Chapter 13

Full novel for sale at Lulu.

Now as you all know, the Black Rabbit of Inle is fear and everlasting darkness. He is a rabbit, but he is that cold, bad dream from which we can only entreat Lord Frith to save us today and tomorrow.

“So how are you?” You say what’s expected of you and I’m supposed to say what’s expected of me, only I don’t want to be expected.

“Fine, I guess.”

“You’re a little under-dressed for the weather. Where’s your raingear?”

“My umbrella’s in my purse.” Maybe I am trying to get your attention, and I’m glad I did as it might not ever happen again, but that wasn’t my primary motive. I don’t like wearing pants when it’s raining. The hems always get soaking wet and muddy and they don’t ever dry in this air. At least by wearing a skirt, I can dry myself of with some paper towels once I get inside. “It’s gone.”

“What’s gone?”

“There was a shiny piece of twisted metal on top of your filing cabinet last week that caught my attention and I wanted to steal it when I left, but I didn’t because I thought you might catch me.”

“I’m glad you decided not to steal it.”

“I’m not. It probably didn’t mean anything to you. Most likely it ended up in the trash.”

“So you think it’s ok to take other people’s belongings because you want them more?”

“Yes.” My eyes caught sight of your cheekbones and they were so beautiful I had to close my eyes. You probably just thought I was tired.

“Do you often steal from people?”

“No, not from people. I steal from jobs. It doesn’t matter what I take or whether or not I want it, I just like to take stuff.” I want to feel I’m a part of something, some piece of the world existing outside my head. So I collect small tokens to prove I was there. A paper clip proving I was in an office, with office people, making office talk. A napkin proving I could sit still, in the company of another person, for at least an hour, saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to the waiter. Souvenirs of a life I’ve only visited. Proof. Verification. I was there. It was real.

“What do you steal?”

“Whatever is available. Food, stationary, magazines, toilet paper. Nothing major.”

“Have you ever been caught?”

“I don’t think anybody is going to miss a few pens or post-its.”

“Do you steal out of retribution or defiance to your employer, or because you enjoy the risk of being caught?.”

“No. None of that. There’s no real sentiment attached to it. There is an anxious fear that I will be found out afterwards and I’ll often tell myself I won’t do it again because it’s not a feeling I enjoy, but once that has worn off I steal again.”

“What were you hoping to accomplish by telling me about your plans to steal from me?”

“It wasn’t a plan.”

“Did you think you would be rewarded for your confession?”

“Yes. Shouldn’t I be? I was going to do something bad and I didn’t. Shouldn’t I receive some acknowledgement for that?”

“No. All you did was what you should have done, which is to not take things that belong to other people.”

“It’s always like that.”

“Like what?”

“Everybody else gets rewarded for their achievements, but whenever I accomplish something it is disregarded as expected. It doesn’t matter how good or perfect I am, I never get any credit for it. Instead, like just now, I am condemned for it. And if I do falter, the chastening is exemplified. All I ever got for being good was ignored.”

“Do you think I’m ignoring you now?” Not me, but all the pieces that go together to make me.

“You think you know.”

“Know what?”

“What I am.”

“What are you?”

“If you knew, you wouldn’t have to ask.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Exactly.” It would be nice if you did though. Sometimes when you are looking at me, I pretend that you are indulging yourself in an intimacy not yet banned by ethics. For a while I can believe you genuinely care about me. At least until the end of the session when you let me walk away so easily and we separate into worlds where we are not allowed to know each other, into worlds where we would never speak to each other if we passed on the street. I politely close your office door behind me when I leave to return to my empty house. Soon, you will leave too, me already erased from you mind, and close the door behind you, to return to a home filled with family.

“I have difficulty at times ascertaining whether your mood has shifted or if you are being ironic for the sake of rhetorical debate. What you say doesn’t always correlate with what I see or the behaviours you describe.” Maybe you should pay more attention to what is happening. I can’t be that difficult to figure out.

“I’m ironic and you’re irenic. You being irenic is ironic and me being ironic is irenic. Maybe you need to entertain the possibility that I am telling you the truth and if my behaviour seems contradictory, it’s because I am trying to be less of a burden or nuisance to you.”

“You’re not a burden. And you’re not difficult.” You’re lying. You must be lying. “You expressed dissatisfaction with your job before. How is that going?”

“I don’t have a job anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I quit.”

