She could not bear staying in her room alone. Some of the staff frowned on this, said that she had been given an apartment with a private bathroom, a kitchenette, dishes, television, a bed and bedding, all more or less for free, and that she did not appreciate it, choosing instead to sleep in the common area or to wander the halls, or even stay in the streets sometimes. Her small bed was forever made because no one slept in it. On the wall was a photograph of smiling people, one of whom I recognized as her daughter. Every time she visited, the daughter cried as soon as she set eyes on her mother, and every time, Margret beamed as if her favourite celebrity had just walked in …
Bio:
Tanya Tomasch is a musician, writer, and translator who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, and who grew up in Austria and the former Czechoslovakia. She has published in the Arthur Miller Journal and wrote her MA thesis on Ludwig Wittgenstein and Thomas Bernhard.