The Art of Listening (Suicide)

A reader writes of Æfintýri, ch 2-12: "I always thought Tess was a great mom who’d fought through so much to raise her daughter."

Tess IS a great mom, and she DOES fight so hard to raise her daughter... and she DOES see what an amazing daughter her daughter is.

But.

This is a chapter of people not listening to each other. Tess refuses to listen to Siggi. Tess refuses to listen to Jada. She just can't hear that this monster has anything to say, nor can she hear anything about this monster.

Siggi is a murderer. Siggi ingratiated herself into their home. Siggi ruined her daughter's life.

And here Siggi is, all chummy with Jada, just like before. Just like right before all hell broke loose.

What can Siggi say to change that? She can't. What can poor, deluded ... AGAIN! ... Jada say now?

Nothing.

So Jada may as well just shut up.

Of course, Jada won't listen to her mother. She's come to terms with Siggi in her life, ... a little bit, ... made some peace with it, this uneasy truce and compromise, and here Mom is, being all uncompromising, CALLING THE COPS? and what happened?

Exactly what Siggi said what would happen.

Exactly.

But did Tess listen? No. Because she's RIGHT. So she called the cops and put them through hell, because she just. wouldn't. listen. to anything other than Mom-mode: ACTIVATE.

And Jada wouldn't listen. Not to Mom. Tess didn't call her 'stupid,' but that's all Jada could hear. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

And the stupid-demon swallowed her up, and there was nothing left of Jada, nothing left to her, except stupid.

And the knife.

Which also called her stupid.

This was such a hard chapter for me to write, so I had to remove myself from it, and it just wrote itself. It wrote itself so fast it was scary.

This chapter was all me. 100%. Because I was right there, with the knife in my hand, and me, screaming and crying, and our cat just looking at me, like it didn't know what to do.

Then.

I sighed.

I put the knife away.

And I went to bed.

Just like that.

Good things these are just stories, huh?