The Binding

by Bridget Collins

Here the clock in the hall dredged up seconds like stones and dropped them again into the pool of the day, letting each ripple widen before the next one fell.

But the part of me that yearned for music and noise was the old, healthy part; I knew that silence, work and rest were what I needed now. Even if, sometimes, it felt so lonely I could hardly bear it.

Which was worse? To feel nothing, or to grieve for something you no longer remembered? Surely when you forgot, you’d forget to be sad, or what was the point? And yet that numbness would take part of your self away, it would be like having pins-and-needles in your soul …

The darkness rolled and sucked like a tide, at arm’s length; and then, instead of drowning me, it receded.

‘May your darkness be quiet and the light come sooner than you need,’

Maybe I should have followed him; but somehow it went from too soon to too late, without the right moment in between.