She stands for a minute, to make sure she is steady, then reaches out for the dressing gown that is lying on the floor beside the bed. She leaves it there before she goes to sleep because the timer on her thermostat doesn’t work and so her flat is always cold in the mornings. She needs her dressing gown as soon as she levers herself from under the soft bulk of the duvet. Even after she has put the heating on, the bedroom stays the coldest room in the flat as it has only one small radiator beneath a single-glazed window.

She moves one foot in front of the other with care, making her way slowly across the landing. She locks the bathroom door behind her – even though there is no one else in the flat, it is a habit she can’t shake. While she washes her hands – very thoroughly, as she always does – she will avoid her reflection in the mirror above the sink. Her reflection is something she is not yet strong enough to encounter.

*

Why do I continue to dream of my future self, even now I know what happened to me? It is a self that will never exist. I don’t understand. Perhaps it is a message from the future – this is what was waiting for you. No family, no children – you end up in a flat on your own, a retired teacher, bony and exhausted. It is a meagre flat, with a poor heating system. You still have insomnia, still get that drugged feeling you always get after you have slept in to compensate. You rise slowly each morning, forcing yourself to face the day. Be careful what you wish for when you wish for life, Lisa, for who knows what life has in store?

If this is the message from my own future, it seems a little harsh.

*

So instead of being an elderly woman with purple veins, alone and lonely in a flat somewhere, God knows where, I reside on Peterborough Railway Station with several thousand people for company, although the majority of them are just passing through and I can’t communicate with any of them.