Fiction

I’m a sort of joke, in human form. Once, I might have been exhibited in a freak show – The Bearded Lady, The Living Skeleton, The Hiccupping Man – but this is 2026. I’m on show only to my family, my friends, my colleagues, my renown stretching as far as my medical team.

I walked on to the square, the quieter side where old women sat on a bench feeding crumbs to ratty pigeons near a drunk with his trousers loosened off to the show the crack of his arse and a floppy face through which alcohol had been expressed.

When I moved to a new school all the kids instantly loathed the sight of me. I immediately started having these dreams. I was only 10, but I dreamt I had a baby of my own. I called her Lola. She was a newborn, but she’d giggle and grab my finger and talk a bit.

We didn’t get to the beach often before being moved to the compound and only twice in the years that followed, until I “escaped”. The fact that I use air quotes so long after they’ve been terminated shows the power of that move and the confusion it brought.

We have spent $20,000 on this lavish and opulent cruise among the warmest of tropical islands that includes all the food we can eat and the booze we can drink in up to seven gourmet restaurants, as well as many entertainment venues that have more than one type of music and even a magician.

If I told anyone about Paolo, they would find it hard to believe he is a sock puppet, although my sister doesn’t like it if I speak of him this way. He is her muse. Her guide. I try to tell her she is past this now. Think how far she has come. And she has.

I am not going to message her. I am going to wait until she messages me. Then I will wait to reply. I don’t know how long. I’ll see how long I can draw it out. I will start to type something and then delete it. Then I will say I’m busy and I hope she has a good day and I won’t put an x at the end of the message.

I was 10 years old when I first saw The Lady in the Pink Hat. I was deemed old enough to ride my bike down to the local Hungry Jack’s, a $10 note stuffed deep in the front pocket of my Kmart jeans. Sometimes I would see if my friend Sam from down the road wanted to join, but mostly I would go alone.

Mr and Mrs Williams live on a large property where they raised their children. The children are gone and now there is too much house. At first, they liked spreading out, claiming rooms for their hobbies. Mr Williams designed the Gym, the Library and the Oratory. Mrs Williams created the Sewing Quarter, the Spooky Suite and the Decoupage Den. Both had a hand in creating the Kitty Room, a place of carpeted ladders, dangling woollen balls and boxes, where their cats once pursued their obscure feline purposes. There are no more cats at the house, the special rooms are unused and Mrs Williams has dementia.

The dementia ward door was tucked behind the cheerful little cafe, sporting salt-and-vinegar chips and paper-thin birthday cards on wire-frame racks. Rosie turned right and trudged down the other corridor, following the faint-but-growing scent of wee and lemon disinfectant.