**Five Facets of Tomorrow**
“Well, I suppose our children will look after us in our old agethats why we had them, after all. But you, Marge, youve got a real problem,” Nettie said, pouring her another glass of white wine with a mix of mockery and sympathy.
The five women lounged in beanbag chairs beneath parasols at a beachside bar in Brighton. The evening carried the scent of salt, pine, and a faint melancholy.
When her friends had first invited Margaret to join them at a seaside retreat, she hadnt known what to expect. In her mind, “retreat” sounded like something from another erastiff routines, medicinal baths, and dull pastimes. Perhaps, if she were lucky, a bit of harmless flirtation in the twilight of life.
But it turned out to be a modern hotel with fine dining, spa treatments, and sprawling woodlands carpeted in emerald moss, where one could wander for hours, listening to the whisper of pines and chasing sunlight through the trees.
The sea, though shallow and brisk, was still a joy. Along the beach stretched nudist sectionswomen to the left, men to the right.
The womens side had amused them all. “Well, were not so bad, if you think about it!”
The mens side, however, left them laughing in shock.
“Oh, look at that onehis pride is smaller than my grandsons!” Lottie exclaimed.
“And that little fellows gone the other wayrooted to the spot,” Tessa added.
“Cheers, ladies!” a male voice called out unexpectedly.
The women burst into laughter and hurried on, hiding their faces. Theyd forgotten that Brighton wasnt quite abroad.
After dinner, no one wanted to partthe treatments had left them oddly invigorated. Music played softly at the bar, the sun dipped into the sea, and conversation drifted toward heavier matters, quite literally so.
One had high blood pressure, another a sore arm, a third couldnt sleep. Then came the real worriesold age, the fear of loneliness, children too busy with their own lives.
Margaret tried to lighten the mood. “Honestly, with the way the worlds going, we might not even live long enough to worry about old age.”
But her friends were already deep in it, swapping horrors and hopes.
Then Diane perked up. “Remember when you lost me at the market two days ago? I met an old woman selling peculiar stones. Bought this crystal from her.” She pulled a green-blue polyhedron with a chipped top from her cloth bag. “She said it shows the future.”
“Shows what?” Nettie squinted.
“The future, supposedly. I didnt quite catch ither English was patchy. But she said, ‘Five visions remain.’ And there are five of us. Why not try?”
They laughed but touched the crystal anyway.
**First vision: Nettie.**
By eighty, Nettie had been a widow for five years. She lived alone in her spacious flat, keeping cheerful despite fading eyesight.
Her daughter, a high-powered executive, was always busytoo busy even for a family of her own. She cared for her mother out of duty, with little warmth.
One day, Nettie climbed a chair to fetch an old vase from the cupboarda gift for her daughter. She fell. No broken bones, but bruises aplenty. Her daughter clucked in dismay and moved her in “for a few days.”
White kitchen, white walls, white misery.
Once, Nettie spilled tomato juice.
“Mum! Must you meddle?”
“Well,” Nettie tried to smile, “at least it adds some colour. Feels less like a hospital in here.”
The joke fell flat.
**Second vision: Diane.**
Diane had raised her son alone. Everything for him, everything because of him.
He grew into a skilled programmer, married a German woman, and poured all his love into herlove that once belonged to his mother.
His wife was cold as steel. The house, signed over “for tax purposes,” became hers.
Dianes heart faltered, her breath grew short. They cared for her, but with irritation.
“Mum, dont touch that. Mum, dont interfere.”
She hid in her room, cried quietly at night, smiled by morning.
One day, she called Nettie.
“I cant do this anymore.”
“Pack your things. Move in with me. Well manage.”
And they did.
One saw poorly, the other walked slowlybut together, they managed.
They laughed at their frailty:
“Youve swept all the dust into the corners again.”
“But the middles spotless!”
Evenings were for debatespolitics, technology, happiness. They disagreed often, but it never mattered.
Then theyd turn on the telly: Nettie listened, Diane described.
“Maybe its a mercy I cant see well,” Nettie mused. “The worlds grown… ugly.”
“Dont be silly,” Diane said. “Were just relics. The world moves on.”
**Third vision: Lottie.**
Lottie had twin daughters. In old age, one took her in, the other visited with grandchildren.
The house buzzed with laughter, smelled of popcorn and baby shampoo.
“Granny, is it true you were born before the internet?” a curly-haired boy gasped. “Did you see mammoths?”
“Oh yes,” Lottie chuckled. “And sabre-toothed tigers!”
The child hid under the table in mock terror.
Lottie patted his head and thought, “This is happinesstiny curls and all.”
**Fourth vision: Margaret.**
Margaret, a doctor, had spent most of her life alone. Two divorces, countless shifts, hundreds of patients. She worked and saved, knowing shed rely on no one.
When her strength waned, she chose a retirement homemodern, cosy, with a garden and Wednesday dances.
And there, she blossomed.
Shopping trips, bingo, new friends.
At the dances, a charming neighbour with a rollator once asked,
“Care to be my cha-cha partner?”
Margaret laughed. “If you can keep up. Maybe well start slow?”
**Fifth vision: Tessa.**
Tessa and her husband had always dreamed of a seaside home. They bought onein a distant Asian country.
Now they lived in a little paradise: a local woman cooked, cleaned, helped.
Her husband had suffered a stroke, but evenings, Tessa wheeled him to the shore.
They sat, watching the sun drown in the ocean, talkingor sitting in comfortable silence.
“How glad I am we made it,” he whispered.
“We made it,” she replied.
When the visions faded, the women sat quietly.
The sky turned violet, waves murmured secrets.
“Well,” Tessa cleared her throat, “not so dreadful, eh?”
“Quite the opposite,” Diane smiled. “Almost… human.”
“And rather lovely,” Nettie added. “Fewer bruises would be nice. More wine?”
They laughed.
A waiter brought another bottle. The crystal on the table caught the fading lightdim but persistent. It hadnt cracked or dimmed, only grown clearer.
“Let it be so,” Margaret said. “Each to her own path, but on the wholenot bad.”
“Old age is still life,” Lottie said, filling her glass. “Just a different time of day.”
They clinked glasses, and the sea murmured its agreement.
