text: February 27, 2024 - 6:03AM I’m staring at the white page of paper before me. It’s clean, pure, empty, unstained, unscribbled, and unsullied, like a baby as yet untouched by life. I know I need to put words down, let them fall like a gentle storm in the summer, but I can’t seem to. It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything. It’s been a long time since life’s been normal. I feel like my page is laughing at me, twisting itself into a smirking face to mock my inability. Why? Why is it so hard? It’s as though my heart is locked in a cage of iron experience, and I myself have thrown away the key. I did. I know I did, but now I want that key back. I wasn’t thinking clearly then when I threw the glittering key over the rocky precipice and watched it tumble into the unreachable distance; I hadn’t realised then that I’d want to live again, to fight and reclaim normal. Back then, I’d only wanted to protect myself from being hurt again. Nothing in...nothing out: that meant safety, right? I’d keep the real me safe. But writing doesn’t work like that. Writing means an ongoing conversation: me, you, me you, like breathing in and out on a frosty morning. Now, all the thoughts and feelings in my heart are battering themselves against the bars I built with my own hands, and they can’t get out. I’ve lost the key. I think the paper knows it too. The chuckle which reverberates in my mind softens somewhat, and the sneer fades, leaving the sheet once more as blank as my mind. No amount of effort can force the swirling words in my heart out through my pen. Brimming with despair and frustration, I let go, and my pen clatters down, flipping over and over in its crazy dance to the floor. I stare at the whiteness of snow, and suddenly, I realise it’s no longer paper. I’m looking at a white bedsheet, and that noise echoing in my head is actually crying. I can see her clearly now. A girl, maybe twenty, is lying there, her face buried in the softly patterned pillow. Her shoulders are shaking as though an earthquake is ripping her apart inside. I can hear her gasping for breath between the sobs, and she’s muttering terrible wishes in a ragged voice. My entire core is convulsed by the screams of grief which sound from another room. The girl feels it too; I see her shudder, and then she rolls over and drags herself from the bed. I see her face at last. Red. bleary, pitiful, I still recognise it. How could I not? It’s me. I watch her, the me of a year ago, stagger, pull herself together like a tattered blanket fighting for respectability, and struggle for composure. She walks past without glancing in my direction, and I follow. In the kitchen, she is brewing a pot of chamomile tea, and she pours it into a cup with a large spoon of honey. Taking a tentative sip herself, she carries it back to the bedroom area and enters another room. This is where the screams came, and are still coming from. It’s her mother. The girl sits and soothes, vainly trying to comfort. The cup is forced into the shaking hand. The lips are made to drink, and for a time, it’s quieter. She stays there, her arms wrapped around the trembling woman, for hours. I sit too and cover them both with my arms and my aching heart, but neither take any notice of me. “It’s going to be ok,” I whisper to them, but my words are drowned by the hoarser whisper of the past me. “It’s going to be ok,” she says. “It’s going to be alright.” I stay with them until the girl goes to bed. My insides have turned to jelly, an ugly, mushy jelly, and I don’t need to imagine how the girl is feeling from the endless day. I already know. She climbs into bed, desperate for sleep to carry her to a land of temporary relief, but the moment her light is out, she is sobbing again. Only with others is she able to hold back the anguish. In the dimness, I watch her toss and turn, the clock ticking on, like an angry or taunting drum, marking time at an execution, dragging her closer and closer to the time when she must once again return to bleak reality. I see her lift her hands to block her ears. She is hearing sounds which don’t reach me, but I still remember them. The brain, the memory, so often a useful tool and tender friend, can become a ruthless tormentor after dark. Some sounds cannot be drowned out; they boom in the darkness. I reach my hand out and stroke her wet, hot cheek. Then I lift the phone which stands there. I remember the code. It is someone’s birthday...someone loved...someone who is responsible for the current pain. Opening it up, I turn to the music. I slip an earplug into each of her ears and press play. The gentle music and pure words slip past the earplugs to me. “Blessed is the man, the man who does not walk...” “In thee, O Lord, I trust...” “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help...” They fade into each other, like a chain of snowflakes beneath the sun. The girl is breathing deeply, restfully, peacefully. She is finally asleep. For an instant, I’m sorry for it. There was so much I wanted to tell her. Don’t let this moment destroy you. It will pass eventually. Every storm does. Trust God. Be at peace. There is still sunshine beyond. I can’t wake her now. I suppose she’ll figure it out herself. It might take a year, and she’ll never be exactly the same person, but she’ll make it through. I will. I will. I will. I bend to kiss her cheek once more, but it’s cold, flat, white. I’m back at my desk, the paper before me. Had I been dreaming, imagining things? No, I look at the clock, still ticking, still beating. 6:03am. Not a moment has passed. I shake my head, and something catches my eye. It’s glinting, beckoning to me from where it rests inside the glass candle holder. I stretch out a trembling hand and wrap my fingers around the gleaming metal. It’s a key. February 27, 2024 - 6:15 AM The crisp white paper before me is cool and inviting. A smooth black pen rests beside it, begging in a cheerful voice to be scooped up. It seems excited to pour its inky heart out across my paper in swirling letters. That’s fine by me; it’s just the way my heart feels. With a smile, I reach out and light my candle. In the musical flicker, I pick up the pen...and start.