The Rats and the Girl

It was always gloomy in the Stonewall area.  Margaret Bell and her husband, Jonathan Bell, had recently moved into the dark town.  They had stumbled upon a home that was really cheap, basically a steal.  Margaret thought this was too good of a deal.  She is very superstitious and cautious.  She knew this new home came with a mystery.

            The house is two stories, painted black, and creaked, even from outside…very eerie.  White curtains hung on every window of the house.  Margaret didn’t like it; she was scared to go in.  But her husband had no belief or fear of paranormal fables or theories.  He thought of himself as a realist. He was a person who used common sense and had a logical explanation for everything.  And money was tight, so Margaret had to take what she can get and live with it until Jonathan’s job brought home some wages.

            While Jonathan was checking out the basement, Margaret stood in the kitchen with Mr. Bronstein, the realtor.  She was moving her fingers in a nervous frenzy and looking around frantically, running questions over and over in her head. Is this house haunted Mr. Bronstein? What happened in this home?

“Mrs. Bell, are you okay? You seem like you are waiting for the police and have to use the bathroom! Ha ha”

            “Oh, no, ha ha, sorry, I’m just a little anxious and uh…worried about a thing or two.”

            “Anxious? Worried? Scared of ghosts?”

            “Ghosts? Mr. Bronstein, are there ghosts in this home?”

Mr. Bronstein laughed out loud, his big belly moved up and down, his face was bright red and a little sweaty.  He took out a handkerchief and wiped his balding head and face and stuffed it back in his pants pocket.  “No no no, nothing like that. Well…you see, the last family moved because their daughter went missing.  They just couldn’t stand being in the same home with the memories of their daughter lingering here.  So they picked up and left.  No deaths here, madam…that I know of”

Margaret felt a little easier but still worried.  Something was telling her that this house was just too good of a deal.  But they bought the home and everything was fine until the rats started showing up.  She could hear them at night, in the day, the morning, afternoon, and evening.  It was driving her insane. Jonathan worked long days at the dock so he was bothered but not as much as stay-at-home Margaret. She saw them in the shower, in the kitchen, in the living room, and was setting traps everywhere.  So many dead rat bodies and more rats showing up.  It was like she would kill one and another was born.

It was so cold, so dark, and so creepy in the house.  She couldn’t stand it anymore.  She was sitting by the window in the living room reading the newspaper. Her eyes went wide when she saw an article about a teenage girl who was still missing.  She knew it was the girl who lived in her home.  As she was reading, a gust of wind blew the paper out her hands and she instantly let out a shrill scream.  She looked to the window and it was shut.  No wind could get in, anywhere.  As she looked down at the newspaper, a group of rats came out a hole in the wall and ripped up the paper and took some back into their hole.  Suddenly, she heard a moan, looked to the stairs and saw a white female figure run up the stairs, thudding the steps lightly.

Margaret screamed in panic and thought to herself: I knew it!

It was late evening so she quickly jumped up and went for a candlestick holder.  Yellow light from the flame casted upon the dark eerie home as she stepped quietly to the stairs.  She was looking up, behind her, and anywhere a ghost could pop up. She was frightened, her teeth had started to rattle and it got colder in the home.

            As she climbed up the stairs, she saw about 20 rats, the most she’s ever seen, scatter in the hall.  She picked up her long dress, uttered a small cry, and started stomping to scare away the rodents. As they fled, a door creaked opened slowly…a door herself and Jonathan were unable to open.  She raised the candlestick holder higher and started to the door.  As she crept in, she noticed it was pitch black.  She lit the room a little and noticed stuff that belonged to a girl on the floor.  And the room smelled like a dead cat.

            There were dolls, clothes, and rat feces everywhere.  The stench was sick and unbearable and it was colder in there.  Suddenly, she started hearing what sounded like a thousand rats squealing at once.  As she looked up from the ground and raised the candlestick holder to her left, she screamed like she never screamed before.

            On a bed was a girl’s decaying body, almost skeleton, and rusted iron shackles were holding her wrists and ankles.  The hair on the dead skull was dry and straw like.  She noticed rats had been feasting on the body, even the bones.  She started crying and went to the door as fast as she could.  She turned back and saw a ghost girl standing by the door smiling and then she vanished.

            She and her husband alerted the authorities and the parents of the missing girl were arrested for the murder and captivity of their own daughter.  One of her parents was the realtor, Mr. Bronstein, who had thought his wife got rid of their daughter’s body and locked the bedroom door.  It was locked, but the missing girl’s spirit opened it. The Bells moved out and there were no longer rats or the ghost of the missing girl.

