The book I finished earlier jumped straight from Sad Murder to Depressing As Fuck Murder. The main character has very very quietly snapped. She goes to work, she buys groceries, she cooks for herself and her younger sister who’s an heroin addict. And she’s been lowkey, systemically killing men who resemble the man who fucked up their lives as a kid.
I don’t know wheter it was the first time she pops over to her sister’s house (they live across the street from each other, the younger sister lives in the house they grew up in, which is full of awful traumatic memories, naturally) but somewhere early on, I knew the younger sister was dead, and the older one was clearly just denying it as hard as she could.
It would have been nice to have houses opposite each other. That, or the apartments in the same building or sharing a house, all the plans we made.
I didn’t keep you after your death. I suppose I could have tried, but that works better with a house you own, or at least an attic, and we didn’t have those. So when I found you, and you were so still, and still warm, and I hated that, I called E. I called Dad, I ran down and got B and her parents. I functioned.
After I had moved you, in the hopes that you were just fucking out of it, like I could wake you back up.
it didn’t work.
I am functional, for the most part. I go to work, I keep my job and I got another lovely review from my manager a few weeks ago.
I don’t know what to do with the fact that I can walk around like this and say things to people and act nice, and sound okay. I should have laid down on the floor and held you and wasted away from grief. Because what is this? Every day, day after day, nonfuckingstop. It was light outside when I got off work this evening, and still light as I walked home. It’s so nice, and I enjoy that even if I’m not okay with the weather getting warmer. Apart from the physical discomfort, the warmth means spring, and spring fades all too soon into summer. And then we’re back to August again.
And now I am changing, becoming something else A creature of longing, tending only to myself Licking my wounds Burrowing down in a house in the woods on the edge of town Well healing is slow It comes and it goes A glimpse of the sun then a flurry of snow The first green shoots and a sudden frost Oh something is gained when something is lost
The rot and the ruin The earth and the worms The seasons change The world turns The world turns
- Florence & the Marchine
I miss you, Eames.