Her hair lay on her shoulders like spider web strings, thin and white. Once it had been gold and thick, but it had faded away. She looked around the dusty flat that she was alone in. She was used to it by now, of course, she had been alone for years now, and even before that she could never be sure. After her third stay in the hospital where they put her every time, she was not sure of anything much any more.
Some things were concrete. Her name was Rose Addison nee Tyler. She married aged 31 to a man she cared for, a care somewhere between like and love. They were affectionate and comfortable, he died 12 years ago and it was sad, but she was used to that too. They'd had two kids, a boy and a girl, and she'd lived in London all her life. She never saw the kids any more; they had their own lives. They wrote postcards which she treasured as she analyzed the words they had written down with nothing more than a hint of obligation.
She had longed to travel, and indeed she believed she had, but she could never be sure now. The doctors had told her it wasn't real, that dreams were a symptom. She agreed it couldn't have been real, but she needed something; a little bit of magic, otherwise then she would have been totally alone.