Note for reader: I've decided to stop numbering these, as it feels wrong to attach an arbitrary order onto such a set of works where when they were originally written, there was none. This is one of the larger documents within the box, consisting of three sections attached together by a rusted nail in the corner. While they don't bring me any closer to discovering the true meaning of this 'Record' they may demonstrate my own mother's mental state at the time of writing.
There's an image attached which I found sandwiched between the pages. Unsure as to its relation to the story.
My mother is gone now, but when I read these, it's almost like she's returned, if only for a little while. I love you mom.
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I am a Good Person
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I am a good person. I am. I must be. If I'm not, B, then I must be mad, and I can't have that. Not that. If not that, then I can't have anything else. Having nothing, I would hold nothing, and I can't have that. I need to hold onto something, need something to hold onto me! We can't have that, now can we? Not at all.
I stared at my husband on the other side of the bed with yellow linen sheets this morning and thought, 'Who the hell are you anyway?' He didn't hear it. I annunciated it for him: 'Who the hell are you?' 'I'm your loving husband,' he replied, 'Who are you?' I didn't respond, just turned over and sank back. Sleep. Dreams. If I could only sleep forever. And never have to wake forever. Who am I? Forever later, again waking, again turning to face- gone. Him gone. Me here. Still. Colder still. Good. Colder good.
I must be good. If I'm not good, then I must at least try. I must find a way forward, otherwise, where is there to go? Not back, B. Never back. If I start to go back, awful way to be. No. Only forwards. I try to love him. I do. I really do. I try to make love the emotion I feel when I find him. I really do. But I don't and I can't. Which leads me to think that I'm not a good person. But I can't have that, no. You don't want me to have that. Now do you?
I ask you now. You will read this in the dim light. I renovated that room just for you. Do you like it? My husband asked me what was it I was doing. In the bedroom of a child which never should have been. In the end almost never was. Poof. Just some scum down the drain. Then empty drawers of unworn clothes. Their clothes. Unknown down to the gender. Never ought to be. He wanted. I didn't. Not his choice. O my husband. O so little did he know.
You know, B? You must have felt the same way, though never with a hubby yourself. Must have had fantasies! O you girls and your little fantasies. About married life. I'll give you the Cliffs Notes, not all that it's all drawn up to be. Drawing up in your head, pulling aside the wide red curtains, taking it all at once, seeing such an expression of combined masculinity mixed feminine, into some great endgame. Never ending, tradition, always coming round as the night fades to day again. A gilded circle, cycle.
You may ask, B, why you and not he? Why isn't it himself in your feet now? I considered it. I really did. While I was renovating the room and plastering over the window - tough job. Glad of my big muscles! Ha! Glad of my determined arms. You've felt those arms, I think? Have you? Fiction could only take me so far before I had to, until I was forced to invent some real horror. You're my real horror, B. He peered in at me, one day, plaster half-applied and asked if he could help me. That was in the early days, before he would ask all of the questions, when he was hoping to help and clueless as to the meaning of it. He's still in the somewhat dark, but I think he might know too.
He isn't as stupid as he sometimes is, sometimes. Asked if he could help, I obliged. I watched him, clumsy as when he does anything, sloppily spooning on the plaster, like a toddler playing with his food, without any much experience of anything. How can men know so little about some things? I watched him, helpless to know what he was to do and I thought if he would make a better fit in that room than you. I'm sure you wish my special plan called for him and not you, but it didn't. It would have been easier to entrap him in there. But you have to realize, B, that there would just be so many damn questions.
So many people knew him and he knew so many people. I'm sure they saw the same thing that I saw in him: his ability to be exploited; his innocence. I have you, at least, and if you deny me friendship, then I'll deny you something special too. What will it be this time, B? Food? Water? I could let 'Dog' at you again! I could prop you up and affix a mirror permanently before you, forcing you to stare at your disgusting ugly expression for however long it takes for you to accept it. It's okay to be ugly, B, you just need to know it. I will break you, despite what you might believe.
It was a funny thing you did that day. The one when I told you he was still in. I had thought he was, that day, I had thought he was still at home. You and I were both very lucky that he had left early to go do something. What was he doing? I asked him when he got back. He made a joke and left it unsaid. He stared at me differently that evening, he touched me differently. My suspicions are what you would imagine. But I thought, 'no,' as I watched him messily plaster that window. I thought, 'no,' but not for the reason previously stated. I thought that, because, with him it just wouldn't have been very fun.
I remember the early days of when you stayed with us. I wonder what he must have thought. Hearing the light moans (I did make sure to soundproof the area quite well!) emanating before he'd left for his job. He gestured to the room over his toast, gestured to its direction, asking, 'What is the sound from?' 'I bought myself a dog.' is what I replied. That explains your sudden canine friend. I had to rush off and back with that thing. Afterwards, I thought how stupid it was of me, to not better plan for a way to drown out your noise. I pinched myself for a week for not working out a better way to hide you away. But then I had a eureka moment.
