It’s so dark here at night. It’s so quiet without her snoring that my ears ring. When I’m alone and it’s dark and the silence heaps up around me. When it puts its mouth to my ear and shrieks. Please. Just tell me where she went. I feel sure that that would help me. I feel so sure of it.

* * *

I had a little husband no bigger than my thumb,

I put him in a pint pot and there I bid him drum;

I bought a little handkerchief to wipe his little nose,

and a pair of little garters to tie his little hose.

What about that one? Do you know it? It’s funny you know, the songs that get stuck, running and running through our heads.

What is the thing you are not saying. That’s all they say to me now, there in their offices I mean. What is the thing. What is the thing. What is it. Sometimes I’m listening, sometimes I’m not, but they’re still saying it. All the time they are. Sometimes I’m sitting in a chair, or sometimes I’m lying down. Sometimes it’s one doctor. Sometimes it’s two. Sometimes the men are doctors. Sometimes they’re not. Sometimes I mean to say I’m lying down and they’re not doctors, the men. I’m sure they’re not.

We’re running out of time, they say. That’s my lawyer, who mainly says that. But there’s too much time here anyway. So how could that concern me? It would be lovely to run out of it. I try to explain that to him but I don’t think he sees what I mean.

He’s such a funny man, I wish you could meet him. He always looks so tired, so, I don’t know, briefcased. So be-biroed, so be-foldered and be-noted and be-cased. He has everything already printed out in triplicate when he gets here and he looks so tired, really so almost at the end of his rope that I want to tell him to take a seat even when he’s already sitting down. Sometimes I want to lean over the table and kiss him right on his chapped lips and I have to quickly quickly quickly imagine myself as a toad to stop myself. I have to imagine my big toad’s mouth and bulging swamp-water eyes. He says we have to concentrate on my case but I just blink my froggy eyes at him and flick my tongue. Visiting hours are from two to four I say sometimes because that’s the only thing I can think of. I only say it because I’m trying to help, because I want to make him happy. I want him to tell me that’s it, that’s right, that’s exactly right. Only I never do get it exactly right and usually we just sit there staring at each other across the table until I start cawing or shouting and I have to be taken away. That’s usually how it goes when he comes. I’m afraid I’m not much help to him at all.