 

 

 

 

 

 

stormy night

It was, as is usual on these occasions, dark and stormy outside, but Jen was nice and cosy lying on the sofa in her living room watching an old horror flick on the tube, her bare feet pressed against the warm fur of her curled-up cat. A brief hunger pang pierced her gut so she pulled on her plaid slippers and padded out to the kitchen. She opened the fridge, muttered to herself, closed it and opened the freezer. "Huh," she mumbled, crossing the room to the food cupboard. It was only as the wooden cupboard door creaked open that she saw... the sight made her turn away in shock... she was out of chocolate!

Jen collapsed, sobbing, to the floor. How could this have happened, and to her of all people? Then, in desparation, she remembered an old folk tale. She picked herself up and ran to the bathroom, grabbing a candle from the dining table and her lighter on the way. Standing in the small pool of light surrounding the flickering candle's yellow flame she stared into the bathroom mirror, hardly believing what she was about to do.

"Ben and Jerry," she whispered. The wind outside blew in the trees.

"Ben and Jerry," louder this time. Jen shivered as the window catch rattled. She took a deep breath.

"Ben and Jerry." The window blew open and a blast of cold air blew into the room, snuffing out the candle. In the mirror she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of two men standing in the shadows behind her, laughing. She spun around but there was nobody there.

Feeling a little silly Jen reached for the light switch and the room was bathed in cold, bright light. She pulled the window shut and pressed the catch home before picking up the candle and going back to the living room, where, to her suprise, she found a tub of her favourite double chocolate crunch ice cream sitting on the coffee table.

Jen settled down on the sofa with her ice cream, but just as she was about to take a mouthful she heard someone - some thing perhaps - moving about in the kitchen. She knew it wasn't the cat as he was still fast asleep beside her, so she quietly stood up and tiptoed to the door. Just as she reached it, it opened.

Standing in the doorway, clutching a shiny, narrow metal spoon and a couple of cans of Coke was her Jen Fan. "I, knocked but there was no reply so I thought you'd popped out or something, and I used my key. Did you find the ice cream?"

Jen hugged him with relief. Neither of them noticed the shadowy figure in the trees outside the window.

"Mmm, that was good," Jen sighed contentedly, scraping the last of the ice cream out of the tub. You stay here and watch the end of the film, I'll just put this in the trash." She stood up and stretched, before heading for the kitchen. A movement outside the window caught her eye as the kitchen door swung shut behind her, but she dismissed it as just the wind blowing the leaf-clad boughs. Putting her foot on the pedal of the bin she found that the bag inside was full to the brim, so she lifted it out, dropped in the empty tub and tied the top. "I'm just taking the trash out," she called, and got a muffled "OK" in response.

The air outside was cold, whipped around her by a sharp wind. She tugged her sweater tighter around her torso and made her way down the steps to the bins at the side of the building. As she shoved the bag into her bin the hairs on the back of her neck bristled as if there was something behind her, but when she turned around there was just the wooden palisade, stretching down to the back of the house, creaking gently in the wind. On an impulse she decided to check whether there was somebody back there, so she edged her way along the wall. As she reached the end of the house Jen took a deep breath, jumped around the corner into what she hoped looked like a karate stance and shouted "Hold it right there, buster!" There was nobody there. Jen straightened up and sighed with relief. She looked up into the trees that backed onto the small rear garden, but saw nothing. "God, I'm silly," she said to herself, turning round to find an old, twisted face staring at her. She was barely able to contain the scream that welled up in her throat before she realised that it was old Mr McGillicuddy from across the street.

"I didn't mean to scare you," the old man backed off, "I was coming home from the bingo and saw somebody creeping around over here. I thought it might be that escaped lunatic that was in the paper this morning, but it's just you, thank God."

Jen hadn't read the paper that morning as she'd been late for work. "What escaped lunatic?" she asked, as they walked back to the front of the house. The old man gently took her arm and told her how one of the patients had escaped from the Ashurst Remedial Clinic the night before; a man with a history of stalking, kidnapping and murder, who had mutilated at least one of his victims, gutting her semiconscious body with the razor-honed hook that took the place of the right hand he had lost in a childhood accident involving a food processor and a jar of crunchy peanut butter.