“Any particular reason why?”

“Someone ordered a half-caff-non-fat-no-foam-extra-hot-sugar-free-vanilla-latte.” You’re laughing. I wonder what kind of coffee you drink. My guess, two sugars, no cream. Simple.

“Not your kind of coffee?”

“Artificial complexity.”

“I’m sorry?”

“People talking for the sake of hearing themselves talk. Pretending what they are doing is important. Forcing others to listen. I don’t get paid enough for that kind of auditory rape.” Nobody is ever really listening.

“Do you think you’re maybe being a bit dramatic?”

“No.”

“That was a quick reply. Don’t you want to take some time to think about it?”

“We don’t have time.”

“No, I guess we’re done for today. Have yourself a good week.”

“Thanks.”

……….

It didn’t make sense. I thought it was me. Some distortion of my perceptions. Miscalibrated intuitions. There was an absence. I wondered if you felt it too. If you really thought I was empty and shallow. Mostly empty. Because you can’t be empty and shallow at the same time. To be shallow would indicate that you have some substance, where I lack any. You seemed angry. I suppose it’s possible it was something I said or did. Sometimes the things I say are not reflective of what I’m trying to say, but I don’t think it was that. Then I started putting it all together. [Aside: was it my lack of “raingear” you noticed or the amount of skin my skirt revealed?]

You were late. You don’t usually go behind the reception counter before you call me in to your office. Did you forget whom your appointment was with? Your hair was dishevelled. The weather was terrible, but you must be used to that from riding your bike to work everyday for the past few years. And you do have other shoes that you wear when you’re riding, I saw them underneath your desk, so why are the ones you wear in the office so damaged? I never say the things I want to say.

Or I was angry with you. For not being there with me, because you did not hold me in the same regard I reserved for you, because you won’t talk to me. Wow. That’s terribly wrong of me. What have I made of you? This has gone much, much too far. And yet, sometimes when you are creating metaphors, in your head, not in mine, I see you beautiful and I don’t see that in many people. Maybe I’m not looking. But I don’t want to let that go. I don’t want to let you go. Here I am grasping at ideas made of fog as if I could somehow make them tangible if I could only catch them and hold on to them. But I can’t. That’s my point. I can’t hold you. How do you contain that which doesn’t even exist? Except you do exist. I like that you exist. Maybe that doesn’t have to mean anything.

……….

There are these moments where time is lost, like the minutes existed for everyone else, but, somehow, I missed out on them. These moments have an air of importance to them. It’s not just anything that was lost, but some incredible, life altering, world changing event that will never occur now because I wasn’t paying attention. This happens too often.

But time isn’t discrete. So, can it even be lost? Is time a wave? If it isn’t time that’s being lost, it must be life. Which, I guess means, since it’s being lost, life must be composed of discrete units. That doesn’t make sense.

Maybe, when time interacts with and is observed by life, it becomes discrete. Like an electron. Or a photon. Then it can be lost. Or maybe the waveforms of life and time interfere destructively. That makes more sense. Like spherical standing waves. Except time and life aren’t matter. I’m confused. Whatever. All I know is there are huge blank spots in my brain where memories should be.

Sometimes, I think I have told you about what is missing, but because I can’t remember what is missing, I can’t remember telling you either. Sometimes, I think you really are paying attention and you know all my secrets. Secrets so secret, I don’t even know them. Unless I’m wrong. Then you don’t know anything. I found some blood on my wall. Did I tell you that? I don’t know how it got there. I mean, it obviously came from me. I remember making myself bleed. But that was when I was in the living room. And the blood I found was on the wall in my bedroom, next to the window. I don’t remember standing by the window.

I do remember lying in bed. My bedroom has become the hospital room that I am so terrified of being condemned to. I have been sent home to die in peace. No, not in peace. So much of my time is passed staring at the ceiling. It’s an ugly ceiling, made of square pressed-board tiles that were once beige and have been incompletely painted over with white primer. I should paint some clouds on it, to go with the glow in the dark stars I glued up there. Something more comforting to look at when I’m paralysed by fear and depression, waiting to die.

Anyway, I was lying in bed, staring at the plastic, yellow stars still faintly glowing from when I turned out the light, thinking of all the ways I could use to describe depression when I remembered it doesn’t matter how any depressed person describes their situation, no one can understand, and the more you try to convey the horror, the less they believe you could actually be experiencing it. So, the more people talk about their illness, the more they lose credibility.

