She was experiencing the underwhelming privilege of a slow, normal death in the midst of a pandemic. She didn’t feel curious anymore, she’d seen the cycle over and over: greed, war, victimhood, demands. Vivian felt sure that whatever was happening, humans had caused it with a million selfish decisions. It was the anthropocene. She knew evolution was possible, but she didn’t have anything left to give towards it.

Every time Dune left, Vivian half hoped the girl would make a run for it. To Greece, to Vietnam, south. She wanted to tell the child this, but nothing happened when she thought the words, trying to push them through the habit of her silence, which by now had its own persistent, pathetic weight.

She didn’t have the strength anymore to even change herself. If the girl ghosted like Kama and Bab, Vivian knew she would die in her own shit. She was glad her Wes hadn’t lived to see her like this. He’d died while she was still strong, capable. His last words to her had been, “I am ready, just cain’t turn from yo tireless beauty.”

This ... he wouldn’t recognize her. She had seen and loved him in his own deteriorated state, but didn’t think men could move through the repellant phases of life so easily, they were still shielded from so much of the making. She was grateful he was spared her undignified demise. Not very feminist in my old age, she thought, with humor.

Even now, she was waiting for the humiliation of her granddaughter’s help. Again. The wet was cooling beneath her. She had fallen down a month ago, maybe longer, time was confusing. Her body was stiffening daily into a bone cage. Only movement kept a body supple. She prayed that she was too old to recover.

But she hadn’t died yet.

Until very recently she had been walking around and feeling pretty good about herself, able to leverage her body using upper arm strength against a cane, balancing her three-legged operation around the house and maintaining a sliver of independence. She still had all her marbles upstairs. She’d stood up, watched Dune cremate Kama, heard the private, involuntary sounds of grief loud enough to reach her naked ears.

But she’d fallen again after that, a silly fall from moving too fast. She’d gotten herself up before Dune could catch her flailing on the floor, pulled herself up the stairs to her room. Vivian hadn’t been able to lift herself much since then and didn’t even want to.

There were things she had never said to Kama, had been saving for her death bed. She cursed this failed plan daily. Had she not learned that lesson with Brendon, his body destroyed while she had apologies on her tongue? Now she had to lay in bed with her regrets and let the child wipe and feed her.