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Maybe if the funeral was for a rattled young mother who died saving her infant from a rattling rattlesnake armed only with the child’s rattle, maybe then I could understand the word “rattled” featuring so heavily in post-burial banter. Maybe.
That’s when I saw the flicker. Somewhere in her eyes between indifference and the arrival of rage, existing for less than a moment. But it was there. It was real. It was fear. And it was enough.
I try a couple of times to tell him about the art competition, but when he isn’t talking about himself, Lucas is leaning forward to kiss me.
Not a good sign lol
Once he’s tied up beneath me, I tell him again that he needs to be patient. I’m going to take my time now. I like taking my time. He’s excited and so am I.
Why do I feel like this is a prelude to murder?
I stand in the shower, close my eyes and think back to the silence that only exists beneath screams. So uncluttered, I live for that silence, allowing stillness to invade my mind. No images of Dad rotting in the ground, nobody expecting me to be someone I’m not.
If I wanted to surround myself with needy, self-pitying morons wittering on about their feelings, I’d join Facebook.
I’m not in denial about Dad’s death. I knew he was going to die and part of me couldn’t wait for it to happen. The Dad I knew left this world years before his heart failed. Early onset dementia, that was his fate, waiting for him after decades of kindness and hard work. A merciless disease, it disposed of his sanity fast, leaving behind confusion and psychosis inside the shape of my dad.
“Oh, right,” says Christiana, smiling. “But I mean, originally? Whereabouts are you from originally?” “Croydon,” repeats Florence. “Originally, I’m from Croydon.” “Oh,” says Christiana, confused. “But you’re . . .” She’s floundering now, this woman who doesn’t like to cause offense, as her individual journey of grief takes an unexpected early detour into racism.
Lol
it’s disgusting, the indignity of such a public display of self-pity. That’s when I feel it: the most powerful urge to snatch my hand away and put her out of her misery. Strangulation would be my preferred choice,
There were three other distressed-looking patients in that little lounge at the back of the ward, spooning filthy water from the fish tank. Dad was trying to move his face away, turning his head from side to side as spoons stabbed his cheeks and nose and chin. It must have felt so cold, that filthy water, trickling down his face and his neck. Nurse Sebastian was smiling all the while, goading the three patients on, forcing them to do it, cheering when one of the spoons stabbed its way into Dad’s mouth.
Wth I would've stormed in there and shoved his head in the tank to see how he'd like it.
Nurse Sebastian cried. And he begged. Over and over again. Irritated the hell out of me by the end.
I’ve never given grief the respect it deserves. Drawing no distinction between strong, weak, rich or poor, it plows through everyone’s lives the same, leaving identical mounds of emotional debris behind.
As he sat in a chair with his arms tied behind him, struggling to get free, I thought about Dad and plunged Sebastian’s head into the filthy water. Yanking it out, I waited for the choking to stop before asking my questions.
Ah sweet revenge
You’ve no idea who you’re messing with.” “I thought I was messing with a mental health nurse who abuses vulnerable patients in his care,”
I may not have cried, drunk to excess or wrung my hands in disbelief since Dad died but I’ve definitely become more reckless with my kills.
As soon as she introduced me to these curious little phrases, I realized they would be an invaluable tool in my interactions with ordinary people. Whenever I’m unsure of how I’m expected to respond, I use a cliché. Even if I’m not sure what it means, even if I use it incorrectly, no one ever seems to mind.
She’s still wearing the open-toe sandals and tracksuit, but every last trace of victimhood has gone. This woman has followed me home, broken into my house and is now behaving like an invited guest. I sip my soup and watch her, trying to decide whether she is mad, dangerous or a combination of both.
“It isn’t fine,” she says, but her tone still isn’t right. She seems almost amused. “I broke into your house. I’m a criminal. You should call the police.”
She knows about your homicide hobby and that you wont call the police
I find myself thinking about Mrs. Davis’s dog. The dog that always growls and barks at me, the one and only living creature who can see I’m not like everyone else.
“Oh, and Claire?” “Yes?” “There appears to be a rotting human head in your fish tank. It might be time to clean it out.”
Lmao
Can I tell you something about Daddy, Claire?” she says, moving her face closer. “What?” “He doesn’t see the truth about people,” the woman whispers into the child’s ear. “He doesn’t see the truth about you. But I do,”
From now on, whenever Daddy’s at work, I can lock you away and won’t have to look at you. I won’t have to be reminded of the thing I’m always trying so hard to forget.
His death triggered something in me, a recklessness I’ve never known before—years of killing experience washed away in an instant by those enormous waves of grief.
I know I should never assume anything. I know assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups.
Why are they talking about nothingness like it’s a bad thing? For me, nothingness is a perfect state.
In this inclusive world in which we find ourselves, it seems anyone can become friends with anyone as long as the key ingredient of friendship exists. Mutual respect.
It’s the gun, cash and video stills that tell me everything I need to know because they all point towards the same thing. Blackmail.
“Lucas wasn’t very friendly about you that night in the bar. I assume that was you, Jemma, wasn’t it? Phoning him over and over again.”
“He introduced me to a new source of income,” she says, ignoring my last comment. “And we had a good system. I supplied him with the video recordings, and he did the meet and greets. The people we . . .” “Blackmailed?”
“I think that once you pass a certain age, the world stops looking at you. Until one day, nobody sees you at all.”
“Florence?” “Yes?” “You’re not invisible.” “Thank you, Claire,” she says, “that means so much to me.” “The world does see you. And it listens to what you say.”
“Your grandmother was a strong woman and Mummy is a strong woman and sometimes strong women don’t always get along.”
I’m not disputing any of her credentials but, to me, Star looks like someone out-of-her-bloody-mind-fulness.
LOL I see what you did there
No matter what else is going on, your breath is always there.” “Unless Jemma is suffocating you with a pillow,” says Welshman, without sarcasm.
LMAO
Today has reminded me I’m not invisible, they see me too.
I listen to Star’s words and think about the people in the video stills I found in Lucas’s briefcase; each one so unaware of the limited number of breaths they have left.
What’s with all this abuse of the elderly? Why is it so popular? What’s the appeal? Nurse Sebastian, Jemma, Vampire Smoker, Tall Woman—that’s four abusers I’ve stumbled across in the last couple of months. How many more would I find if I went out looking? And why isn’t anyone, other than me, doing anything about it?
Lullabies and lunacy. How thoroughly depressing.
“Before she had her . . . funny turn,” he says finally. “Yes,” I reply, deciding I quite like Ben. Anyone who describes murder and suicide as a funny turn gets my vote.
Most people I meet, especially the good ones, are insecure. They playact fake personas and measure their fake worth by the fake validation of other fakes.
Move over, Jemma, there’s a new Queen of Fake Martyrdom in town.
What the police don’t know is that Jemma was abusing Lucas’s mother and that Lucas knew about it.
“Right, this last question is all about history,” says Jobsworth Jez. “More specifically it’s about an event I’m sure all you residents know about . . . the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.” Bloody hell. How old does he think they are?
“Why are you wearing such horrible shoes?” At last. A decent question.
My God. He really does write everything down. What a bizarre little man.
“I was just saying to Christiana that having the word ‘care’ in a job title is not necessarily indicative of a caring nature.”
But life isn’t a film and in the real world people listen carefully to rhetoric but are rarely persuaded to change their minds.