But it is horrific. A strange place. It reminds me of how they describe death in fantasy novels. A Pressing, unending, vacuum of darkness. Yes, vacuums can press. Only in this special place. And when you’re there, it doesn’t matter if you’ve ever experienced a trauma or not. The experience itself is a trauma. And there, in that place, you are subjected to every anguish any person has ever experienced - hurtful words, rape, Hiroshima, dead babies - all at once.

I said before that the purpose of the group, the three of us, is to protect each other. That includes me too, my body, since without that, we would only exist as a thought. Not even a thought. An empty space where a thought aught to be. But when the shadows come, the body must be abandoned. It’s the body that is sick, not the mind, and though it would be preferred to save every part of ourselves, if the body is diseased it must be removed. There are worse things than dying.

Chapter 12

Full novel for sale at Lulu.

Well a cat is a horrible thing with a long tail. It’s covered with fur and has bristling whiskers and when it fights it makes fierce, spiteful noises. It’s cunning you see

“So how are you?” I’m not sure we’re on the same side of this fight. That might be good. I’m not sure if I’m on the right side.

“What is that?”

“What is what?”

“That.” I’m pointing right at it. Turn around and you might see it.

“It’s a portable computer.”

“It looks like a camera.”

“It does have a camera on it. Two of them actually.”

“Why two?”

“I don’t know. The company just likes to put extra features on their products.”

“Is it on?”

“No.” It looks on. The lights are on. The screen has a menu displayed. But I shouldn’t be too paranoid. I’m not interesting enough to record.

“What would you like to talk about this week?”

“I killed a cat.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“What made you say that then?”

“I had to say something.”

“Do you have a cat?”

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?”

“Her name is Petri, but I always call her Snowball.”

“Petri like a small, plastic dish for growing bacterial colonies?”

“Yes. But not that gross.”

“And what about Snowball?”

“I just called her that one day because I thought it was funny since she’s all black and now that’s her nickname.”

“That is quite funny.” Do you have a cat? I could picture that. At least if you were to have a pet, it definitely wouldn’t be a dog. Dog people are obvious. Cat people are curious. Or lazy. “What did you do this week?”

“Went shopping.” Hence the new designer dress I purchased while I was downtown. Not that you would notice.

“What did you buy?”

“This.” It was too expensive. Pouring coffee earned me enough to pay bills, but nothing extra, and the money from my father’s house was only budgeted to last me through school, so that was long gone now. “Stupid.”

“What’s stupid?”

“I am.” As if it’s not the most obvious thing in the world.

“Sorry, why are you stupid?”

“Because I shouldn’t be spending money. I complain about not having enough money to pay the bills. Or eat. And then I go out and spend what I don’t have on frivolities.”

“So then why do you do it?”

“Because it’s pretty.” It is pretty. They all are, all my purchases. Despite the fact I know I don’t have money, I still spend like I do. It seems a waste to live a useless life without at least being able to have beautiful things. And it makes me smile.

“I think it’s good to allow yourself these extravagances. Aesthetics plays an important role in healthy living.”

“But I’m irresponsible.”

“So.” It makes me a bad person. I’m unstable. I can’t take care of anything. I can’t take care of myself properly.

“Forget it.” You are forever doodling on your paper. Don’t you know you’re not supposed to let it go. You’re supposed to question me, find out my secrets. Not that that would change anything, you knowing. But if it’s not going to change anything, why does your ambivalence irritate me so? I can be ambivalent too. I’ll just sit here and wait until you have to ask me a question. And wait. And wait. At least you have looked up from your absent doodling. Sit and stare and wait. This is stupid. Why won’t you talk to me? It just occurred to me that you probably have no idea that I’m only two steps away from sticking a knife in your stomach. If I had a knife.

“What’s the laughter for?”

“For me.”

“That’s a good sign.” No it’s not. Fuck, you’re dense. It’s a very bad sign. People don’t just laugh spontaneously. At least, when I do it around other people they look at me strangely and ask me what’s wrong, so I figure normal people don’t do it.

“How so?”

“Laughter is an indicator of happiness.” A false indicator. “It shows you have a natural tendency towards living well.”

“Yeah, because I totally live well.”

