Delirium

The Girl hid her hair underneath a scarf.

She had not shampooed for over a week. Her clothes were wrinkled, like they had been worn for too long. As she ambled along the sidewalk, her eyes were on her shoes. One of the shoes had a tiny hole in it.

The Girl was by no means poor. She came from a good family, had a respectable job, all checks green on the list. Her cozy apartment away from her family had been a refuge. Once it twinkled with fairylights brought from the local vendors, the aroma of fresh lavender wafting through the small apartment. Now it stank of half-eaten pizza boxes, unkempt clothes, and a mess so tangled she wasn’t sure was worth the effort.

Giving up was an incorrect label. Social recluse was much of a convenient tag. What had dimmed the starlight in her eyes? Well, she wouldn’t be staring at her shoes if she could answer that.

She remembered the story of wallflowers her mother had recited many bedtimes. Of vines that grew wild, bold and free. The girl of those memories was a different creature. Untainted. Now, the Girl knew better. Awareness had a sticky quality to it.

The walk outside the safety of her den hasn’t satisfied her. Her medical leave ended in two days. She would have to go back to that office, with its too white walls and too methodical people. Dread has long been friends with her. She would feel the crippling anxiety tomorrow, for now, she could only mourn.

3 missed calls flashed on her phone screen. Two from her mother, one from her father. Even in this moment, her father would stick to his pride. Would the Girl’s ashes sway him, perhaps? She made her third coffee for the day.

A few drops spilled on the floor. She was out of napkins. Her eyes went to the report she had spent time and money for. The jargon and numbers that said she was a doll within a doll. It would be so much better if those white clothed artists wore jackal heads. They could do with some saving themselves. At least the papers were a good wipe.

Her fluorescent aquarium twinkled in the dark. Cleopatra once swam so furiously inside its edges, her acquaintances joked it was like the Girl. But a fish. Now, she lay still, even in the neon. She has not flapped her gills for the last month. Or was it two? The Girl couldn’t let her only friend leave.

The coffee was too sweet. She padded to her bedroom to feel the bed. Stale, safe. On the side table was a box of pretty pills she liked, her favourite diary, and a picture of her parents. They looked at her every day. She flipped her diary, her only daily ritual. The last entry seemed strange to her.

Ma, I miss you.