It’s easier to play dead. IT’S A CONUNDRUM: IF YOU SURVIVE, THEN IT—THAT, THE trauma—can’t have been that bad. Being dead is the only way to prove it was. It really was bad. It was terrible. It was so awful there was no way I could survive. What did this child die of? Shame, mainly. And narrative necessity. IF YOU SURVIVE, YOU HAVE TO PROVE IT WAS THAT BAD; OR else, they think you are. Surviving is some kind of sin, like floating up off the dunking stool like a witch. You have to be permanently écorchée, heart-on-sleeve, offering up organs and body parts like a medieval female saint. WHAT IF
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