04-01-2024

I went to her house yesterday. The smell was horrible. It's this intense smell of something
rotting, like walking into a kitchen full of rotting meat in the middle of a heatwave. Worse
than the smell of the nastiest infections. A smell of death and decay. Cloying isn't the
right word, but it gets into your nose and mouth, burrows its way deep into your mind, and
stays there.

The floors were caked with brownish dirt. She told me I needed to help her with her phone
and laptop, as they both had viruses. I asked her to show me what was wrong. The phone's
perceived sickness was a spam Whatsapp message, which I swiftly deleted. She then, as a
'gotcha', showed me another 'virus', which turned out to be a text she'd received two years
ago. it wasn't even a spam message. I told her so but she didn't seem to register what I
was saying.Whatever was wrong with the laptop I still do not completely understand-- she
said that when she 'googled this phone number' (handing me a blank piece of paper) and
pressed the phone button to call it (in Google?) the whole laptop would stop working. I
asked her what she meant, and how she was supposedly calling someone on the laptop. She
looked at me confused and said that she didn't know.

Earlier in the week, she had been badgering my aunt to buy her several items. She wanted
baklava. That one I understand. She also wanted a 'refurbished tablet, but not an iPad'.
she never told us why, and I'm not convinced she knew herself. She also wanted sweatpants
because according to her I really wanted a pair (not true). I tried to tell her I didn't
want sweatpants but she continued to demand them until I just lied and told her I bought
myself a pair. She seemed relieved at that.

Anyhow, I was there to deliver the tablet. I'd bought it in the middle of a storm, so cold
and wet I still can't wear the shoes I wore that day because even three days later they're
still completely soaked through. I gave her the tablet but she didn't seem enthusiastic.
She asked for apps on there, Duolingo and Whatsapp. I showed her how to use google on it.
She didn't really seem to care. When I left the room to do something and returned, she had
put the tablet back in its packaging. I asked her why, and she said she'd look at it later.
I left early, with the excuse that I had to go pick up a package. In my defense, this was true.

Last night, she called my mother on the phone and said she was pretty sure she was going to
die during the night. She told my mom she loved her and instructed her about a list of people
she was supposed to call (people from her past, neighbors, etc). I must admit, I cried a bit.
Even though her death is expected, with her being very sick as well as old as hell. It's
still not fun if someone dies. I sat in a bit of a daze at my computer, looking through
skyrim mods I might download just to pass the time. I somehow spent three hours doing that,
when my mom got another phone call from her.

She was calling to say she was going to bake two pies tomorrow.