9 The victim

Like a pendulum searching for its center, my head is swinging from side to side. It’s been oscillating ever since I’ve been here, and I cannot react as long as the laws of gravity are in effect.

All around me they are crying, and my head is swinging. Still swinging as they start talking about Lina’s good deeds. They are praising her sympathy, and my head is swinging, wishing her into heaven, and my head is swinging, and while they are talking about the deep friendship they had, it is swinging just the same. Will it ever stand still again?

They are acting like Lina was a saint. Laid out like Mother Theresa, she lies on a bed of ​​roses and they are sobbing and covering their faces, as if they already miss her, given all the things she’s done for them. What about the bad things? Those that she has done to me each and every week ever since I was 16?

Just because she’s dead, no one wants to remember it. What a bunch of liars! Dying alone doesn’t make a saint out of anyone. Those who really knew Lina didn’t see her as an angel on earth. If anything, she must have been the opposite of that. Wherever she went, hell broke loose. That was ever since fifth grade and back then I actually thought she was my friend. In reality, she tried to control everyone around her and whoever resisted, she would write off. She’d make you believe that you were someone. Shortly afterwards, she’d treat you like scum and for everything she’d ever give , she’d take the double amount.

She made you think she cared about you, but was only lying. To her, no one ever meant a thing. Why am I here right now? I didn’t come to say goodbye. Maybe, though, I had to come by, so I’d be sure she was really dead. Maybe what I needed was to see it with my own eyes. Now I know I’ll never have to meet her again, will never have to walk behind her again, will never smell her sweet perfume again. Thank God! I’ve done all of that enough.

Knowing her was rough. For me personally, nearly deadly. The day she took my faith away, the apple trees were blooming in my parents’ garden, the blackbirds were nesting, and the chickens were nagging in the barn. I never thought I’d ever attempt suicide. She made me, though, and the reason why I eventually survived was only that they found me early enough. You heard that, right? I eventually survived, Lina! And now that you’re dead and I am still breathing, I eventually survived Lina. I think I had to see that, which is why I am sitting here: on a hard pew in the third row, where my head keeps oscillating.

When I was in the hospital after my suicide attempt, she never showed up and when I saw her again the following week, she just laughed at me, like she always did. She laughed and laughed and what about she didn’t even know, I could have killed her for that. Now somebody did and I’m supposed to cry? Supposed to praise her for all of her good sides? She doesn’t deserve it, so my head keeps and keeps on oscillating, like a pendulum, searching for its center. I’m relieved you’re gone, Lina! Due to you, I almost would have been.