It’s the end of the year. For others, Christmas is ritual, food and family.

(The folks spend theirs in front of the telly watching leggy Korean clones prance and coo in perfect unison.)

I haven’t decided whether it should mean anything. And if so, what.

I spent it with my grandma this year, and had the terrifying revelation that her mind and body are both beginning to splinter. Inevitable, yes. But with the beginning of that grand betrayal, I also begin to lose the only lucid and compassionate person I have blood relations to.

DAMN YOU UNIVERSE