“You do. It’s easy for a person in your situation to surrender to the symptoms of depression. But you are able to take care of yourself - eat, wash, dress. And more than that. You find yourself easily attracted to beauty.” You’re beautiful. “If you were incapacitated with a mood disorder, you wouldn’t see the details in life as poetically as you do. You wouldn’t be smiling at all, despite what might be your cynical interpretation as to the cause of your smile. You have a salubrious approach to life.” Your voice is soothing. Calming. I stopped listening to what you were saying at ‘symptoms.’ I already know what you’re going to say and I don’t particularly care to hear it. I won’t believe any of what you try to tell me anyway. I couldn’t believe you if I wanted to. It makes more sense for me to sit here, close my eyes and just let the sound of you pass through me, wrap around me. Comfort. Like my blanket at home in bed. I don’t want to go back there. But you’ve stopped talking and I can’t sleep here.

“Sooner or later there will be an accident and I will end up in the hospital.”

“That’s a bold assertion.”

“It’s the logical conclusion. I’m not going to stop cutting myself.”

“Self injurious behaviours can be viewed a lot like an addiction.” You’ve told me this before. “You have to want to stop.”

“I don’t want to stop.”

“Then you are you have some more work to do.” I don’t know what that means, but I don’t think you’re being nice and I don’t much like being talked down to, so I am not going to participate in this line of conversation anymore. If we start fighting, you will win and where will that leave me? “Well, it looks like that’s all the time we have for today. Have a good week.”

“Thanks.” Whatever.

……….

With a full day ahead of me and nothing to do, I prepared myself for the worst, but the afternoon passed pleasantly and without incident. I sat in the sun and read. It wasn’t until early evening that I felt things shift and the shadows seeped into my mind separating me from myself. Laura and Kayla took their protective places at my side, but I decided this evening I would take the offensive. I was not about to go to that place of confused exhaustion and terror, not for anything, so I took five sleeping pills, knowing the induced unconscious would protect me for a short time. All I wanted was to not think, not dream, not exist.

The alarm woke me at nine for work. It sounded muffled and distant, but irritating nonetheless, so I turned it off and returned to bed. At ten o’clock, I knew if I didn’t get out of bed I wouldn’t be going to work at all. It took considerable conscience effort to dress myself in the somnolent wake of the zopiclone.

I arrived late for the staff meeting at work. As people watched me enter the room and take a seat near the back, I hoped no one noticed I couldn’t walk properly. I shouldn’t have been driving. The sedatives sure were taking their time working their way out of my system.

The manager, talking about company protocols at the front of the room, was pointing to something on a board, some piece of paper, but instead of his finger, he was using the razor he carries with him everywhere as a pointer and all I could think about was how I wanted to cut myself.

Coffee samples were passed around and whenever the tray came my way, I took two hoping the sugar-caffeine combo would help alleviate the after-effects of the drugs still in my system. At one point during the meeting, the manager was reminding us about the equality and tolerance policy and I laughed. It wasn’t supposed to be an audible laugh, but people turned around to look at me. I just thought it was funny that people had to be reminded, and that it took two pages of the employee manual to teach them to respect other people, but obviously my amusement wasn’t shared.

The rest of the day passed without event, mostly because I was still too sedated to roll myself off the couch. But a few hours of staring at the ceiling did put me in a more relaxed state of mind. Sometimes, like this evening, when I’m in one of my better moods, I will contemplate the shape of a sleeping cat. They always look so much smaller when they are curled in on themselves, like a sphere of fur. A flattened sphere. Fragile. Vulnerable. Disembodied. Beautiful. Even people are beautiful when they are sleeping. They hardly possess the miasmic qualities they so viciously use to define their humanity when they are awake. No defences. No pretences. If I was to become a serial killer, my pattern might be to kill people in their sleep.

Kill the cat. The thought wasn’t mine. It came from somewhere behind the shadows. But once it was there, in my head, it became mine and I wanted to kill my cat. He hadn’t done anything to offend me, he was simply lying on the floor as cats do when the impulse to kill struck me. That’s all it was, a curious, instinctive impulse. I didn’t desire to kill him. Nor did I feel any need to unbind him from his life. It just seemed the natural thing to do.

For a minute, I watched him sleeping and breathing, his tiny head void of any idea of what I was considering inflicting upon him. It would be easy, to make the breath stop, even I could accomplish such a simple task without any instruments or tools. He was so small.

