It’s a curious kind of survivors’ guilt. Not the kind that makes me feel guilty for still being alive when someone else is dead, but the kind that makes me feel bad for not feeling bad.
In my imagination I am lying in bed with Duckfish, asleep, in my old flat around the corner from here. It is 3am. An unusual sound wakes me. I see a familiar figure standing at the end of the bed. He is holding a gun.
I have never been pregnant, never had morning sickness, never breastfed and never held my own baby. There is no one on this earth who has my genetic legacy.
When you love someone you want them to stay safe, you want them in your life for a long time, and you don’t want to imagine a world without them in it.
I am the woman who believes that the meaning of life is the connections we make with other people and here I am pulling away from those who are meant to be the most loving of all.