myself. The former is Caterina, the latter is Katherine, or Kati, to avoid confusion.

Caterina is short and squat like a frog and too much of a goody two shoes for my liking. I blame it on her husband still being alive. I just can’t stand the way her little eyes look up at the clock whenever we meet in her living room for coffee. Without anxiety, only to please herself with the thought that each minute ticked us closer to her husband’s return and my inevitably departure. Whenever his tires sound on the gravel outside, and the car door slams shut, she rudely shoos me out through the back door, as if I am some kind of stray cat. Then she races to the front door and takes his jacket from his penguin shoulders. As he settled down on the couch she makes him some kind of concoction, sets it on the table, and proceeds to take his shoes off from his stinking feet. The first time I witnessed that horrible little episode I was standing there high up on my tippy toes, peaking through the back window, frozen stiff with terror. When the mobility did return to my feet, I strode straight to Kati’s house across the street.

Kati and I are two very different women. To me, life is full of funny experiences and mostly abhorrent people. To Kati, life is no more than a chunk of space-time, stuck between two moments she preferred not to be in at all. But she makes the most of it, while I take most of it for granted.

She spends most of her time making potions out of the herbs in her garden, and sewing. I swear by her potions. For example, last year when I started developing a soft grey beard, she created a serum which zapped every last hair away. Including some flesh, I admit, but it worked wonderfully.

Kati’s ninety-five, which makes her a very sane, trustworthy person. She is a frail, nervous moth of a woman, but vastly intelligent, and can speak three languages, two of which she made up herself. She is also excessively well versed in the art of scheming which I admire as it takes a sound mind and keen insight, unlike deception and trickery, for which you simply have to be a lying cheat.

In several monosyllables I told Kati about Catherine, to which we laughed our usual laugh. And though I would have liked to stay longer, for coffee or a biscuit — Kati has the best biscuits — I knew I had to get home to my dreadful son. And Ursula, his wife. And their dog, Hazel, whom I admire: a rat-like creature with a small pointed head, yellow eyes, and a beautiful long neck.

My visits to the dining room have become increasingly sparse. This seems to bring a certain relieve to both Roger and Ursula as my eating habits have become entirely acquainted to my own needs and wants. For instance, while in the past I would have hesitated to eat in public, afraid as I was to make any loud chewing noises, now I eat my oranges anywhere, and leave the peels on the ground.

That evening was no exception. I sauntered in through the back door and sat down in my room, on my big sofa chair, waiting for them to finish dinner. After which I would sit down myself and feast on the leftovers, as always. However, as I put my feet up on my ottoman I heard a slight knock on the door. As I pretend to be deaf, I did not respond. A few seconds later Roger, with his thin, weasel-like body, walked in. I quickly closed my eyes, opened my mouth, and pretended to be dead.

“Come on, mother,” he said, shaking my shoulder.

I kept my eyes closed, for theatrical affect, but the shaking soon made me dizzy.

“What?” I demand.

Without asking he sat his bony behind on the sofa chair opposite me. The lamplight fell upon the upper part of his face, leaving the chin and mouth in shadow.

“How was your day?” He shouted.

“Just fine, thank you very much.” I shouted back.

“What did you do?”

“I saw Kati, if you must know.”

“You mean Catherine?”

“Also.”

“And then?”

“And then nothing. It’s not like you want to do anything with me.”

“Stop being so snarky, mother. I am only trying to make conversation.”

“You are trying, that is true.”

We sat there, eyeing each other.

“Do you want to know why I’m in your room or not?”

“Considering you woke me from my nap, yes.”

He leaned back in my soft chair, holding his hands up level with his chest, and placed his thumbs carefully together.

“Me and Ursula have been thinking.”

“It’s Ursula and I, darling.”

“Must you always be so condescending?”

“I am not condescending at all. It’s basic grammar. Excellent word choice, though.”

“Ursula and I have been thinking, and this might come as a bit of a shock to you, I’m afraid, but… well… you’ve been so awfully forgetful lately. Just yesterday you forgot to flush the toilet, you always forget where you put your hearing-aid, you forget to take your medicine. It’s becoming too much for Ursula.”

He has a bad habit of using Ursula as a personal pronoun.

“I don’t give a damn about Ursula if you want to know the truth.”

