“At least let me be dead inside.”

„I don‘t care. I‘m dead inside, remember?“

A decision had been made. The leaves were orange and red as they flew by my window, while raindrops painted into the view. Before me on the table lay two wooden needles and wool in shades of copper. For the perfect autumn feeling, I would need a hot chocolate.

„But I don‘t care, because I have died inside“, I insisted, an avoided Layla‘s eyes.

No sweet taste with a comfortable feeling when warming up throat and stomach. No trace of a smile when closing the hands around the space-cat-mug that I had bought in Szczecin once, or my Van-Gogh-mug that was a reminder of my blurriest nights in Amsterdam. „I don‘t care anymore.“
Oh, this is a relief. No, really. Just killing off every last impulse inside of this chest, this soul, and I won‘t ever have to remember all the empty moments deprived of faces, voices, and places that once had seemed to be so reliable.

„I will not stop eating completely, I just won‘t eat things that I like.“

With one finger, I was carefully touching the needle.
This way, the hungry and needy and constant abyss inside would finally be silenced. I‘m brilliant!
„You know“, Layla finally raised her voice, „fear is a chaos, most of the time. It‘s not that we simply know what we are afraid of, and why.“
I was ripping stitches off my wooden needles, because why not.
„Fear is not knowing“, my witch continued.

Oh no.
There was this shrinking of my throat, again.
This shrinking of my throat, and this burning in my eyes.
Can this witch please shut up?

„And we have to live with fear“, Layla said. „We have to simply survive by chance. So we do certain things, when fear catches up with us. One of those things is pretending to be dead.“
I put the needles down.

Maybe, I was still scared.
Scared to never be able to to go back, to see certain faces again.
My witch handed me my mint-green congratulations-for-ending-your-broken-engagement-mug with hot chocolate in it.

„If you won‘t let me die for real, I at least wanna be dead inside“, I whispered, as I took it.