I wake sometimes with a taste like rust in my mouth a metallic tang that tells me things are shifting deep inside a slow geologic creep I suppose the doctor calls it benign hypertension but I know what the numbers mean I chart them every day three times a day sometimes more if I feel that little flutter a whisper in my ear of what’s coming and the little machine it purrs and whirs and then spits out those three figures systolic diastolic pulse I record them meticulously in my spiral notebook the red ink standing out against the pale lines my mother she died in her sleep just slipped away no fuss no warning and I remember thinking how lucky how peaceful but I also remember the worry lines etched around her mouth the way she’d press her hand to her chest sometimes a little rub a little comfort for whatever it was that gnawed at her I wonder now if she felt it too that constant hum under the skin that tells you time is running out a sand timer emptying grain by grain and you can’t turn it over you just watch it go they say it’s anxiety a psychosomatic response to the fear of a CVA a cerebrovascular accident but what do they know about the fear that lives in your bones when you’ve scraped by your whole life penny by penny praying the car would start praying the landlord wouldn’t raise the rent again praying the boiler wouldn’t give out in winter there’s no room for sickness when every day is a tightrope walk without a net and now the tightrope is frayed and I’m seventy-six and the net is just… gone I remember mr Henderson from the mill his face went slack one afternoon right there on the shop floor he just crumpled a sudden weight and the ambulance came wailing through the gates and we all knew what it meant they wheeled him out his eyes wide and unseeing and I think about that sometimes when my blood pressure jumps a few points I see his face the way it changed in an instant from a man to a shell and I think about the cost the hospital bills the weeks of care the burden on his wife she was never the same after that her eyes always looking over his shoulder for the next shoe to drop so I log the numbers I watch the patterns I try to find a meaning in the fluctuations a secret code that will tell me when it’s safe when I can stop holding my breath but the code is always changing the numbers never quite the same and the rust taste in my mouth it comes and goes a phantom warning a constant reminder that the delicate balance can shatter at any moment and all I can do is write it down and wait for the next reading