I was working hard on pinching my biceps, when I realized that the dog was a blessing in disguise. For it was very difficult to smuggle bits of food and water into you. What could I have said? That this extra portion was for me too? Not me. Never me. He mightn't have noticed. But I did talk endlessly about my diet. He might have. May have found it strange. Yet wasn't it strange to keep a dog in a dark room? I told him I had daylight lights set up. I don't even know if that's a thing. He bought it hand on heart. But I had to be careful, B. He had so many friends. Some must have pitied him. I tried to. As much as I try to love him. Day after day. Not many days left.
But I saw the bite marks on your arms and I know that you must have suffered at his paws. He became a great excuse to get food in and feces out. Do you enjoy my method for extracting them? I can still recall your horrified doe-eyes pleading when I first told you how to do it. You did very well, despite your hesitation. While I held the newspaper and asked for you to push out. You tried not to. You did your best. But you failed in the end. You will always fail in the end. It's okay that you fail. It's okay that you're ugly. You just need to accept it and it will stop hurting you. That's what I did.
I can't tell you how long I struggled with not being able to accept things. I tried to be a bad person for so long. Before I knew how to balance myself on these two firm legs. Before when I would weaken myself, just to try and fit in. Before when I would restrict myself and try to be low and slow to blend in. It could never last, B. I was still knee deep in it when I first spotted you. You were outside then. You were there and there I was. It was sealed from that moment. Tell me now, B, are you in pain? Do you suffer?
Much of our days blend in to be the same. Our waking: 'How did you sleep?' 'Fine. How did you sleep?' 'Fine.' I think often that hubby is as bored as me. I think maybe that if I introduced the two of you as you are now that he wouldn't even mind. He might ask to be alone with you even. Imagine! He who never before showed the slightest... But I fantasize! I do it too, B, for I'm only human after all. After all has gone and after all is dead. I got my diagnosis today, B. It won't be much longer. Not much longer now.
I wonder what he must think. The dog (which I still just call 'Dog') forever in the room. 'Shouldn't he be taken for a walk?' 'He's an inside dog.' 'Doesn't he need to do his business outside?' 'Are you going to clean it up?' 'Can I see him?' 'He needs to sleep now.' The jig could never last forever. It won't be much longer, now. Hold on one second, B, I think I can hear you now, kicking up a fuss. I'm going to need to go an discipline you. Won't be a minute.
That was a nasty one, wasn't it? My hand made a lot of noise, didn't it? But I think that deep down, you really did want it. These days, it seems that you're really desperate for attention, B. You must never had got much when you were outside. And now that I have, you, well, it's like having a new mother, isn't it? That was a golden thing when I entrapped you: nobody noticed. Your landlord called me and asked did I know where you'd flaked off to. I told her that I didn't know but that you often did this. She tutted and agreed that you were that sort of person. That was all I heard about it. I did some research. There have been no reports about you, nothing put out, no investigation. Nobody knew you, nobody knew you even existed and now nobody knows where you are. There is no search. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. We have all the time that we need. But back to my diagnosis.
One day I won't come in to collect your feces. One day I won't come in to drip water into you or force food down your throat. One day I won't turn on the lights to let you see. One day I won't ever come in to that room again. I have laid out my plan carefully. I know every detail of what I will do. I will let the dog out of its cage (just like the early days, B, huh?) so it can feast on you when it begins to starve. I will make sure your flesh is exposed for him. My husband will be gone too. I'll make sure he isn't able to ever find you. I'll make sure he can't hardly move. No moving. No saving. Just ending. Just dying. That will be it. Not long soon.
Not long soon. Then you can have all that. Imagine! All that. I know you can't wait, secretly, can't wait for it now. But you can't wait a little longer. I'm still avid to break you before then. There's still so much more I can do. Still so much more I have to do. Because, yes. Because, I do. There's so much. I am such. You won't have a mind to remember this when you scream your way to death. But no real screams, no, the gag doesn't allow for sound. It's my greatest invention. Just goes to show. Dead dogs on show. How good. I am good. And not bad. All that I've done. For you. For him. This will free us all. I will free all of us. I will free us from this life. Where we are small and weak (even me!) and powerless to the ending of the world, to the constant turning of the wheel, to constant rounding of fate. I turned to him and said. Do you understand everything? You will never understand anything. You don't know, you will pass away. I will not pass lightly. I will burn out forever blazing, like a martyr or a heretic in the depths of fire and gnashing teeth. I will not go out. I have been good but I can always be better. I try to convince myself, day after day, when the little gnashing voices try to hinder me, try to turn me away but I say, 'No,' I say, 'No.' I will not stop: I will not falter. I have given everything to this. I am not here to stay. I am not gone for good. I am not weak and done. I am devoted to you, Beatrice. I am in love with you, Beatrice. I am a good person.
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