“Alright then, its become too much for me. So I think it would be best, well…”

“Just get to it, will you.”

Roger is awfully polite to just about everyone but me. He finds shouting at me exhausting. What can I do? After all these years I can hardly pretend I am no longer deaf.

“After much thought we have decided it is best that you live at Saint Bards.”

“Saint Bards? That home for senile women?”

“It’s not for senile women! It is an elderly home, for both men and women.”

“Yes, senile men and women. No, thank you.” I said simply.

“It is not a question, mother, but a statement.”

“And yet I am still giving you an answer: no. What’s for dinner?”

“It’s like a hotel. We are sending you on a nice holiday,” he shouted.

“Roger, don’t lie to me. You are sending me off to a home for demented old hags because you think I am humiliating.”

“Please mother, be reasonable for once, will you?” he yelled.

“In God’s name child, how could I possibly be unreasonable? I barely have the strength to lift myself out of this chair, let alone tear the house down.”

“You’ll like it very much, I assure you. We will visit often, we got you a very nice room with a view of…”

He spoke for quite some time but as he was no longer shouting I could pretend not to hear.

As soon as he left my first impulse was not to believe anything he said, to reject everything. It even occurred to me that Roger hadn’t spoken at all, that I had imaged it. I tend to suffer from an overactive imagination.

The following morning he treated me as if I was the Queen herself. He brought breakfast right to my room. Baked beans on toast, with two fried eggs and some avocado, my favorite. I told him no thank you, but as soon as he left I tip-toed to my table and scarfed it down. I didn’t want the beans to get cold. That was that then. I had not imagined anything. I felt the onset of a migraine behind my eyes. There’s something incredibly claustrophobic about knowing one is forced to do something against ones will, without any way out.

Naturally I went right to Kati’s to tell her the terrible news.

“How dare they,” she muttered, “do not fret, we shall scheme.”

“I suppose it is too late now. They think I am forgetful, while in reality, they simply do not have as many thoughts as I do.”

“Do not fret,” she repeated, “I already have a plan: you could try poisoning them with one of my potions. It is really quite simple, I have a batch of snake venom in my basement. Shall I get it?”

“That would be terrible. I could never live with myself knowing I killed my son.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have to live with it very much longer.”

“Still, I would most certainly go right down to hell.”

“Impossible. We pray to Venus every night. Not many women can say the same. And, anyway, at least we would be going together. Whereas at Saint Bards, you’d be there alone.”

We sat in silence as I weighed the idea in my head. For some reason killing my only son did not feel quite right.

“What about taking one of my poisons and killing him gradually?” Kati tried.

“What is it with you and killing my son?”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with him being your son, but with the fact that he is your son, if you understand what I mean.”

“Ah, yes,” I answered, not understanding.

Kati had poured each of us a tall glass of rum. I leaned forward and took a hefty swing, tasting the thick, sweet flavor in my mouth, then letting the hot liquid trickle down my throat and into my stomach.

As I sat, staring at Kati’s carefully made-up face, an idea came to me. I could feel it flowing into my brain as I focused. For several minutes the idea kept coming to me and before I knew what was happening I had the whole plan, the whole brilliant scheme, worked out into perfection.

“I shall steal their things so as to make them feel like they’re the forgetful ones.”

“Go on.”

“And then I’ll find it back for them.”

“And where would you hide everything before giving it back?”

“Here, of course.”

“Excellent. But I think it would be better if I sold them on the black market, so we can run away together. Otherwise they might still send you to Saint Bard’s.”

“Where should we run off to? I’ve always wanted to visit the equator.”

“Marvelous. We shall take the bus to the equator then.”

“It shouldn’t take very long, from England to the equator.”

We smiled at each other, the idea brewing in our brains like two teabags in hot water.

“The important thing is that you take one thing at a time, so as to not make them suspicious.”

“What should I start with?”

“You could take their television. I’ve always wanted one.”

“I wouldn’t be able to carry it.”

“You can ask Roger for help.”

“It wouldn’t be stealing if he helps me.”

“True. You can steal his wife’s pearl necklace then. It doesn’t suit her anyway.”

“Excellent idea. She always leaves it lying around on her bedside table.”

“Steal it tonight and bring it here tomorrow.”

