Lopsided

The small round magnifying mirror from the bedroom almost fell onto the path as she stood it in the bird bath, but she caught it just in time. See, she could still do things with her hands despite them being knobbled and bent. She wasn’t a fool either, it was summer and the water had dried in the bird bath, she wouldn’t have put the mirror in with the water. She had dementia, she knew that, but it didn’t make her a fool. The bird bath was the obvious place — the new one at physio said you had to adapt to your circumstances. She was doing that. It was too dark to see properly in the bedroom now that the bulb had gone — the bird bath was the same height as her head when she sat on the bench.

She drew the orange lipstick across her narrow lips, enjoying the press of the brand new lopsided point. She pushed at one side of her white hair and pinned it into asymmetric shape. She wasn’t going to put her black and white dress on in the garden — she wasn’t a fool. She unzipped her wash bag and poured her twenty six other lipsticks onto the bench, removed each gold top, unscrewed each one and placed them in a line beside her, alternating orange and cerise pink. She leant back against the arm of the bench and smiled at her neat row of brand new lopsided sticks.