Ha! I’d love to read that now, I would. I mourn that little girl. Dead and gone and buried in the largely forgotten past. Ever lie in bed at night and think back upon a childhood memory and it’s like you return to that place in time? And it’s sweet for a moment. Because you remember you were once sweet and innocent. And then you realize you have entered the body of a ghost. A version of you that no longer exists and never will again. And you wonder if you got from that precious time what you were meant to. Or if you took for granted that things would always be that way. And then the pain of nostalgia hits your heart so hard it’s like you wish you didn’t remember it at all.

Life is a bit like that. So sweet until you remember you only have a little bit of time and then it’s like you wish you’d never been born so you wouldn’t have to die.

Here I am, then. Starting another diary, it seems. Many years later (I won’t say how many). The clock ticking. Nearing its end, in fact, I think.

Lost in love like warfare. In the most unlikely of places.

The only thing missing is my mum’s perfume.

* * *

April 23

I don’t know to whom I’m writing this. If, indeed, anybody. Who is my audience, here? Me, I suppose. Or the eleven-year-old me still inside somewhere. Not lost, not dead. Right here with me now.

It’s been nearly ten days since I’ve been out here. Left here, I mean. Whether Tracey was taken or part of this whole sordid affair from the start I don’t rightly know. “Back in an hour,” she says. And at the time I believed her. Settled right in, I did. Got good and cozy. No clocks here so I couldn’t tell when an hour had passed. Or two. I became worried when my hunger became more than just a tingle in my stomach. Didn’t really want to eat the stale crackers in that dusty cupboard. We had a whole menu planned. It was all that was keeping my spirits up after all that has happened. Still happening, I guess. So much for books being good for your mind, and all! Load of rubbish, that. Not that I wasn’t warned.