“Then after that I can take Roger’s credit card. He keeps it in his jacket pocket in the closet near the door.”

“We can buy our bus tickets and all our essentials with that. After which, we will burn it.”

“Yes, or we can bury it in your garden.”

“It will be too tempting to dig back up.”

“You’re right.”

“On another note, didn’t you once overhear Ursula tell Roger you smelled like Vieux Boulogne?”

“Must we really bring that up?”

“I have a potion made of skunk farts. You can sprits some on her clothes everyday before she goes to work.”

We laughed together like two crazed hyenas, Kati showing two rows of dentures, very large and white.

“Excellent idea, Kati.”

“I know. Equator, here we come! I’ll start packing my bathing suits tonight.”

As Roger and Ursula sat down for dinner I forced myself up from my sofa chair. A difficult task as my behind had become stuck in its pulpy material like a heavy brick in soft clay.

From under my mattress I retrieved a small, thin bottle of vodka which, with shaking hand, I poured into my toothpaste cup and gulped down. I hadn’t felt so alive in years. My plan to steal Ursula’s pearl necklace would have to work to perfection. It was my last chance at freedom.

I stepped out of my room and ascended the stairs quietly, hanging onto the railing for guidance. At the top I took an extra step which wasn’t there, but since it was better than forgetting a step that was there, I managed to recover noiselessly. The landing was coated in a thick fabric so I could maneuver across it without making a sound.

I stood in front of their door for a while before opening it, listening for voices. When my eyes finally became acquainted to the dark I walked around the bed, to Ursula’s beside table, and pocketed the pearl necklace. Then, feeling especially brave, I walked over to their bathroom and stole their toothpaste, just for jokes, and their toilet paper.

Back in my room I lifted the mattress again and hid the pearl necklace together with the toilet paper and toothpaste. Then I took my bottle of vodka and set it out on the table, pouring myself a glass every now and then while I waited.

It took them all of forty minutes to finish eating, wash the dishes, and saunter back upstairs. All the drinking had made me deliriously hungry so I walked to the kitchen and, ignoring the plate they had set out for me, ate the pasta with my hands right out of the pan.

Much to my annoyance, Ursula did not notice her missing necklace until the next morning. My alarm clock sounded in the form of a delicious, piercing, screeching scream. A noise unlike any I had ever heard before — a harsh, noteless sound.

“Where’s my mother’s pearl necklace?”

“How should I know?” Roger answered.

“You’re always going around cleaning everything like a damn idiot. Always cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, even when everything is clean. You must have put it somewhere.”

“I haven’t touched it. Though you know how much the thing bothers me, just laying around like that. You don’t even wear it.”

“Of course I don’t wear it, what if I lost it? You took it, I can see it on your face.”

“Ursula, be reasonable, why should I have taken it?” His voice quivered.

Nightgown and all I made my way to the foyer with little bouncing strides. Pushing myself high up on my toes with each step.

From the base of the stairs I could just make out the entrance of their room, the light from which made their silhouettes danced on the walls. The movements of Roger’s hands were quick and precise, like shadow puppets. Ursula did nothing but scream, and the screaming only intensified when she noticed their missing toothpaste. I guess they weren’t in the habit of brushing their teeth before bed. At point Roger was out in the hallway, breathing loudly and quickly through his mouth, telling himself little words of comfort.

Ursula didn’t go to work that day, which was vastly annoying as I wanted to steal her bikinis for our trip. At around 13:00, when I heard Ursula in the kitchen, I snuck out through my terrace door and hurried over to Kati, pearl necklace in my pocket.

“Excellent! If my calculations are correct, this should give us at least 1,000 pounds on the black market.”

“Tonight I’ll take two pairs of her earrings, and two of her purses.”

“Perfect.”

We sat there, staring at each other for a while.

“Come with me,” Kati said after some time, getting up from her chair slowly.

I followed her into the annex and up one flight of stairs. She unlocked a door I hadn’t seen before and the two of us stepped into what was a large, pleasant single bedroom. On the bed lay a red dressing gown made of a silk-like material.

“I haven’t worn it in years, but feel, it’s silk. Beautiful, isn’t it? I wanted to wear it on the bus.”

“It’s really quite beautiful,” I said, feeling envious.