Then I got up from the couch and stepped on his neck. Little bits of black fur poked out softly from the space in between my toes. His body, his blood, was warm against the cold sole of my foot. I stepped down harder. Discomforted by this, he bit my foot in defence. In just return, I grabbed him by the neck and choked him with my left hand while I pinned him to the floor with my right, to avoid being scratched as he attempted to struggle out of my grasp.

It was disappointing, how quickly he surrendered. When he had abnegated, I held him a moment longer with a slightly loosened grip. He looked at me, directly in the eyes, and he was not sad or angry or afraid. It was almost as if he wanted me to finish him. Can a cat be suicidal? How long had he been waiting, wishing, something just like this would happen so that he could end his pointless feline life of sleeping, shitting, and eating? We bonded there, in that shared gaze and contemplation of death. So I released him. If his death was to be as insignificant as his life, to him, to me, I might as well not have to deal with the chore of double bagging a dead cat body for trash day.

Today, as last night, not a single feeling has been evoked in regards to the event. No remorse, no guilt, not even the desire to repeat the episode exists. Absolutely nothing. I though this must be how the dead feel, but quickly realised my error. The dead are better off. They have no consciousness of what they can’t feel. They don’t have to endure this cold separation of their minds from their bodies. The dead are better off.

Chapter 11

Full novel for sale at Lulu.

…now that they were actually committed to the adventure, felt dread and apprehension.

