Tatamagouche chapter rough. (Patreon)

2.

Sunday,

You’re quiet tonight. I love the quiet. I hate the noise. The noise and the people, a blanket of harsh light that strangers try to throw over your head.

But the quiet. The quiet is water slowly filling up a room. You don’t know you’re drowned until you’re drowned. The quiet is the certainty in my mind. Do you have a certainty? I used to hate mine. I spent years terrified, seeing doctor after doctor. But now I know it is just me. And that’s ok. How do you cure someone of their self?

I don’t want to live, Sunday. You aren’t born yet, so you don’t know. Everyone around me wants to live. They have their troubles, and disasters, and they keep on living. Meanwhile, my life is quiet. I have no scars. All I have is this certainty in me, that I am going to kill myself.

So I think of things to do instead of killing myself. That is my job now. Not killing myself. Clean the whole house. Drive to visit my father for an afternoon. Sit alone in a coffee shop for two hours. Buy a book, so that tomorrow I can return the book. Buy a dress so that tomorrow I can return the dress. Go and watch the waves crash on the beach. Write my daughter a letter.

Your mother,

Margaret.