The Binding

Which was worse? To feel nothing, or to grieve for something you no longer remembered?

If I waited long enough, this fear would pass: and then I would be ready. But it didn’t. And underneath it, like a sickness I hadn’t known I had, was a black misery, a sense of loss so strong I could have wept.

But the part of me that yearned for music and noise was the old, healthy part; I knew that silence, work and rest were what I needed now. Even if, sometimes, it felt so lonely I could hardly bear it.

Here the clock in the hall dredged up seconds like stones and dropped them again into the pool of the day, letting each ripple widen before the next one fell.

I was so weak I wanted to cry; but I wasn’t going to, I’d die first, even if the only eye on me was the full, fat harvest moon.