I was nine when it took hold of you,
your brain, your memories.
It was only the first stage
and I did not know about it
at that time.
You were already forgetting some things,
but that was what old people do, right?
Forget things, I mean.
I did not think much of it.
I did not know
that this thing
as it wrapped its deadly fingers around your mind,
would cause me
everybody
yourself
some pain
years later.
I was twelve when
you started to repeat stories
over and over again:
your parents’ marriage,
your thirteen brothers and sisters,
the town in which you grew up.
I thought that this was what old people did.
Repeat stories, I mean.
Normal, right?
By the time I was a teenager,
I finally understood
this deadly thing
that was taking over your mind.
“How is school?”
You would ask me,
over and over again.
“How are you?”
“How old are you?”
“Are you being a good girl?”
On the verge of adulthood,
I’m watching you vanish
before my eyes.
Your body,
sunken in the wheelchair
no energy left.
Your eyes,
lifeless,
not full of light anymore.
Your hands,
Small, soft, wrinkled
no longer reaching out to hold mine.
You don’t recognize your own grandchildren
anymore.
Not your son, your children.
Everybody is someone new to you.
For seven years
the deadly thing
slowly,
selectively,
consumed your thoughts,
your memories,
your existence from the last eighty-three years.
You are a blackboard
with chalk written on it.
Minutes, seconds later,
the chalk is wiped off
until the blackboard
is blank again.