The Attic Child

by Lola Jaye

As long as I could muster up enough strength to step out of bed in the morning and turn on the shower, that was a win.

It never felt like I was actually participating in any sort of real life.

Yet everyone seemed to crave these relationships—except me, of course. I had absolutely no interest in anyone or anything. My interest was simply to survive.

He was a “nice guy,” and always wanting to be the good guy wasn’t a bad trait to have, especially when we exist in a world where some people do not care how their actions affect others, happy to just destroy everything in their path like a finger on a trail of dominoes.

“In my work, it’s always been clear to me that history is on the side of the powerful and not the weak.”

“I wish you could understand. Even though what happened to the people in my family did so some centuries ago and without me present, it doesn’t mean that today I don’t feel the pain. It doesn’t mean that such legacies have missed me.”

“This type of work excites me, Lowra, but at the same time it devastates me.”

I wasn’t unhappy, and I wasn’t happy. I was just being, and that was preferable considering I had lived through so much worse.

“Like humans, trees tell a story. In nine months they can go from nakedness to half dressed, to fully flourishing bloom. Then they repeat the process all over again. I think they communicate a metaphor for life quite clearly.”