“You ought to steal one or two of Ursula’s dresses too. If you steal two I can sew them together so they’ll be your size.”

“We’ll attract all kinds of men,” I said, excited by the prospect.

“Perhaps, though I hope not.”

Throughout the following days I stole all kinds of small items. Bracelets, earrings, hairsprays and perfumes. The mornings were always spent in largely the same manner. At that point Ursula was convinced I was the thief, but since she never thought to look under my mattress, she had no proof. Every morning, as she scoured through my room, I’d go to the wardrobe near the door and spritz Kati’s skunk potion on her jacket.

I still went to Catherine’s house once a week, to appease Roger. The dining room was always warm and clean, her curtains drawn somewhat, the two vases on her dinner table contained red and white roses. I assume it has always looked precisely so, but my thieving eyes had begun to notice everything. On the sideboard behind me, for example, stood two books with distinguished covers which Kati and I could read on our bus ride. In the knife rack shone several boning knives which we could use in case of self-defense. She also had all kinds of pens and pencils in a glass jar near the door, and a pot full of sweets which made me salivate terribly in anticipation.

Whenever Catherine went downstairs to do her laundry, or upstairs to make their bed, or whatever she did as her guest, me, waited, I’d slip books, or knives, or sweets into my bag, and leave quickly, delivering them to Kati before returning home.

Then one evening something terrible happened. As usual, the moment Ursula and Roger sat down for dinner I made my way upstairs. The familiar shocks of excitement still prickled my every tendon, my fingertips felt hot with suspense. I could hardly contain my fever as I looked through her clothes and selected not one, not two, but three of her best dresses. One short, black, backless piece for the evening, and two longer ones.

A slight competition had emerged between Kati and me on who would look more fashionable, which made me take longer in Ursula’s closet than planned. When I heard the sound of feet in the foyer, I was still very much in the midst of stealing. It was only then that I noticed the terrible mess I had made. All the drawers were pulled out. Shirts and blouses were scattered everywhere. The cupboards were open, pants and jackets coated the floor, ripped violently from their hangers. Before I could make up my mind, my mind made up its own. I ran out to the guest room next door, holding my breathe. What now?

A few moments later the two of them were upstairs, laughing and whispering. I heard Roger call Ursula a naughty, naughty girl, which made me hopeful that perhaps he would blame the mess on her.

“My God!” Roger screeched as soon as he opened the door.

“Someone has broken in!”

“Do you think he’s still here?” Roger screeched again.

“I don’t know,” Ursula whispered, “but I’ll call the police.”

While they were distracted, I made my way back downstairs nimbly, and into my room. My heart knocked at my chest painfully, so I said a little prayer to God to please let me at least live until I saw the equator.

The first police car arrived a few minutes later, from which a policeman emerged. Though I stayed in my room, I snuck to the door and peaked out through the keyhole. The policeman had an arrogant tilt to his chin, with flared nostrils and contemptuous, staring eyes that were a shade too small. He had the habit of prodding his face forward at Ursula, pushing her in a corner, and were he to have tried the same trick on me, I would have surely head-budded him right there and then. But Ursula, who is entirely without sense, seemed to be enjoying herself thoroughly.

They spent the better part of an hour upstairs. By the time they sauntered back down my feet were numb and my varicose veins threatened to burst.

“Like I said earlier, this was the work of an amateur thief. Or amateur thieves. Probably some young neighborhood kids who got bored and made their way in through the window.”

“The window was closed, how is that possible?” Ursula demanded.

“Well, then they found some other way in, but I wouldn’t worry your pretty little mind about it too much .”

“Wouldn’t worry? They must have been coming in and out for the past few weeks!”

“I completely understand your concern Mrs. Mansbridge. It must be an entirely unraveling thought, to have some stranger coming in and out of your house. But…”

“I think it’s his mother,” she said suddenly.

“His mother?”

“Yes, his mother,” she whispered.

“And where does his mother live?”

“In the room right there.”

“Interesting… would you mind if I have a little chat with her?” The policeman asked Roger.

“You could try, but she’s as deaf as can be,” Roger replied.

I hurried to my sofa chair and sat in it with a thump, then closed my eyes and began to snore. A few seconds later there was the sound of knocking on my door. Through the subtle slits of my eyes I could make out the inspector’s coarse hair in all its glory — slightly wavy, with just a shine of grease, like tossed salad.

