
The hell of finishing a game and having nothing else to do
My grandmother cannot be seen. She is in the room but hardly visible—consumed by the beige. Her gradual decline into camouflage was incidental; the result of years spent sunk in her yellowed sofa, watching afternoon quiz shows and staining the walls with a million cigarettes. “Nan?!” I call out into the void. “Yes?” comes her throaty reply. I sort of see her: all that’s left is a plume of blue-rinsed hair and a set of white dentures hovering like some demon among the brown. This is what retirement looks like. As with most things in life that are promised to us when we’re older,…