Wake up and wonder what time it is or if it's still the same day as when I fell asleep. The phone lies dead as always, no need to bother looking for it; the computer screen is in sleep mode. Get up; shrug arms into the now not-so-new pink robe smelling of dog and cat and... unwashed self, and type in the password to wake the desktop. Curse the still lingering cold - this because both large windows are wide open, only a fine mesh screen blocking the odd insect coming a' calling. The windows must always be open no matter the weather outside. A closed window equates to smothering claustrophobia.

I cannot turn lights on because the daytime shade blind is raised up as well as the thicker inner one. To unfurl either turns the room into a jail cell. I cannot breathe within a jail cell. Turning on the light turns me instead into a one woman crazy show - only the three dozen cats are clothes and books and papers... papers everywhere. I never turn the lights on.

I almost trip over a discarded pile of clothes. Another similar pile of washed and unwashed stuff is scattered on my bed. I have been meaning to tidy up but I need to be in the right mood - a rare mood these days. So much so I can no longer walk into my walk-in closet since most of my clothes lie in a heap on the floor in there. I probably own a few hundred items... this after a severe culling during our move back to the city. Yet I wear the same few things day in day out; usually jeans with boots and two or three layers, topped with a beanie to hide the re-growth, (hairdressers don't attract me much) and one of the several wooly scarves lying around.

Oh it is 1.00am. It's one in the bloody morning! Who wakes up now, who in their right mind willingly keeps these weird-ish hours? That be me the mirror says, as I slather some coconut oil over my dehydrated skin. When did I last do this? Or shower for that matter as I catch the whiff of night - or in my case early evening - sweat. Forget the matted hair too. Tie the front up and plop it on top, out of the way. I am already dressed, having slept in yesterday's jeans and the black singlet that had served as the innermost layer.

The day begins. Turn on the series of halogen lights built into every timber step so I can see my way to the kitchen downstairs. Pop an organic coffee pod into the Nesspresso machine I received as a hand-me-down a few months ago when my brother upgraded his. Reach for a cup and empty 5 thin tubes of Organic Stevia sweetener into it. Add a teaspoon of organic sugar just because the first coffee of the day needs to be extra sweet.

Notice the boys are still up in the man cave. I pop my head in; see them and the dog on the couch watching a movie.

"Good morning."

"We're going to bed soon." Both turn their heads my way. I see the remnants of their dinner: Two pizza boxes placed one on top of the other. I frown.

Dog wags his tail. He's missing the cat, gone ten days now. We're all missing Kibble. There's been some brief talk of getting a new kitten for Dewey's birthday on October 1st. We hold hope till then that Kibble will return to us after a longer than usual amour.

Back upstairs. Remember I did not check on dad. Back downstairs. He's on his side, one leg over the edge of the bed. I lift his leg up and place it under the covers. Note the large 'bags' under his eyes and wonder if this will be the day necessitating another trip to Emergency. Not that anything can be done for him there; I'll face the same questions and accusations. Same old same old yet he continues, living past every 'expected' death date callously given me by both interns and bespectacled professionals sporting bow ties.

Could be pneumonia back again though so I make a mental note to take him to the doc on Monday for a check-up. He's on a low-dose antibiotic throughout the colder months to prevent this but some winters he still ends up with too much fluid building up in his lungs. 

Upstairs again, I sit on the office chair and pull up the blue and grey blankie, raising my knees to conserve heat, reaching to type over them. Check Wattpad. Take note of any new followers/comments/messages. A further installment of Edgar and Rosie has been published during my longer than usual sleep. I read, grinning at my accomplice's cheekily introduced plot twist. I send him a quick message, warning him to look out for my next contribution.

Check Facebook. The other Facebook, not the one reserved for writing groups and friends. Hmmm. My protégé has not been on for some hours. I assume him asleep or watching the tennis. I nodded off last night during what was supposed to be a half hour dinner break? We eat dinner in what we laugh off as the 'senior time', spot on at 5.00pm. The chicken I was meant to cook for the boys straight after did not get cooked. I guess I needed to catch up on the many nights of surviving on brief naps scattered all hours here and there. That's how I justify it anyway.

I note my protégé's 'virtual neighbor' is around but doing the usual FIFO thing. I don't message "Hello" because earlier on the night before I overstepped - a usual thing for me - and said some things best unsaid. He'll check in at some point to tell me where he is, what he's been doing and what he plans to do. That's a given. Sometimes I wonder how much is real and how much forced obligation? I err on the side of real because to think otherwise lessens the both of us. It taints us, belittling what I have come to call the "love of my life".

I hear mum stir, her bedroom separated from mine by the upstairs bathroom. I hear her cautiously descend the stairs and then follow her down. She's carried some of her bedding - a ritual most mornings now, only a little earlier this time. She's crying. I ask her if she had her pain meds. She nods. I fill the hot water bottle. She cries more and complains again about her head. I ask her what else she took - since she tends to ingest whatever is around when the pain is bad - including some of my dad's meds. I give her a Valium; the doctor said I should only do this if she is clearly in distress. She is always in distress these days.

Dylan comes out of the garage on his way to bed.

"What's going on with grandma?" he asks.

"Same thing that goes on most nights, but you're asleep and don't see it." I tell him this because he is tending to side with her a lot more recently, supporting her ailment of any given day. He pains me, this child of mine who holds none of my history and only knows what he can see now: My indifference. He frowns.

"Go to bed babe, I got this," I tell him. The dog follows just as he does every night.

Might as well check on dad again. He's on his back now and I stand in the doorway waiting for that big gasp that will resume his breathing. Sometimes it takes a whole minute; the gasp followed by a few increasigly shallower breaths until he stops breathing entirely once more. I wonder what this constant lack of oxygen is doing to what little is left of his brain. I also wonder if one night I may wait in vain?

The coffee now lukewarm at my desk, I take another sip. Crouch on my bed, light a cigarette and blow the smoke as hard as I can through the window screen because it's too damn cold to make the trek back down to the courtyard. A rare thing; but what the hell, I figure I'm allowed an indulgence now and then. (That's a blatant lie. When I write I chainsmoke. There, I said it.)

Back in the chair I slug at the glass bottle, half-full of yesterday's water. I run my tongue over the small bump on my lower lip. It's become a habit; this constant checking to see if maybe this day, I wake to find it gone? I hear Marcus' distinctive thud thud up the stairs, amazed as usual how one so slim can take such heavy steps. The toilet flushes. That's everyone asleep finally - or at least lying down - except for me. I gaze up at the wall on top of my monitor. Nod at the stern face tacked in the middle, surrounded by printed words - mostly his. My eyes drift.

"You have no competition dear. If I found something else like ours I would shoot myself because I would know I would be hallucinating already in the midst of dementia."

I read them again. Try to grasp the reality. It escapes me. Only because there is no real, just words tossed back and forth in screens for the best part of a year now. Oh but their beauty touches me each time as though it is a first read? To accept someone loves me is a foreign thing. I fight more than I welcome it, I doubt more than I embrace it. How could anyone love this? He doesn't see this, he sees captured moments I send; devoid of chaos and mess and of screeching and of wailing and cursing and incoherent mumbling drifting up from downstairs.

I lower my eyes to the screen and click on 'Random Thoughts' the word doc always kept open to jot down headings and fleeting thoughts - perhaps inducing a write some future time? Another upon-waking ritual: hunting down inspiration. No such inspiration to be had yet this morning as I continue scrolling down.

"Ping!" The distinctive message sound alerts me and I pause a moment before toggling screens... wondering which of the two is calling on me.