It was the day after my birthday, back when I still drank a lot and often, and I was standing in a supermarket express lane with a ripping hangover, buying a pack of cigarettes. A thin and very old woman in front of me was buying a birthday cake — one of those sheet cakes they make at the grocery store. That was it. There was nothing else in her basket. Hey, I thought, someone has almost the same birthday as me.
The old woman had on a red hat and was one of the oldest people I’d ever seen up close. I kept staring at her — she was so small — when suddenly she looked me right in the eye and just held my gaze. It was unnerving.