“Madam, hello? Oh, yes, hello. Sorry to wake you. I’m Inspector Philip. What’s your name?”

Pretending to be deaf, I stared at him with my blankest expression, like two fish eyes on a white, porcelain plate.

“It’s Meredith.” Roger said.

“You can’t seriously think she’d go around stealing your things?” Philip whispered.

“She’s more agile than she looks,” Ursula whispered.

They spent many minutes looking through my belongings, but as my mission had been unsuccessful, there wasn’t much to find besides my empty bottles of vodka. The following morning, at the break of dawn, I hurried over to Kati’s, well before our usual meeting time.

Nothing could have prepared me for the shock I felt at seeing my old friend that morning, in the soft autumn sunlight, without a wig or her dentures.

She too was sufficiently surprised, and forced me to sit down in her living room as she got changed. After four minutes I was already bored out of my mind. Though the room was filled with all kinds of trinkets I would have surely stolen, if it was anyone else’s home, it wouldn’t make much sense for Kati to sell her own stolen items on the black market. By the time she returned downstairs I was already fast asleep, and didn’t wake up until well into the afternoon, perhaps evening.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Because you were sleeping.”

In rapid monosyllables I told Kati everything, from my failed attempt at stealing the dresses, to the police investigation, to Ursula’s insights. Because I had fallen asleep, we did not have time to go over a plan of action. We would certainly have to leave within the next two days. I promised I would come back first thing in the morning.

As I got up to leave I noticed something strange about Kati’s appearance. She was wearing her usual blonde wig, cut to her shoulders, and her eyes were outlined with black charcoal, as always. Her lips were smeared red, standard, and her eyebrows were drawn on like two, thin bridges, just the way she liked it. It wasn’t her makeup, then, that struck me as odd. No, it was something else… it was that thing hanging from her shriveled, prune neck. It couldn’t be: she seemed to be wearing Ursula’s pearl necklace.

“Kati! You told me you had sold everything on the black market, so we could pay for our trip!”

“I did.” She lied.

“What’s that then?”

“Oh, this? It’s nothing. I bought it years ago, do you like it?”

My eyes and mouth flapped opened in wonder. I raised my head and gazed at her motionless, with a look more of astonishment than shock. Without waiting for an answer she pushed me aside with one steady swing and made for the door. It took me all of thirty seconds to regain my footing. Once back on the soles of my two feet she was already some 100 paces ahead of me. She hopped along like a rabbit and I had to run to keep up. At some point it must have started raining. The drops pelted down hard from the sky, making it difficult to see where I was going.

“Stop! Stop!” I shout, but she didn’t listen. Perhaps I had been wrong, perhaps it is better not to trust anyone between the ages of nine and ninety-nine, not ninety-one. Why had I chosen ninety-one?

“Stop!” I shouted again. Stop, stop. I heard back, like an echo. Was the voice coming from my own throat, or somewhere behind me?

“Stop running, you’ll be hit by a car!” I hear.

I do as I am told. Through the showering rain I can just, ever so slightly, make out Roger’s weasely frame.

“What in the world are you doing?” He demands.

“None of your business.”

“You could have gotten yourself killed.”

He reaches out his hand and I take it willingly. Kati is nowhere to be found and I no longer care. I am cold and tired and, for the first time in my life, confused. At home the smell of brown-bean soup fills attacks my nostrils and I follow it to the source. I decide that perhaps tonight is the night I return to civilization and eat with Roger and Ursula, so I make my way to the empty chair and sit on it with a thud.

“Why’d you run off like that?” Roger asks gently.

“Kati had stolen something and I needed to get it back.”

“You mean Catherine?”

“No, Kati.”

“And what did Kati steal?”

“I must have forgotten.”

“I told you, you are becoming quite forgetful.”

“No, I told you I’m not forgetful at all. Forgetfulness infers a lack of thoughts. My biggest flaw is that I do not forget anything, and in fact tend to remember too many things, some of which never happened.”

Two days later I was sent off to Saint Bards, where I plan on making no friends, and spend my days devising a plan of escape. Isn’t that all life is about anyway? A constant distraction, a constant preparation for our great escape?