this was an unfinished piece from a few years ago - it was meant to describe a visit to my wife's grandmother, who was not in her best health, and stuck in my mind. I really liked the imagery so here it is.

      As I walked in, the walls and furniture screamed antiquity. They screamed in long overdue pain, as dull moans knowing their own futility. The flaxen and rusty lime coated with several layers of years was splashed about in various patterns and shapes long since extinct. Two large, obese cats had burrowed among the seats, their fabric torn in a million pieces.
      She sat against the long wall in this narrow room. She was bathed in a smoky cloud; grey dancing along the flaxen and lime making new variations more unpleasant than the originals. It gave her an air of unbelievability. She herself looked as old as the walls, and probably was. Her face was pallid, with far too much skin for a far too thin frame. Lost cells of skin seemed to nestle underneath her lost eyes, across her cheeks, around her chin. Some of these cells have merged together in a wart or what-have-you, stretching out from her face as to escape. Her white, white hair stretched out and rested upon the top of her head.
      Her eyes were glassy, distant, hollow. They bore the pain of a mother and grandmother of far too many children; they bore the helplessness of a child not knowing where she is or what she's doing there; they bore the fearfull innocence of a newborn. They had so much within them, though none of that was in the surface- it all seemed hidden away for a rainy day.
      She looked to her right, and slowly, to her left. Her mouth opened and shut and if she were gulping in air, chewing the grey around her, digesting it. Perhaps she thought she was a fish, and those lost bundles of skin would act as gills. Perhaps she thought she could swim away from here like Mr. Limpett. Her glossy eyes shined here or there in different lights. She licked an itch; she opened her maw and outreached a tongue that could've been another limb. It was fat at the base, skinny and probe-like at the tip.
      As she spoke, she spoke slowly and unsurely, as if she had to poke through all the memories of people and places and conversations before each word she spoke before she could determine who she was talking to and what about. She seemed to agree an awful lot, so she wouldn't have to endure this search every second. As she conversed, her head sweeps continued; her itch-tonguing continued.
      Now she sat eating a bowl of ice cream. It melted far before she finished it with slow, unsure spoonfuls not unlike her speech. She fed spoonfuls of thick liquid to herself. Though I swear I saw some dribble off from the spoon or from her mouth, I saw none on her face. Perhaps it burrowed into her wrinkles, perhaps the lost skin cells absorbed it to make the wart longer. As she finished the bowl, she hoisted it to her face and began lavishly tonguing it. She stretched her fifth limb from her mouth, a bright red from wear and age, and covered it in this brown thick liquid. She retrieved her tongue and gasped in this sustenance in the same manner she had with the air.