As we get older and everything fails, eyesight, bladder control, strength, etc, we cloak ourselves in the illusion of more independence. The less we can manage the more we depend on our proud independence.

Ogretum comes on when your centurion age is roughly twenty years away and sometimes even sooner.

            Telltale signs are. You patronage every beauty salon in town…and haven’t found a good beautician yet. The restaurants have changed…service is terrible and the food doesn’t taste as good as it use to. Friends and family are not allowed to go into certain rooms in the house. The helpers you had hired will never come back even if you double their salary.

Stuff piles up, a hoarding syndrome or garbage pick-up is too expensive. Being family you offer to help. Independence wanes just a nanosecond and finally, your relative relents and lets you help them, but with pay.

            You are now a paid worker and must do exactly how your loved one wants it done. Weeding the flower patch, now that’s scary in itself with lots of cats and the ground well fertilized. The weeds are overwhelming. One weed at a time is allowed to be pulled. Then you must shake the fertile soil back into the flower bed. Your loved one is breathing down your neck and sees some good soil still sticking on the weed. You vigorously beat the weed on a rock to extract every morsel of rich soil back into the garden. As stuff flies your eyes start to itch and swell.

            The kitchen is next. Your relative is now feeling the loss of independence when she allows you into the kitchen which had been off-limits to everyone for months. One horrendous peek you decide a kitchen is a very private matter and one has every right to keep the kitchen concealed from everyone. 

Pay means you become a programmed Android. Every move, step, how to bend, how far to bend, and when to bend is being monitored and corrected. What to touch, how to touch, when to touch, where to put, how to put, next to put. And don’t you dare deviate from the program, because your loved one can tell.

            The loss of Jang is a great contributor to Ogretum.  When Jang dies there is only Jing left.  All of Jing’s bad habits that Jang helped Jing control are once again amplified.  If you had one kitty, you’ll end up with twelve kitties.  A slice of pie after dinner, a whole pie for dinner. You eat your oatmeal out of the pot. Sometimes go to bed with your clothes on. You grunt and grown a lot. Cuss Jang out for dying on you, now you have nobody to talk to. You get lonely and talk on the phone all evening. The Jing Jang balance is gone. Unconscious fear looms and the illusion of independence becomes the focus into the abyss of future centurion-ism, or is it ogre-ism?