Girl in the Dark

But my colleagues appear to be the same. ‘Glad to see you back,’ they say. ‘There’s a lot on at the moment. The Minister needs a briefing paper by ten o’clock. We’ve set you up in a desk in the corner, so you can keep the overhead lights switched off.’
‘That’s sensible,’ I think.

If I dare to look into the future, my own mind censors me, dropping a heavy black curtain across the pathway of the first tentative thought

Can she see the sky outside her window?’ I ask. ‘Can she open her front door and walk along her street? Can she turn on the telly whenever she wants to and watch it for as long as she likes? Then she should bow down and kiss the ground in gratitude.

So the games you play in the dark use words. And the words are little sparks in the darkness, because they make something flash up in your consciousness, as on a computer screen.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

The words wait behind my lips, I feel them push against my teeth. How strange, I think, suddenly detached, that mere vibrations released into air can change the course of lives.

I do not want to spoil this day, this lovely day of birds and sky. I want to keep it whole and pure so I can hold it in my mind, a talisman against whatever is to come.

The human body is an amazing thing. Parts of it gamely keep functioning, even as other parts reel.

But that is the unthinkable thought.

I am a patient on morphine whose fix has been interrupted, desperate to restart the pain-dulling feed.