Just Hanging On

Edna wheeled slowly down the long, silent hallway, her thin hands trembling slightly on the rubber-rimmed wheels. The corridor was dim, lit only by the soft yellow haze of old bulbs humming above her—each one flickering faintly, like fragments of memory trying not to go out.

The linoleum floor beneath her whispered with every turn of her wheels, echoing a sound she no longer recognized but somehow found comfort in. Once, this place had been louder. Children maybe? Laughter? Footsteps? The voices were gone now—faded like names on the back of curled photographs in an old drawer.

She paused beside a window, the kind they didn’t open anymore. Beyond the glass, wind swept through the brittle trees outside, and she could just make out the jagged rise of the mountains in the distance, dusted with the season’s last snow. For a moment, her breath caught. Something stirred.

Was it here?
Did I live near those mountains? Did I hike once? Laugh there? Did someone love me there?

The thoughts came soft and slow, like fallen leaves caught in the wind, spinning before settling quietly into forgetfulness.

Her lap held a folded blanket, crocheted in colors now dulled with age. It smelled faintly of lavender and mothballs. She ran her hand over it, hoping the feel would open a door in her mind, some hallway back into herself. But there were no doors anymore—only fading echoes of ones she’d once known how to open.

The staff had said lunch would be soon. Or was it dinner? She couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten, or even what day it was. But it didn’t matter. Time was no longer linear; it was a loose scatter of moments, like petals in water. Some sank immediately. Some lingered just long enough to shimmer before disappearing altogether.

A bird flew past the window. A jay—bright blue against the gray sky. Edna watched it vanish behind the trees. “There used to be a bird…” she whispered, but the rest of the thought slipped away before she could catch it.

She wheeled herself forward again, slower now, each push a little harder than the last. Her body, like her memory, was growing tired. In the silence of the hallway, she felt small. Not in size—but in presence. As if the world had grown too big, and she was shrinking out of it.

And yet, nature still called to her. Distant though it was—behind glass, beyond the sterile walls—it was her last tether to something real. The wind. The sky. The mountains. The bird.

They remembered her, even if she no longer could.

She stopped by another window and rested her hand against the cold glass. Outside, a single pink carnation bloomed near the edge of a bare garden. It seemed out of place, surviving when nothing else did.

“Still hanging on,” Edna whispered, eyes welling with tears she couldn’t explain.

Maybe that’s what she was doing, too.

Just… hanging on.