It began with a slight tension in her shoulders, a pulling. She was compelled to sit, and stand, straight. Just as her grandmother always had told her: stand up straight. There was some pain, but it eased as she learned to maintain this stance, this soldier-like position. The rest of her body -- her back, her legs, her upper arms -- protested for awhile, but eventually they quieted. She found this new way of moving odd, at first, demanding; but she adjusted.
She had always slept on her back, but this became untenable. It felt like she slept on stones. One night, she climbed from her bed, went into the bathroom, turned on the lights and stood looking over her shoulder into the mirror. There were the stones, two long lines of bumps down her back, one on each side of her spine. She could feel them, pushing her shoulders apart. This was when she realized she was dying.
She took to sleeping on her stomach. Her back became more and more sensitive; more painful. She took to wearing large, loose dresses, and avoiding public encounters. She waited for this disease, whatever strangeness it was, to kill her. She went about her daily chores in new postures; even bent over, sweeping dust into a pan, her back stayed straight as an arrow. An arrow, pointing to her head.
She was not afraid; she was old; she was ready. But this was not what she had expected, this oddness, this distortion.
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