I saw my dad struggling with a crossword today. Just a simple one, in the paper, nothing fancy. He was staring at ‘ocean dweller, five letters’ and his brow was all furrowed, like it was quantum physics. He used to be so sharp, you know? Could rattle off Latin names for plants like it was nothing. And he just sat there, pencil hovering, looking… lost. My heart actually ached watching him. I said, “Dad, it’s a whale,” and he blinked at me, then wrote it down, slowly, like he was learning to spell for the first time. It was like a gut punch, seeing him like that. And then, the really fucked up part. Later, I was trying to remember my mum’s favourite flower to order for the shop — it’s usually second nature, like breathing, I know all this stuff by heart — and for a good minute, nothing. Just a blank. Like someone hit delete. Panic kinda seized me, a cold little shiver down my spine. Is that what it feels like? That little hiccup of forgetting, is that the first crack in the dam? Or am I just tired? My kid was screaming bloody murder all morning, wanting more cereal, wanting to draw, wanting, wanting, wanting. My brain felt like a scrambled egg by lunch. Maybe it’s just that. But what if it’s not? What if this is… the beginning? The start of that slow fade, like watching a flower wilt in time lapse. You see the vibrant colours dull, the petals curl in on themselves, and there’s nothing you can do but watch. Is that just what happens to us? We get old, our minds turn to mush, and we just… become less? It’s not just about memory, is it? It’s about *who you are*. All those connections, all that knowledge, all the things that make *you* you… just dissolving. My dad doesn’t even seem like my dad sometimes. He’s like a slightly faded copy. And god, that terrifies me more than anything. I look at my hands sometimes, these hands that arrange flowers all day, hands that changed a million nappies, hands that are starting to show the little age spots my mum had. And I wonder, is the person inhabiting these hands the same person who had big plans? The person who wanted to travel, who wanted to paint, who wanted to be more than just… this? This florist, this stay-at-home parent, this woman who feels herself shrinking a little bit more every single day. Am I just fading, like the flowers at the end of the week, or is this what it means to be human? To watch yourself become someone else, slowly, inexorably, until you’re just a whisper of who you were. And does anyone even notice until it’s too late? Do *I* even notice? The thought of being unaware… that’s the real horror show.