You’d think after so long, doing nothing would get rather boring, but I can’t agree because there’s nothing else that I’d rather do—there's nothing else that I can motivate myself to do. It’s hard to get out of bed in the morning. It’s hard to find the will to. It’s hard to keep myself awake. It’s hard to find the will to. It’s hard to talk to people about their happy lives while I feel like any emotion or heart has left me. I don’t try to find the will to. It’s like my chest has caved in, and I’m so utterly alone. And the only thing I know is anger.  

Ma and Pa stopped checking on me soon after I became so lethargic like this. (Christ, I’m so useless.) They used to constantly come by to ask if I wanted to go out to the stream as I’d always done or if I’d like to go with Gunther to the market, but they quit when they realized my answer would only ever be one thing. Sometimes I hear them fighting at night—about me, wondering why I am like this. They scream back and forth, blaming each other, and it is so repetitive. They also stopped trying to make me go to school. They fought hard at first, my father even going to lengths to drag me out of my room, but they couldn’t make me do much more. Education is a very important value to my father, and I understand his concern, but—even if I managed to get myself to the schoolhouse—it wouldn’t do me much good; I can’t focus on anything anyway. My thoughts just seem to drift until I’m blankly staring at one fixated point on the wall, thinking of everything and nothing simultaneously. When you've lost my mind as I have, it’s difficult, to say the least, to do any thinking, but you’re always in your head. 

It soon became clear to everyone that there wasn’t any remedy to this. Even I gave up. I lost all connection to what I once had. I’d like to think that, before, I was close to my father, and I think he understands what I’m feeling right now, but it’s no good. I don’t want to talk or have someone to relate to; I just want to … be. Just exist meaninglessly in the open air to look, not to see or think but just to look. So, our only interaction now seems to be only a pitying glance from him and a blank stare from me.  

What I feel worst about is my current aversion to Gunther. He’s always happy now, always so passionate. His enthusiasm is overshadowing. Plus, he has changed so much. He refuses to cut his hair now, even though the long platinum blond hair he has looks absolutely disgraceful. He refuses to eat my mother’s cooking and has started taking up the task himself. I asked him once why, and he only said that, as a Jew, you must do things differently. I didn’t put in the effort to know more. When my parents are screaming, at night I can hear him through the walls of my bedroom, muttering to himself. It’s a language I’ve only heard his wife-to-be speak: Hebrew. He has changed so much and all for one person—his one person.  

I no longer have that one person.  

And it’s all completed with a cherry on top when, yesterday, I came downstairs begrudgingly to eat—although I’d rather not—and found my mother crying on the couch. It wouldn’t really be so unheard of, except that she wasn’t sobbing as she does when she’s taken enough of my father’s scolding. It was a quiet cry, the one you do when it’s your fault and you have nothing to curse but yourself so you feel guilty for feeling bad at all. She bit her lip and let the tears roll over her cheeks, not bothering to even reach up and wipe them away or cover her face. She sat with her hands clasped together in her lap, staring at them like she was seeing what she’d done all over again and wondering if those had really been her hands to do such terrible things. She was looking at them as if they were covered in blood that was not her own. I recognized it instantly as that was the same look that I gave myself every time I passed a mirror—every time I had to face my reflection on the dark surface of my window pane after nightfall.  

Naturally, I was compelled to see the matter, but when I approached, she didn’t look up at me. I said her name, but she didn’t respond. Then, out of impatience and a bit of resentment, I reached out and pushed her shoulder back roughly, and she finally turned her head up to see me.  

“What’s the matter with you?” I asked quite harshly. 

But she didn’t answer. She only stared at me. 

“Tell me,” I restated.  

“Your father” —she paused— “he’s been hospitalized.” 

I narrowed my eyes at her. “For what reason?” 

She choked out, “H-he couldn’t speak, and he tried to … and I tried to help him, but he … So I called the ambulance, and-and—” 

“What is it?” 

Her eyes suddenly alit with a fire of desperation and franticity, and she grabbed onto me like I was the only thing holding her to Earth. “He doesn’t remember me, Otto; he doesn’t remember me. He doesn’t remember anything that happens. It’s as if he can’t make new memories.” 

“What? What happened? How?” I asked, gripping onto her arms to hold her still as if that would have helped her keep her thoughts straight. 

She shook her head. “The doctors called it a stroke, but he didn’t remember me. He didn’t recognize me. He wouldn’t say my name. He didn’t know it was me. He di—” 

I jerked my mother, and she seemed to snap out of her rambling only to start crying again. It was pitiful, but even I couldn’t tell why she was upset; she hates that man.  

“You mean he won’t remember me?” I asked, but I wasn’t so concerned about that; I was worried about Thomas’s memory. He can’t forget Tom. Because if he had forgotten Tom, he would have forgotten the only thing he really has left.  

“No, no, I misspoke. He remembers us, but he doesn’t recognize us. He doesn’t know who I am. He doesn’t know—” 

“Jesus Christ, woman!” I shouted. “Tell me why you’re upset because I know you don’t care for your husband.” 

I saw her heart break in her eyes when she heard this, and her lips trembled as she spoke, “He doesn’t remember me, but he remembers him. Everything about him and his life with him and the way he looked and acted and … He talks about nothing aside from his time with … And I made a mistake.” 

“What did you do?” I enunciated each word clearly. 

“I-I ripped up Tom’s picture. I was just so angry; I didn’t mean to; I just …” 

And I let go of her suddenly and stepped back.  

It was at that moment that I saw her. I thought I had seen her before, and I had always blamed my father for their relationship’s problems, but right then, I realized something I never had: she is the enemy. And though she is my mother, I can’t help but think that. She has been the enemy to me, and I thought she was only an enemy to my father after the things he’d done or said, but that is wrong. She has always been the enemy, in this story and the last.  

She is no angel. She is a curse in a pretty disguise. And there is not a soul in her body. Because if there were, she wouldn’t be such a fucking piece of shit.