Dear Diary

I am so tired tonight. I did doze off a little but it can’t have been for more then a couple of hours and it was all broken up in fits and starts by my broken alarm system. Any noise, any half formed dream, and even for no reason at all some part of my brain seems intent on waking me up every five minutes to make sure nothing is there to attack me. Now reasonably I know that is not likely to happen … but very little about that part of me is I fear.

I am sitting down in the lobby now. Everyone is gone except the guard and the nurse by the desk and I am writing in one of my new notebooks that I traded for yesterday. I have two! And they are quite sizable.

That brings me to what I wanted to write about today .. well I guess by now it’s yesterday … Yesterday was both good and bad in so many ways I just have to set it down to get it all straight in my mind.

So last night, my first night since actually making contact with people in Arklay instead of just wandering around and hiding, I had a good long talk with myself when I wasn’t trying to sleep. The substance of my discussion was essentially a determination to try very hard to be normal. Well I am always normal, in here, in this little part of my brain that is still just me and not crazy broken impulses. But for others to see. And I had a couple of very good moments. Little victories I shall call them.

1. I went into Coaches pub even though there was a lot of people I did not know. Now on the downside I didn’t really talk to anyone, and ended up just curling up by the fire and listening to the music. But it counts as a baby step and therefore a victory.
2. I found my way to the hardware store and initiate my first trade! I got two notepads, a pencil, and a chocolate bar for the handful of ammunition I found in a pile of trash. I didn’t freak out or anything and frankly I think it went quite well considering.

But then came a big letdown. I found Laila and she was with a friend of hers I think and it was okay at first but then more of her friends came and I had a total melt down and undid all of the good I had done in one total freak out. Personally I wonder how Laila could even stay my friend after that but she is a good person and doesn’t seem to mind.

Oddly enough it was after my biggest failure of the day that my biggest triumph came. My dear friend Laila became so very ill and seemed so very angry and was yelling which I .. the part that is me … know was not against me. But it is precisely the thing that makes my broken alarm system just take over absolutely everything. But! And it is a very large but! I . ME. Elise Rosalie Sonnenclair. Won.

I have a theory that it was precisely because it was Laila, the one person in all the world just now that my crazy broken brain has chosen to trust out of sheer need to trust someone. My dear friend was sick and I had to do something. The very idea of doing nothing for my friend, My FRIEND! was enough somehow to let me win. If I had done nothing it would have been almost like she was not my friend at all. Not on her part of course but how could I call myself her friend if I did nothing I would have no right, and I think knowing that helped me.

I owe Laila so much now. If only I had the right words to tell her.

Thinking it now, even being so tired, I am almost willing to dance or laugh or something. If I was not tired and if my body was not so frozen by it’s many fears I think I would.

My head is hurting so very badly now. I had to stop writing and lay my head on my knees for a while. I think all of the excitement of the day is some of the cause but I know there is something more to it. I am hungry, so very very hungry I think. The reason I think I am so dangerously hungry is because I have forgotten that I am hungry, like it is so normal to me that my body doesn’t even register it anymore.

I tried to eat more of the food I got from the clinic but every time I try the alarm bell goes off and I can only nibble a little and have to hide it away again. I have a theory about this too, but I’m too tired to write it all just now. If only I could make myself tell someone, they might know how to help me. But as it is I am still lingering on the edge of starvation while food and aid is readily available to me. The irony is not lost on me.

I will try to work tomorrow. Maybe if I get more food and have some in reserve I will be able to eat more. It is worth a try. For now I am going to go for a walk because trying to sleep is not working again.

Good night Dear Diary