Status Updates From The Nick of Time

‘When I was young, doctors were always telling me that I’d grow out of
it. Now they constantly tell me that I’ll just have to live with it. Growing
old’s no fun.’

She
savoured that phrase, the nick of time. Why nick? Then she thought: Nick
means a little cut. And that is what time does to one, it gives one these
endless little cuts, until sooner or later one of them finishes one off. Another
thought came to her: Nick means a prison. Time was the prison from which
there was never an escape – until, well, something like this bloody MS at
last prised open the door of one’s cell.

"People didn’t like to hear about other people’s illnesses, they only liked to talk about their own."

‘The worst thing about old age is not having to bother about anything. If
one is bothering about things, then one is still alive. And not already
embarked on the process of dying,’ he added.

Immersive

He
walked slowly out of the room into the room that was eventually, four years
later, to be let to someone else, so totally unlike him. Meg began to cry, first
softly, as though practising something unfamiliar to herself, and then in gust
after gust, each louder than the preceding one. She expected the noise
would bring him back, but it did not do so. Instead, she heard the sound of
the radio.

Had to read another one by Francis King