At the front of the house, Jen waved goodbye to Mr McGillicuddy and headed back up the steps to her front door, which she found open, banging against the frame in the wind. She was sure she had closed it on the way out, but didn't give it much thought as she pressed the latch down behind her. "I just met old Mr McGillicuddy," she shouted, as she walked through the kitchen, "You won't believe what he..." but her fan wasn't in the lounge. "Hey, where are you?"

She checked the bathroom, bedroom and study, but there was no sign of him. Thinking he must have popped out to the 7-11 for something else, she went back to the kitchen and put a new bag in the waste bin.

Jen stayed up for another couple of hours, but her fan didn't return, so she assumed that he'd gone back to his house for the night and she went to bed, practicing the telling-off she'd have to give him the next day for abandoning her without an explanation. They'd been going out for a few months now, and she'd been starting to think that maybe he was the one, that this was developing into something lasting, but now she wasn't sure. As she turned the bedside light out her mind was in turmoil, cycling between wanting to kill him, hating herself for wanting to kill him, wanting to forgive him with no explanation needed, and hating herself for wanting to forgive him. Jen hugged her pillow and finally went to sleep.

 

Like her thoughts, her dreams were troubled. She found herself being chased by a dark shadow with a hook for a hand, through endless corridors of locked doors until she finally came to an open one, standing alone at the end of a passage. Running towards it, the shadow at her heels, she pulled up sharply as the door slammed in her face, and the shadow engulfed her. She woke with a start to find something pressing on her legs, but it was just the cat, who had jumped up onto the bed. Then she heard a door slamming. That hadn't been a dream, it was real.

Jen climbed out of bed and pulled on her robe and slippers. She tiptoed out into the hall. Leaning against the front door was a man, his face hidden in the darkness. She couldn't see his hands as they were held up to his face, but she saw something glinting and screamed. The shadowy figure jerked upright and reached for the light switch. It was her fan, his keys in his hand. "Hey, have you been asleep? Didn't you hear all the fuss outside?"

Jen shook her head, then remembered how angry she was at him and demanded to know where he'd been. "Oh, I'm sorry, hon. While you were taking the trash out my neighbour - you know, Mr Johnson, you met him last week - phoned to say he'd seen through the window that I'd left my fire on, so I popped back to turn it off; we got talking - you know how lonely he is since the funeral - and before I know it three hours have gone by. You know, he remembered your name and where you lived, and called directory enquiries because he was worried my place might burn down. Really thoughtful of the old chap, don't you think? Anyway, I'm really sorry about not telling you but I was only planning on being ten minutes. Let me take you out to dinner tomorrow to say sorry."

Jen took in his explanation, but something was nagging at the back of her mind. "What commotion outside?"

"Some maniac's killed that old man across the street, ripped him apart according to the policeman I spoke to. He said the old guy was calling 911 to report an intruder when the line went dead. They found the killer at the scene and took him away. Don't say you slept through the sirens?" Jen's knees gave way, but her fan rushed forward and caught her in his arms, their bodies collapsing slowly to the floor. "I was just talking to Mr McGillicuddy earlier," she whimpered, her eyes filling with tears before the realisation hit her, "It could have been me."

"I know, and you were fond of him weren't you? But they've got his killer and I'm here now," They sat on the hall floor holding each other for what felt to Jen like hours, until she fell asleep in her fan's arms and he carried her back to bed

 

 

 

 

 

 

Intro Into The Apocalypse

 

Friday, May 22, 2012

11:30pm ET

Two scientists, Michael Coffman and Stanley Gregory, were set on a mission to find a human specimen for a breakthrough experiment they have been conducting in a disclosed science facility. They were both strolling along the beach, looking for anybody who was alone and preferably intoxicated or under the influence of narcotics. Somebody they can just carry into their job-owned work van or bribe to make them ride along. They both were searching anxiously.

It was a chilly spring night; the wind was above average, making the tide wash onto the sand with lots of foam. The moon was bright and pale, almost eerie. Casting a cold blue color over the beach. There were only a few people on the cool sand, all in groups, except one.

 “Stanley – There!” whispered Michael excitedly. “That guy has to be passed out, there are beer cans around him and he’s obviously alone.”

 “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s hurry up,” Stanley replied in a bold whisper. “I really want to make this happen, Michael. We need to make sure this experiment works.”

