Her eye sockets were sunken deep, like two dried-up wells. Within them were cloudy, whitish eyeballs, their pupils unfocused, staring at who knew where.
Maybe at the ceiling. Maybe at the hole in the roof. Maybe at nothing at all.
Her lips were shriveled and black, like two dead leaves pasted to her face. Dried saliva crusted the corners of her mouth, along with some sticky substance running from her nose—whether mucus or pus, no one could tell.
Her teeth had long since fallen out. Her gums had receded, exposing her dental ridges like two dried riverbeds.
Her limbs were as thin as dead branches. Her arms and legs lay twisted over the edge of the bed, her fingers curled, her nails thick and yellow like bird claws.
She had not gotten out of bed for forty-two years.
It was not that she did not want to get up. Her body simply would not allow it.
Her bones were so brittle that the slightest touch would shatter them. Her muscles had atrophied so badly that she could not even lift a single finger.
Her intestines no longer moved. The food she ate could not be digested and simply clogged her stomach, swelling its walls so thin they resembled cicada wings. Through them, one could see the half-rotted scraps of food inside.
Every few days, an old neighbor would come to see her—not because she was well-liked, but because that old neighbor was mad too. After forty-two years of madness, the neighbor had suddenly remembered there was someone next door and came over for a look.
The old neighbor would pry open her mouth and pour half a bowl of thin porridge in through the corner of her lips.
The porridge flowed from the corner of her mouth into it, only