“So how are you?” Please help me. Three simple words. I want to say them, but there is a force compressing my voice. Kayla. She’s watching me from the corner by the door, behind you, her dark eyes speaking threats. If I tell you what she does to me, she will hurt me. You can’t see her.
“Fine, I guess.” Please help me. I try to say it loud enough in my head while looking you directly in the eyes so that maybe you will hear my thoughts. Or, at least, see the fear in my eyes. You don’t hear. You don’t see. You are writing something down. The paper. Maybe I could write you a message without Kayla interfering. But then I see my wrist, a red vertical line made by a marker running down the artery. Kayla’s promise. I lift my hand and turn my wrist towards you. You will see. You will understand. You will help. I only hold it towards your view for a couple of seconds before Kayla grabs me, her fingers tight around my wrist, though I know her grip will leave no mark. She knows what I was doing. I will bleed tonight.
“What would you like to talk about this week?”
“My door was unlocked.”
“Was it supposed to be?”
“No.” The last time the door was left un-locked was the first time he found me. Upon entering the un-locked house almost a year ago, I made the usual search of rooms, with a large knife in hand, for any intruders lying in wait. There were none, so I readied myself for bed tucking the butcher knife under my pillow, just in case there was still someone lurking in the house. It was impossible. There was nowhere for a person to hide. There was only one closet in the whole place and it was full of boxes. I had checked under the bed. There were no other hiding spots. I was safe. Unless there was someone outside. The door was locked now, no one could get in. Unless they kicked the door in. It wouldn’t be difficult. There was no other exit. If someone broke in, I would be trapped. There was no one. There was no one. I was safe.
My pillow was soft and my blanket was warm. I was safe and ready to sleep. Then he came, the same big, bald man who still terrorises me. He covered my mouth with his hand, which was large enough to cover half of my face. Accustomed to such situations, I assumed the submissive role. It was the only time he ever touched me so intimately, using only his hands, never removing his clothes, and, in a manner, gently.
His large hand stretched the skin between my legs as he pushed his fist inside of me. It was painful, to be sure, but I didn’t complain. I was good. It would be a lie to say I didn’t partially enjoy his hand in me.
The hand covering my mouth to silent my screams moved behind my head to grasp at the hairs at the base of my neck. He pulled purposefully, stretching the skin covering my skull so that I had no choice but to tilt my head backwards to ease the pain of hairs being pulled out of their follicles. He pulled. I bent. He pulled. I bent further until my neck was at such a painful angle that breathing was near impossible and screaming even less so. I began to choke on my heavy breaths and moans. He didn’t release me. Not even when my mouth gaped open and closed like a fish struggling to consume enough oxygen for one more breath, one more second of life.
It was only when he had succeeded in fully pleasuring me that he loosened his fist, untwining his fingers from my curls and removing his other hand from inside of me. His only goal in forcing himself into me had been my gratification and yet, I had insulted him with my fear. After this first encounter he became a sporadic, but regular and violent, visitor. I still don’t understand why he doesn’t like me.
“So what did you do?”
“I locked it, of course.” Then I checked the house, returned to the door, unlocked and re-locked the deadbolt, turned the handle to check the lock was in place, unlocked and-relocked the deadbolt, checked the handle, went to bed, went to the door, unlocked and re-locked the deadbolt, checked the handle, returned to bed. Despite my conviction the door was locked, I doubted the reliability of it actually being closed. I was entirely confident in my memory of locking the door, but fully doubted the ability to recall an event where I may have unlocked it. But the sedatives I had ingested began to outweigh my anxiety and I remained in bed, eventually passing into an uneventful, dreamless sleep.
“So there was no suspicious behaviour associated with the door being unlocked?”
“No. Everything was normal.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m here for a reason, right?”
“I don’t like to label people with specific diagnoses. In my experience such diagnostic labels tend to increase the duration of symptoms the patient is suffering from as it can provide them with an excuse to continue with their unhealthy behaviours. Instead of trying to adjust their perceptions, they justify their actions by claiming the title. ‘I’m depressed, therefore I am justified in sleeping in,’ type of thoughts.”
“I’m not making this up.”
“I am not at all suggestion that you are. I think that your pain is a very real sensation but the attenuation of your discomfort lies in not overemphasising its existence. I don’t usually condone denial, but this is a circumstance where refusing to give your pain attention and thereby reinforcing it, is beneficial.”
“Ignore it and it will go away?”
“Well. Not ignorance so much as a delicate balance of comfort without over indulgence.”
“That sounds kinda difficult.” You’re laughing at my light-hearted, but not untrue, dismissal of your advice.
“It doesn’t have to be. It’s like going through withdrawal at first.” And that’s not difficult? “The mind automatically resorts to unhealthy thinking in response trauma because of negative early life experiences to the point where the response becomes depended on. But if such defence mechanisms are ignored, the mind will begin to look for new survival strategies.”
“But I don’t know any other strategies.”
“I can teach you.” So teach me already. Less talking, more making the crazy go away.
“What if I go through this withdrawal when you’re not around and my mind replaces the current survival strategy with something worse?”
“Like what?”
“Like death.”
“Do you want to kill yourself?”
“No.” Yes. But Kayla will do it before I get the chance. She’s good to me that way. Absorbing the pain so I don’t have to.
“You have a choice in the actions you choose to take.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“What if I don’t want to die, but someone else kills me? It’s like that all the time.”
“Like what?”
“I make a choice and bad things happen anyway. I might as well not resist.”
“Everyone dies. Choosing to live forever might be a little bit of an unrealistic goal.”
“Not necessarily.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am a member of the first generation that could theoretically live forever if medicine keeps advancing at the rate it has been.”
“Exponential curves are typically discovered to be S-curves when enough data has been collected. But it’s an inspiring thought, to want life.”
“Who said I wanted it?”
“You did.”
“No I didn’t. It was a hypothetical situation.”
“So you do want to die?”
“I don’t see that I have a choice.”
“You might not have a choice in the details of your death, but you can influence the outcome by making better choices in your life and thereby increasing the probability that you will live longer and happier.”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“Nobody is ever alone.” And neither am I. But I could be. Without Laura and Kayla, there would be no one. “It looks like that’s all the time we have for today. Have a good week.”
“Thanks.’

……….


Kayla is punishing me, for my thoughts. We were together today, like before. There was dancing and violence evidenced by bruises on my thighs. I think she’s crazy. She came to help me and I believe it is her intention to save me from suffering. Her methods are…violent, but she needs to get my attention is all. She is only trying to protect me.

What if she is right, that we, the three of us, are happy except for when I try to live out in the real world? I am scared. She is always watching me, censoring my thoughts and my words. I can only write this because she thinks I will never let you see it. I want to believe that she is wrong, that I can show you and you won’t ignore me and you will help me, but I know she is right. You said I wasn’t crazy, so then I must be making this all up.

Kayla laughed as I wrote to you. She let me write, secrets, knowing you will never see a word of it. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you anyway, and then I would lose standing with you. Or you would miss the message. It’s a plain message, but if you missed it, it would mean you weren’t listening and then you would lose standing with me. All of you would have to be discredited. All your advice, your philosophies, would need to be re-examined for lies. That would be worse. It’s better for me not to be heard.