The two slim, salt and pepper haired scientists casually walked up to a shirtless man, wearing only cargo shorts, and sandals. They could smell the alcohol fumes and marijuana all over his body and on his breath as he snored, mouth open. They both took a look around - nobody watching, and Stanley gave the man a tap, seeing if he was conscious. He wasn’t.

 “Alright, he’s out, lets do this!” Michael whispered.

The scientists grabbed the man, one by his legs, the other by his arms, and carried him off to the work van

 

Saturday, May 23rd, 2012

Pm11:44

The scientists were in their disclosed laboratory at their hidden facility. The light in the vicinity was enough to blind anyone who walked in. Neon white everywhere, super clean, and biohazard sign stickers slapped on every door in the hall. Stanley was writing in his work journal:

Subject was detoxified from alcohol, heavily sedated with morphine, and has been injected with Virus T87Z. Immediately after injection, the subject woke up, blurted out obscenities, tried to get up but we have him strapped in tightly to the hospital bed. Soon after, the subject calmed down, stopped talking entirely, and had a fever of 109. Then, the subject had sever chills, started shaking violently, and began throwing up… Everything. Blood, food, and bits of his organs? It was unrecognizable.  And of course, the subject died in 5 minutes after injection. He was reanimated a minute later. His eyes were dead grey, blackened eye sockets, and he had no trait of human nature expect for the urge to EAT and maybe, KILL. The subject is still strapped in to the hospital bed but for how long? He’s been struggling to get out, even cutting his arms and legs with the belts from the bed. And also

 “Stanley! Come quick, one of the safety belts have busted and I don’t know what to do! We should have put on a muzzle for the guy! This is crazy! His face- his eyes! His growl – I can’t do this anymore!” Shouted Michael.

 “Michael, what did you expect? We are studying biological weaponry and reanimating a corpse is one of the damn experiments!…this is our job! I don’t want the damn US Army breathing down my neck because you can’t handle your own work or because you’re too scared!” Stanley replied, angry and irritated.

 “It’s a zombie Stanley…a zombie…I-I mean I knew that it-it was possible b-but this is just too much!” Michael started laughing nervously, “but please, help me. We need to terminate the subject. We must!”

Stanley and Michael went into the lab and saw that there was blood, coagulated blood, and yellow vomit everywhere on the bright white floor. There was also another scientist who appeared dead and had a gaping, fleshy wound on his neck. He was faced down but dark blood was pouring out of his neck like a broken dam. Streaming down the floor. The subject, now a hungry zombie, was groaning and growling at the scientists with blood and vomit smeared on it’s mouth and chin.

Michael ran to his desk at the corner, reached for his handgun and cocked it.

 “W-w-wait! Do. Not. Kill. The. Subject.” Said Stanley. “We still need him a little longer for the experiment”.

Suddenly, the scientist on the floor began moving his arms and feet slowly. Picking up his head and revealing dead grey eyes, sunken dark eye sockets, and growling at the two scientists.

 “Remarkable…he didn’t even get a fever, or vomit, or-“

 “Stanley! Are you kidding me? This has to stop!”

Michael raised his silver handgun, squeezed the trigger, and put a bullet in the zombie scientist’s head. The zombie scientist died, again, immediately.

 “You fool! We could have used Tom as another subject! You didn’t ha-“

 “Use Tom as a subject?”  Michael replied disgustedly. “I no longer want ANY part of this, Stanley. Tom was our fellow worker…a human… a-“

 “A what? Who cares? What about that zombie over there? He was human too, right?” Stanley pointed at the zombie subject who was growling and moving violently on the hospital bed. “You didn’t care about him last night, or this morning. Now you feel bad? Too late, Michael. Too late.”

 

Suddenly, the belt straps that had been restraining and cutting onto the zombie’s skin, creating nasty lashes, busted. The zombie got up but fell off of the hospital bed.

 “Stanley, we HAVE to kill it, I’m sorry,” said Michael.

Just as Michael was raising his gun to the zombie crawling on the floor, Stanley knocked the gun out of his hand and pushed Michael onto the zombie. The zombie grabbed Michael’s leg and bit a chunk of flesh with ease. Michael screamed loud in agony and cursed at Stanley.

 “Should’ve listened to me, dear friend,” said Stanley, so cold and serious. Then he shot Michael in the head without remorse or sorrow.

 “I must write this down,” said Stanley.

The zombie on the floor was quiet and finished eating a part of Michael’s leg. The zombie managed to stand and was now going toward Stanley who was completely unaware and in shock. As Stanley was writing down what he had seen in his work journal, the zombie opened it’s infected mouth, and bit a huge part of Stanley’s neck.

