Slow

She had never liked new clothes, new outfits had to be worn at least 10 times before she felt comfortable. But even worse were new kitchens. She was terrified at the prospect of having to blemish spotless cupboards and new wooden working spaces. If she saw people moving furniture or rearranging cupboards, she would consistently turn her head and pretend nothing was happening. So it happened she was like a rock in her rapidly changing surroundings. People called her to check how it used to be, to ask about old loves and forgotten chopping techniques.

But sometimes changes cannot be avoided. You quickly try to hide under the kitchen table or desperately cover the stain with your hand. The doors are locked but you hear them knocking on the wooden frame. You turn the radio louder and keep turning the pages.

It was late autumn and day after day she had noticed him changing. His words and phrases had been shifting, until finally the result had become undeniable. For two months she hadn't prepared any meals, circling around her stove from a distance. Quietly she entered the kitchen trying not to touch anything. Why would she touch what she didn't know? From then on she'd walk in the kitchen with fabulous ideas for dinner and end up with only serving a little plate of olives. Fruitlessly she would chop vegetables from a distance or peel onions in the air, choosing recipes that were simpler than pouring juice from a bottle. Each meal she saw her family eating less and less, getting stuck in the boredom of raw salads and ravioli cans. They started asking for barley cakes and buckwheat salad, noodle sushis and corn soup, their faces getting thinner, their eyes bigger. One night her empty stomach woke her up and in the deep blackness of a dark night she started cooking again.