Later that night, after playing with Kayla, I became transfixed by the red ink running down the length of my wrist, where Kayla had marked the place to make the cut. She outlined with a red marker how to cut down the artery, not across. I could bleed and bleed and bleed and sleep. Finally.

I looked at your face today and wondered if I would get tired of it if I had to see you everyday. I have to tell you this. Not the part about your face, I have to tell you about the part of me that wants to die. Do you remember that building you told me about? That’s what my life is, never changing but always different.

Your hair looked brown this week, dark. I thought it was lighter. I think I might be making you up.


……….


I was driving the other day. It was day, not night. I don’t remember where I was going. I was driving, too fast as usual, when I noticed a dead cat in the middle of the lane up ahead. I could tell it was dead because there was red blood spilled around its body on the grey pavement. I came up on it fast, before I had time to swerve around it. It was already dead, I didn’t need to swerve, but I didn’t want cat pieces on my car.

There wasn’t time enough to avoid it though and I felt the bump of my front tire as it pushed the dead cat body further into the pavement. I looked in my rear view mirror. I don’t know why. Maybe I thought the cat would get up and walk away. Zombie cats. It could happen. Only, when I looked behind me the cat had turned into an umbrella. A red umbrella. Can cats do that?

I was going to the skytrain, I remember now. I had wanted to go downtown, but couldn’t afford the parking and didn’t want to pay to take the bus, so I drove and parked near the skytrain which I could ride without having to purchase a ticket. It was possible I would get caught skipping the fare, but unlikely. I was only going a few stops. And I liked that I could get caught. Maybe somebody would notice me.

This particular station had two rail lines. One ran high above the traffic and the other ran well below street level, though it wasn’t underground. You could look down upon the rails and the train cars and the people from the street above. Kayla was walking on the guardrail separating the sidewalk from the steep walls of the man-made ravine in which the trains ran. The top of the guard rail was square, about four inches wide, wide enough to easily place one foot in front of the other. But the steel fence looked treacherously slippery as small puddles of water had gathered from an earlier rain.

“It would be like floating,” Kayla said as she turned her back to us, Laura and me, to gaze down at the steel tracks and the plants growing up the sides of the ravine. I wasn’t sure it would be like floating. It would be like falling. The terminal velocity of a human is over 50 m/s and that’s only if you’re falling parallel to the ground. To jump straight down, the speed a body could reach would be closer to 80 m/s. 80 m/s is, 80 divided by 1000 times 360, 288 km/hr. That is not at all a speed corresponding with floating.

I wondered if it would hurt when she made contact with the ground. If her legs struck the bottom first, the bones would most definitely break and that can’t be comfortable. Of course, the pain would only last a second before her skull would crack against the ground and that injury could result in a death quick enough that any pain it inflicted would be negligible. Still, when I saw her feet move, just the slightest, closer to the edge of the rail and its assurance of support, I took her hand and pulled her gently, almost unnoticeably, towards me. She resisted, her fingers refusing to grasp mine and moved again closer to the edge and further from me. Maybe it wasn’t my place to intervene. Maybe I should have let her have her peace, but her hand felt so frail and warm and soft in mine that I couldn’t bear to let her fall alone and unprotected. Yet I lacked the courage to go with her. So I pulled on her hand harder. She turned at her waist to look down at me.
“Please come down,” I said. My voice was flat, but my eyes were earnest and were locked on hers.
“Sooner or later you will have to let me go,” she replied.
“Later then.” She regarded me quizzically, as if unsure to trust that when the time came I would let her have her death.
“Come, let’s go,” said Laura breaking the trance of our eye contact. Kayla looked briefly to Laura standing beside me and the muscles of her whole body relaxed as she jumped down from the fence onto the sidewalk. She gave me a quick kiss and a brilliant smile so intoxicatingly full of life that no indication remained in her face or body of the graveness of the situation that had just taken place.

Kayla took hold of my hand as we continued our walk to the train station. I glanced at Laura who was walking on the other side of me and looking forward into nothing disconcertedly. Kayla was ok now and happy, but Laura was still unsettled. I understood why, of course I did. Kayla understood as well. We all knew, one day, she would have to die. There was no avoiding the inevitable and there was no means of ascertaining the moment when such an event would occur. It was awful to have Laura’s sad face reminding me that when that day came, we would be quite incapable of protecting the person we loved. So instead, I looked back at Kayla, who was smiling, and smiled back