 “Aaaaahhhh!” Stanley screamed defeated and in pain.

Instead of immediately shooting the zombie, Stanley put the handgun to his mouth, shot himself dead, and unwillingly bumped onto a button which unlocks all doors in the building. All the doors in the facility opened. And the zombie made his way down the hall. Walking irregular but normal.

 

Sunday, May 24th, 2012

 9:09am

It was a sunny, warm day. No cloud in the sky and people were on their way to the beach. There was traffic everywhere, coming in and out of the city. Everybody was busy and on the move except for a homeless man by the name of Carl, who was hunched over, drunk, under a short bridge that was a bit out of city limits. Also a little far from the beach.

Carl was in a drunken sleep, under the shade. He suddenly woke up because he heard a loud shout or a growl, maybe both at the same time.

 “Whoa, where’s your clothes at, buddy?” said Carl, to a naked man who was walking towards him.

Carl was drunk, dizzy and was seeing blurry. All he could feel was his numb body and white beard on his face.

 “I got some-some cl-clothes in the-the – umm – cart! If you need, buddy,” said Carl in a drunken slur, pointing at this shopping cart full of clothes and bottled beverages.

 

As the naked man got closer, Carl was frightened.  What he saw completely ruined his buzz. The naked man had dead grey eyes, dried purple blood on his mouth and chest, and cuts all over his arms and legs. Then suddenly, he lunged toward Carl in a lazy jump.

 “Ahh! Get away! Get away! Help! Ahhh!” Carl shouted but it was too late.

The zombie subject from the lab had walked out the facility, into this ditch, under this bridge, and treated this man’s face like a pie eating contest with a no hands rule. Suddenly, tires screeched and a wail of police sirens rang in the air.

 “Freeze! Step away from the man!” shouted a heavy built Sheriff from the top of the bridge. “Freeze or I will shoot!”

A commuter had called 911 when he noticed a naked man walking along the sidewalk. Sheriff Rudy was on duty and in the area so he took the call immediately.

The zombie looked up at Sheriff Rudy with a bloody piece of Carl’s face flesh hanging from his mouth. His eyes were so angry, so grey, and so empty. The zombie let out an animal like growl and then bowed its head and continued to chew on Carl’s face. Like a dangerous animal protecting it’s food, scaring off any threat to its meal.

 “What the f-“ gasped Sheriff Rudy. He reached for his dispatcher “I’m going to n-need um, a, back up! Please! Hurry! By McKinney Bridge!”

Suddenly, Sheriff Rudy heard what sounded like a vehicle stampede. He turned around and saw a long line of military SUVs accompanied by black SUVS. As they approached him, only 3 men got out of a black SUV that was leading the way. Two in black suits and one in a lab coat.

 “We got it from here sir, please wait in your vehicle for further instructions,” one of the black suit men said.

 “But, uh, don’t you want me to s-“ Sheriff Rudy was cut off.

 “WE. GOT. IT. FROM. HERE. SIR. GO. TO. YOUR. VEHICLE.  OR. I. WILL. CARRY. YOU. TO. IT.” The black suit man snapped back.

Sheriff Rudy was so confused and in shock. Also a little pissed off about the rude reply he received from the black suit man, but he went back to his car, full of unanswered questions and horrified about what he’d seen.

The scientist in the lab coat ran down the bridge as fast as he can. Both men in the black suits took out a big silver dart gun and shot the zombie on the back with tranquilizers. The zombie let out a low groan and slumped over Carl’s body. Carl was in shock and had passed out. 3 other scientists ran down, one with a metal briefcase, handed it to the lab coat man, and started to pick up the tranquilized zombie.

As they carried the zombie away, the lab coat scientist opened the locked metal briefcase and took out a syringe full of yellow liquid. He injected Carl on the neck and then put the syringe back in the briefcase.

 

“He’s still alive, I have injected him with Anti-T87Z. Bring in the other body so we can hurry back into the lab and perform more tests with T87Z and the subject,” said the scientist to one of the black suit men.

One of the black suit men carried down a man very similar to the zombie who had feasted on Carl’s face. The man he carried in was naked and full of gun shot wounds on his chest. He placed the body on top of Carl and went up the bridge to talk to Officer Rudy.

