You know that feeling when the light outside is just starting to turn that dusty grey-blue, and the only sound is the hum of the old refrigerator, a steady thrum like a forgotten heartbeat? That's when you sometimes find yourself staring at the numbers. Not the time, though that ticks away too, but the ones that flash on the small, plastic screen. 132 over 88. Then five minutes later, 134 over 89. A whisper, then a shout. Your own body, turning against you. It’s a peculiar kind of vigilance, this. You measure it three times a day, every day. Morning before the tea, midday after the toast, evening right before the news. Like a sentinel at the gates, you’re watching for the barbarians. Or maybe just the single, tiny crack in the dam, the one that means the whole thing is about to give way. You remember Mrs. Henderson from across the street, her quick collapse on the pavement, a sudden quiet that spread through the neighborhood like spilled ink. The way her husband, bless his soul, just kept saying "she was fine, just fine." You don't want to be fine, not like that. And then the internal monologue begins. A little voice, sharp as a needle, pricking at the edges of your calm. *See? It's going up. Just a point, but it's a point, isn’t it?* You picture the arteries, thin rubber hoses, growing brittle with age, narrowing, narrowing, until... Well, you don't finish that thought. Not really. But the image is there, behind your eyes, a film you can’t turn off. Years of stretching every dollar, making every meal from scratch, working until your feet ached, that all catches up, doesn't it? No fancy health clubs or organic produce. Just bread and butter, metaphorically and literally. You remember the first time the doctor mentioned it. "Slightly elevated." He said it so casually, like it was a comment on the weather. But for you, it was a thunderclap. A diagnosis, a sentence. You started reading. Medical journals, online articles, pamphlets from the pharmacy. All the words—hypertension, cerebral hemorrhage, myocardial infarction—they float around your head like gnats, buzzing, insisting. It’s a constant, low-level anxiety, a background hum that never truly fades, even when you're laughing at a sitcom or folding laundry. It's always there, a little grey cloud at the edge of your vision. Sometimes you just wish you could unplug the machine, throw it in the back of the closet, and pretend it never existed. Just go back to the days when you felt a little dizzy and thought "oh, I just stood up too fast." But that door’s closed now. The knowledge is there, a permanent resident in your mind. And so, you keep measuring. You keep watching. You keep waiting for the numbers to steady, to calm, to just... stay put. But they never really do, not for long. Not truly.