h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

She hardly ever leaved that chair in her later years. My Auntie Veida wasn't really my auntie at all she was a past acquaintance of my gran's, who (and this I found quite remarkable) was older than she was. She was also diabetic, like my mother, which gave us some common ground when my mum and me went to see her in the later years. They had a thing about cream cakes, mum occasionally bringing one for her (as she was occasionally allowed one – unlike mum who seems to have a thing about watching others eat nice things now)

The chair, and the room. The house is no bungalow, which would have been far too simple, it was over two floors and I can honestly say that with all the times we went to visit her I never once went up the creaky, narrow staircase. It just wasn’t there to us; she never used it nor mentioned it and so it ceased to be. The room was around the back; the access to the house is problematic. You have to walk down a narrow alleyway, then through the back yard (a proper back yard, with an outside toilet and everything) through the kitchen (no proper oven, no microwave…) and into the living room. Feel that at this point I must add that she would not accept any form of help with the furnishings or finance; gran resorted to actually taking proper cooked meals over eventually. The room was one of those decrepit ones belonging to smokers who stay in one place for far too long. The previously (though this is just an assumption) white ceiling has for as long as I can remember been a sort of brownish orange, and the retro 60s wallpaper had no better a time of it. There was a small cupboard along the right wall, which had pictures of all of us on it, myself (as her god daughter) being rather prominent. Behind those were the sort of chintzy things fashionable people ironically dream of, a framed 'Spanish Dancer' postcard with a real material skirt attached, an Easter card from her local Church with a picture obviously drawn by a child who just wanted to go home and play with his computer, and her certificate of service from her beloved Guiding Association.

When I was younger she had friends of her own age, I remember one who was particularly vulgar (which I never berated her for, old people with dirty senses of humour will always be something I am fond of) used to accompany her to the local Devonshire Bakery and they would sit outside smoking and eating cream cakes (pre-diabetes). Eventually, her friend died, and Auntie Veida ended up back in her chair in her familiar room, watching Richard and Judy (the proper morning one, not the bilge they’re producing now).

No more, it is obvious where I am heading. This lady of enormous character died, about a year ago now. It wasn’t unexpected; it wasn’t even especially upsetting, though that particular corner of my town will never feel right again. I went to her house with my gran, she sorted out the interior and I took care of the horrendously overgrown garden. Gran had to wear a mask over her face; it was so grim and dusty. I finally ascended the almost mythical staircase, and it was unlike any experience I have yet achieved. There were portraits of her beloved sisters and mother, (she had never married, living with them until they passed on) a huge old bed infested with woodworm and a bookcase brimming with slightly damp echoes of one woman’s history (and probably, come to think of it, woodworm too). That was when I finally saw her for what she was: outstanding just for being herself. She’d had friends from practically every generation and was no saint. Something, which had remained obsolete for such a long time, contained so much information about her, which to me equalled surrealism, and also the belief that we don’t ever really disappear completely.

I spend so long writing these things and don't get a single reply. Ah well, just have to make a big post about nudity or the length of somebody's cock and they'll caome rolling in.