 “Now, we wouldn’t like to take lethal actions with uncooperative people, okay? So, here’s the story…you got a call about a naked man, you came down here, saw him scratching at and beating an old man under the bridge, you shot him, killed him, he was unresponsive and aggressive, and he appeared to be under the influence of some new street drug. Got it? We will keep a close eye on you, Sheriff,” said the black suit man, so cold and serious.

 “O-okay, sir,” said Sheriff Rudy and he called in an ambulance and stayed on scene. The black suit men and the lab coat scientist got in the black SUV and left with all the other military vehicles.

 

Friday, May 29th, 2012

7:00am

To further the experiments and test the possibilities of other chemical warfare attacks and what the virus might do to a population, the T87Z virus was released airborne into a busy down town section. They believed it would be a “controlled” outbreak but what was supposed to be a quick test run, turned into something more dangerous and the infection spread faster than the scientists expected. And in a couple of days, the zombie apocalypse was in full swing across the nation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Dark

The boy watched the red dust sweep around the pickup. The flatbed behind him, piled high with their possessions, creaked in tune with the rough track. A new life, his father said. They were going to live with his sister in Kinsasha. The boy would go to school.

Learn something.

A red sun settled over the bloated arteries of the Congo and the boy could smell the decaying vegetation hanging in the water, saw a hippo breech the blackness every now and again. It was the sun, low on the horizon now, which turned the dust around them red. To the boy it looked like a living thing and made him feel a little afraid.

Darkness fell, and the dust glowed in the headlights. The boy drifted. The land cooled. Bugs swept against the windscreen as the rickety old machine jumped and lurched down the track. The boy massaged his dry throat, tried to close his eyes and sleep.

His father slowed.

Stopped.

The boy looked up. His father took a sip from the canteen, rubbing his free hand against his cotton shirt. Something flickered in the distance. The engine was turned off and the lights were swallowed by the dark.

A fire.

His father sat there for an age, staring at it, then put down the canteen and climbed out.

“Wait here, Buba.” He spoke his maternal Adioukru. He always did that when something was wrong.

He stopped in front of the pickup. Hand resting on his knife belt. He looked back once.

There had been stories for a while now. The boy heard the grownups telling them. Terrible things happening. The boy watched his father walk down the dirt track, the breeze catching at his shirt. The darkness ate his father and the boy listened to the cooling engine, the screech and cry of the flatlands around them. The air grew colder and the darkness more complete. The glow in the distance faded.

The boy waited.

Silence came. Long, dreadful, complete. No sound. His own breath seemed absorbed by the darkness, his own heartbeat.

These were the most frightening moments of his life and he came to believe that he would be trapped in this silent bubble of darkness forever. There was no escape. He didn’t have the courage to open the door and climb out.

 

He just waited.

Towards dawn, the darkness began to take shape again. The shadows turned around him until he could make out the road. A tall, lumbering figure came towards him. A man with a long, equine face and eyes that were still buried in shadow. He made no sound as he loomed large in the dirty windscreen. The tall man in the black suit doffed his top hat and smiled.

It was the most terrible thing.

And in that smile, the boy knew his father was dead. All were dead. The tall man reached into his sleeve and pulled out a bunch of flowers that looked grey in the dawn light and he placed them on the bonnet of the pickup. He walked on down the track and the boy remained in his seat and it was not until the harsh glare of the sun reached over the hills that he gathered the courage to go and get help.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll not forget you

 

I have to remember to clean my teeth. I have a list on the cabinet door that Maisey put there. Wash face. Clean teeth. Take pills.

All this assuming I remember to go into the bathroom in the first place.

There’s the question of how many times I go into the bathroom. I guess I clean my teeth more now. And my face is always pink and free of blackheads. I don’t take too many pills because they’re in a pack made up by the pharmacy.

I have a lot of lists. All around the house. Maisey’s written some. Others I’ve done. Drink water, that’s a favourite. Turn off the gas. Check the mail. Sometimes I need the lists. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I can’t remember how to work the washing machine. It depends which direction the wind’s blowing.

I forget, therefore I am. Or am not.

Don’t ask me what I did yesterday, or five minutes ago. I find it difficult. My cheeks clench and my teeth grind as I try to drag the memory, any recent memory, from the quicksand that is now my mind. Maisey tries to help, and I get frustrated. I know it’s missing, but don’t know what.

My thoughts, one by one, are disappearing into the quicksand. I have pills to help, but they just slow the process. They don’t stop it. They won’t reverse it.

I could rant and rave. It wouldn’t do any