Her Story

She opened the door, came into the living-room and held her breath. She

looked around, closed the door, stepped across the room, came back,

locked the door, went back to a chair and knelt beside it.

There she looked down and waited. She knew it would come, she knew it

would happen again and she even knew that it was the last time it could

happen. Indeed, she heard someone coming through the door but didn't

hear the steps as the shadow crossed the room. She was still staring

down at the chair when something gently touched her neck. It was cold,

but this time she knew it so she would not be afraid. And she was not.

"Time has come," said the voice. It repeated this softly several times,

but she would not look up.

"You've come?"

"It's time NOW."

"I don't think it is, though," she suggested.

As she said this she felt the blade moving a little but without hurting

her at all. She was amazed and asked why she knew.

"What did you know?"

"That it was time, that it's the last time."

She felt that the blade was removed from her skin. She wondered why and

looked up, but could see no one, nothing at all but the chair.

"Oh!" she cried out, "I knew it was not yet time, not yet!" And she

started singing loud: "It's not time, not time, not yet, it's not time

yet!"

"Of course it is!" shouted her mother from the bathroom.

"No, it's not, it's gone, I tell you it's gone!"

The mother wondered what on earth her daughter was doing in the

living-room. Certainly she was looking after the flowers or something,

it was the only thing she would do. She would stare at the flowers for

hours. Maybe it was not yet time for a flower to die, though she had

said "it's gone!" The mother thought no further about this nonsensical

singing of her daughter's and rejoiced because she seemed to be happy

since she was singing. Still, they were due at the Collins' at five, so

it was time to go. Hence she cried out to her daughter:

"It's time, dear, we'd better go now! Caroline and Freddy will be happy

to see you again!"

The blade touched her neck again and she heard the voice whispering here

and there in the room that now it was time, as if it were warning

spectators that the performance was starting at last.

"I don't think so," she said. She felt an awful pain in her throat and,

after a moment, she shouted that it really was not time.

Her mother tried to open the door, she knocked and called her name, but

she would not open. She eventually shouted, panicked and, though, relieved

from a burden:

"Mum, mum! Mum, I'm gonna die, I'm dying! I'm dead!"

She grabbed the chair and tried to protect herself with it, but she

immediately thought that she should have protected herself from it.

Now it was too late. The chair struck her on the head and she fell on

the floor with the chair.

Back to the English-speaker's corner