The First, the Last, the One by Dorothee Lang

She hadn’t kept a diary for a long time. There hadn’t been time for it, or rather: no point to it. There still wasn’t a real point to it. Yet there it was. A book with orange cover, a book full of empty pages. She opened it every morning, opened it without looking at the words she had written yet: a new day, a blank double page.

After opening the book, she prepared tea, and a breakfast that she would only partly be able to eat. Then she sat down, and remembered a first time in her life. The first time of going to a cinema. The first time at the ocean. The first day in school. She made a note of it. And then went and prepared for the counterpart. Cinema was easy, even though it felt odd to choose the last film to watch on a big screen. The ocean was more difficult, but she combined it with a flight, and coming back home, she even had an extra double page to note: the first and last time at the ocean, the first and last flight – and the first and last night with a man.

When she visited her doctor again, she asked the question that was unavoidable. He studied the x-rays again, and the blood analysis. “It’s hard to say,” he answered. “Maybe one month, maybe two. I am so sorry.”