So many people have said to me, “It happened far too fast.” But for me, it just felt too slow… Far too slow.
For weeks, I couldn’t bring myself to leave the house. Everything I heard became another thief –another foe –another thug out to get me. And every time my mother… my mother walked into the room, I waited, even though I knew it was her, for her to speak. Just to be sure. Even my cookies tasted strange. Now they don’t taste like anything at all…
One day, my mother came home with an excited tone in her voice. She had gotten some extra coin, and a day away from work. Her boss had a wedding, or a son marrying or something, I can’t remember now. But he had gone and given everyone a day off, so my mother decided to take me out and give the two of us a picnic.
We had bread, and milk, and cheese and fresh fruit, and… cookies. We had gone just outside the Bree-wall, in the grass. It was quiet. There was no one around to make fun of me. No one to make me nervous….. It was nice…
We ate, and she laughed, and I laughed too. And there weren’t any times when I grasped at my stick, or thought to defend myself. I didn’t need to, because she was there, and it was all right…
And then I heard buzzing in my ear, and I was annoyed. I didn’t swat at it; mother told me it was a bee, and I didn’t want to get stung. I’d done it once before, and that was enough. It went away… I thought it did…. I couldn’t hear it anymore…
We laughed some more. And I had a cookie… and I didn’t think about the knife, or the bee, or the people who pushed me, and laughed at me. Then I heard her drop something; I heard my mother say “Ouch!”…
And that was the last thing I heard her say…
I heard her breathing change…
“Mother?”
She was making strange noises… I think she was trying to tell me something. I heard the buzzing again, and suddenly I remembered: Bee stings. My Uncle Will died from a bee sting. But why her? She’d been stung before –I had too. We were both fine! Everything was fine…
I called for help. All of a sudden, it wasn’t so nice that no one was there. No one to hear me…
I sat there… Forever, it felt like… Before someone finally came. But it didn’t actually happen all at once. I had to sit… and yell… and wait… And listen to her breathe… and then not.
I’ve thought before, that I was alone. But never really. I’ve been lonely… But not like this…
I’m all alone… and I don’t know what to do.
