man is the definition of lack of personality

says:

lack of personality doesnt require a definition

says:

its already a definition

says:

u kno what i mean tho

says:

man doesn’t look capable of keeping a pet fish alive

says:

tru XD

says:

it’s a girl right?

says:

dunno if I can take any more news for tonite

says:

correct

says:

ugh poor gal

says:

do I know her?

says:

its ruth beadle

APPLES

Ruth

Now

Back at the flat, I lock the door and stretch out on the rug, between the coffee table and the sofa. I like it here. It’s a place I have chosen. It feels safer than sitting on my side of the sofa; from here there’s no risk of looking at the other side.

I am reading in the booklet about the Kübler-Ross stages of grief. There are five bullet points:

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

They don’t sound like a completely foreign notion. I must’ve studied them in college. But the memory feels very distant, as if I’m reading through old handwritten notes and can barely recognize them as my own. I haven’t thought about the stages in a very long time: when a death occurs in the care home, the emotional aftermath isn’t our responsibility. There are other professionals for that. We need to call in the doctor, confirm the time of death, clean up the bed, get the room nice and ready for the next patient. Life must follow death efficiently. You put your emotions behind you. There is no time for grieving when you’re on the job.

I stare at the paragraphs on the page, breaking down each word into its two-line definition. I study them, attempting the kind of calculations that Neil would make. What do the words mean? What do they want from me? Accountants have lizard brains. That’s what he used to say about his workaholic colleagues. But he kept tabs on things too. On us, evidently: he somehow figured out that ten years was sufficient.

Here’s what I think: it doesn’t take two perfect halves to make up a whole. There are many ways to cut up an apple. Throughout our relationship, I’d engineered myself to occupy as little space as possible so that he could be as large as he liked. He was always prodding the world as if it were a piece of fruit, seeking out that soft, yielding spot. I figured out early on that in the unit of us I was much less than an equal half. Perhaps it suited me, it took off the pressure. When we still went out with friends, I would joke that I was Neil’s OQ – his ‘Other Quarter’. He always took it personally.

‘We are one and the same, Ruth. There are no secrets: we are safe inside the same skin.’