The Silent Patient

by Alex Michaelides

I don’t know why I’m writing this. That’s not true. Maybe I do know, and just don’t want to admit it to myself. I don’t even know what to call it – this thing I’m writing. It feels a little pretentious to call it a diary. It’s not like I have anything to say. Anne Frank kept a diary, or Samuel Pepys – not someone like me. Calling it a ‘journal’ sounds too academic, somehow. As if I should write in it every day, and I don’t want to – if it becomes a chore, I’ll never keep it up. Maybe I’ll call it nothing. An unnamed something that I occasionally write in. I like that better. Once you name something, it stops you seeing all of it, or why it matters. You focus on the word; which is just the tiniest part, really, the tip of an iceberg. I’ve never been that comfortable with words – I always think in pictures, express myself with images –