Prologue

Today is a day of beginnings and endings, and beginnings and endings are never quite bad, not to everyone. Vivian understands this as she searches through the kitchen drawer for a nice, good, sensible knife. She wants a sharp one--she doesn’t feel like drawing the pain out--one that no one will miss. They have lots of knives in this house. Lots, most of them hidden away since the last time she made a decision quite like this one. Toby doesn’t usually allow sharp knives in the kitchen, but he’s made a mistake. Cooking. He likes to cook. He’s left a cooking knife out for cutting vegetables, and another for cutting meat. He’s been slacking. He doesn’t realize just how bad it has become, and now, poor thing, he will forever regret it.

Vivian takes the knife he uses for meat. Human bodies, after all, are made of meat. She would rather be a chicken breast than a carrot; she made her mind up about this a long, long time ago.

She has a headache. She wishes the colors weren’t so bright.

She takes the knife and hides it in the sleeve of her summer dress, long-sleeved, of course. It would be easier, she has already supposed, to do this outside, minimal mess. The only problem being, of course, that someone out there might see, and might decide to intervene. It’s a nice town, really. A lovely town, with beautiful faces and soft-voiced country folk. They’ll intervene and then what? She can’t have that. She doesn’t want that. She wants, dear God, she wants--what does she want? She wants everything to come to a stand still. Wants to feel something, at least, even if she pays in blood. She wants, and that should be enough to tell her to stop. You’re feeling, Vivi. You’re feeling. But she can’t stop feeling now that she has begun, and feeling brings a gaping, horrible hole within her, a vortex, sucking her in, dragging her down, drowning her.

She considered drowning, but she thinks it’s too sweet. Too poetic. She doesn’t want this to be poetic. She wants it to be brutal. She deserves a brutal end.

She goes outside, not into the garden, but onto the front lawn. The flowers are blooming, the pale sun is beginning to warm up the soil and fertilize the dirt. The sky is so blue, it hurts to look at it. So--so, so blue! Where has it all come from? What God would design such--such brightness? She can’t stand it. She wants to tear out her eyes, and almost does, even lets the knife hover in front of her face for a moment. But then she hears running feet, and knows someone is coming. She hides the knife again, in her other sleeve this time. She has to move away. She needs someone to find her, but not yet. And not a child--not--not a child! She won’t let a child find her.

The alley, Vivian decides, will suit her nicely. No children go down there, not after recent events. Adults do. Adults will find her. Children will not. It’s the perfect place, though it may be full of dirt and vermin.

She deserves dirt and vermin. Yes, she does, yes, she does.

She moves, forcing her legs to go. Her body is aware, she thinks, of what she is about to do. It has seen too many attempts, too many near-successes, to allow her to do this without a fight. But her mind is tired, and her soul wishes to be free, and so she forces herself to move. She pushes forward, leading with her head, ignoring the silent protesting of her legs. Move, damn you. She needs to keep moving.

She reaches the alleyway in record time, desperate for it, yearning for it.

She looks around. Nobody in sight. Alone, alone. That’s how she should be. Alone. Let me be alone.

She gets out her knife, looking at herself in the reflection. Does she look haggard? No, not haggard. Mad. Mad, mad, mad. Her eyes are crazy, God she looks mad, why is there so much--so much--so much? So much there. She can’t take that away. Vivian will always be too much, so much, a lot. She can’t be anything less than a lot. She can only be. And even if she does this, she will continue to be. She wonders at the fate of her afterwards self. Will Toby find her? Does she want him to? Or would she rather be food for the rats, for the cats, for the stray and starving dogs she’s seen so often on these streets?

Her afterwards self is not for her. She has asked Toby, in a letter, not to come looking for her, but she knows that he will. She hopes that he will. She is bad. So bad. A bad, bad human being, made more for meat than for soul.

She takes the knife. Where should she do it? Should she stab herself in the gut? The chest? No, bleeding out will take a while, and she may survive it. It may hurt.

The wrists are too obvious, she thinks. Too poetic, considering the amount of scars that already lie there. No, she won’t add to them.

I have damaged my body enough, and I shall not do so anymore. This will be clean. Clean, brutal, and horrid.

She wants a horrid end.

The throat, then. It’s the only way.

She raises the knife to the throat. The throat. It is not hers any longer. She feels out of touch, can’t reach her own feelings, her own soul. It’s so far away, she is already drifting. Why is the sky so goddamned blue?

Before she does it, she lets out a sound. Her last sound, a tiny sound, a silent squeal of fear and sorrow.

Should I do this? Should I, really?

I must.

She must.

She slices with the knife Toby uses for the meat, and lets herself fall like a puppet without strings.