In my restless state I can no longer control my thoughts. My pain, my grief is too consuming, it has swallowed me whole. I go into my room and tie the cord securely to the door handle. With my back against the door, I lower myself slowly down into a squatting position. I carefully wind the cord around my neck. I try to work out how long it should be. Deliberately, I make it a little shorter and then, finally, I tie it firmly around my neck.
I am calm when I let go. I cannot think clearly. The only thing left is the pain. It will be gone soon. In a little while there will be nothing left. The cord is tight around my neck, and my arse is almost touching the ground. I hang there, noticing how the pain and the grief are gradually leaving my body. Sounds become muted. They are coming from far away now. My heart is pumping blood rapidly around my body in a vain attempt to save something which cannot be saved. My pulse increases as too much blood gathers in my brain. My vision starts to flicker and fill with white noise. It is too late to regret this. My whole body aches with doubt now, but everything goes black. It is too late.
They say that she need not do anything, because she is an only child. From morning until night her parents wait on her every need. They cut up her dinner for her. Zip up her jacket when she is getting dressed. Tie her shoelaces when she puts on her shoes. She is the beloved only child, the favourite child, Arsugaq. She is picked up in a car when school is out. She must not walk, no, because she risks being run over or being kidnapped by some drunkard. As soon as she comes home, it’s “…don’t run around like that, you might hurt yourself. Sit down and relax and play with your iPad…” Between the piles of dusty toys she sits all day with her iPad, sneezing.
Mum is always saying how Arsugaq is the second tallest in her class. She acts like she is concerned about her height, although really she’s proud. But when she talks about her daughter, she omits to mention how Arsugaq cries when she doesn’t win in a competition. Because Mum knows that she has not raised her right. She dismisses it with comments like “…she’s just so stubborn!”, but Arsugaq, the little doll, finds it hard to understand what Mum tells her. She only knows that she mustn’t make her angry.
One day Mum and Dad come home in a particularly good mood. “We’ve got something for you,” they say with smiles of anticipation. Arsugaq looks at the package on the table. It’s a large package. “Go on, you can open it,” they say. She opens her gift; it’s a puppy. Dad places it down on the floor and turns it, so that it starts to move around on the floor. Mum claps her hands together and laughs. But Arsugaq doesn’t find it funny. The hard puppy with the fake fur stops moving. She picks it up, examines it carefully and then tosses it in with all the other toys covered in dust. She has always wanted a dog. A dog to walk her to school. A dog that would wait outside for her all day. A dog that would be overjoyed when she came home. A dog that she could sleep with in her room filled with toys. A dog that could keep her company in her loneliness in the midst of all the dust.
Her classmates are on their way to the after-school club, while Arsugaq is getting picked up in the car, as always. She runs over to the car; today she has something to be pleased about. She gets in the back and takes a gift out of her school backpack, which she hands to her mum.
“I’ll open it at home,” says Mum, smiling into the rearview mirror. When they get home, Arsugaq reminds Mum about opening her gift. “Oh, yes!” she says. It’s a trivet, which Arsugaq has made in school from a cork plate covered with orange fabric, on which coloured needles have been glued to each other to form circles. Mum is pleased and thanks her, kisses her on the cheek and places the present in the cupboard. Arsugaq is sad because she used so many of her needlework classes on making this for Mum, simply for her to shut it away like that. She knows that the cupboard is used for storing all of the junk that never gets used. Arsugaq had hoped that Mum would like it because it was so colourful. At home, everything is white.
As Arsugaq’s birthday approaches, Mum gives her enough invitations for two classes. Arsugaq would prefer to celebrate it with just Mum and Dad, not together with a load of other children. But what can Arsugaq do when Mum has already made up her mind? “Mum decides!” is what Mum would say. As she stands by the school’s entrance and waits to be picked up, two girls walk past. Wrapped around each other, they walk arm in arm, the one girl’s hips moving in time with the other’s. Arsugaq studies them. How do they do that, she wonders. Perhaps I’ll get to try this with someone on my birthday.
Once they have sung the birthday song, they eat the cake. “You must sit very still while you eat the cake. Try not to spill anything!” says Arsugaq’s mum in a strict voice. After they have eaten their cake, they wash their hands carefully before they start playing games. “Me, me…!” There are children everywhere, fighting over who gets to go first. They all want to win. They are arranged in a line for the competition to start. The miniature winners run around all over the house being smug. Arsugaq can’t stand it any longer. They are so obsessed with the competition that they have forgotten the birthday child. Arsugaq begins to cry, “…it’s mine!” She doesn’t understand. Why isn’t she the one who gets to decide what games they should play? She runs up to her room and throws herself down on her pile of toys, noting the dust that falls slowly around her. No one wants to be friends with me. They think I’m weird. They hate me. In the evening, Mum comes up and comforts her. She reads aloud to her from the Bible, before they pray together to God.
Arsugaq sits alone in school. “That’s her, the one who had a birthday party and it was her mum who yelled when someone dropped some cake on the floor…” some of the girls whisper, as they walk past, giving Arsugaq a contemptuous look.
Arsugaq is slim and slender. She gets called the abandoned child. When she answers a teacher’s question, she looks as if she is ashamed. When you see her walking from a distance, she looks like someone who is afraid of taking a wrong step. She appears very cautious. Her huge school backpack makes her tiny body appear even smaller. A child you have to walk around in big circles, because she is so fragile. And she knows how much it irritates Mum when she tries to make herself smaller, to hunch herself up, to go unnoticed. “For God’s sake, don’t stand like that, straighten your back!” Mum tells her off, only to enquire tenderly moments after: “…what kind of sweeties would you like tonight? Because you must feel like something sweet, right?”
Mum and Dad disagree about the bills. Which bill is most important? What should we buy first? What do we need the most? Arsugaq can’t understand why they would fight about things like that. When they eat dinner, Mum doesn’t really feel like answering when she asks her about something. Why does Mum get like this sometimes? And when she asks Dad, he doesn’t say anything. The next day, Mum comes home buzzing with energy. She has lots of bags. She has bought a thick warm coat for Arsugaq because it will soon be autumn. “I don’t want one in black!” says Arsugaq. “Everyone has one like this. It was very expensive, you should be pleased. We’ll have to starve ourselves for the rest of the month!” answers Mum. “Yes, but,” says Arsugaq sulkily, “I just wanted one suitable for a princess.”
One day Arsugaq is upset when she comes home from school. “Arsugaq, what is it? Tell me instead of behaving like that!” says Mum. At teatime Arsugaq is still upset, and Mum says to Dad, “…go on, pick her up and get her to cry, she just wants to have a good cry!” Arsugaq’s dad holds her firmly as he sits watching television. Arsugaq struggles, she wants to get away. She cries louder and louder and gets all sweaty from being held by Dad. Finally she screams, fighting against him. “Let go of me!” she shouts. “Do you feel better?” asks Arsugaq’s mum every now and then as she cooks the tea. Once tea is done, Arsugaq doesn’t want to eat, so Mum orders her up to her room. “Go up and play with your dolls. You’ll be a mum, when you’re older! Why don’t you play with your dolls when you have so many?” As Arsugaq throws herself down onto the floor between all the toys, she notices the dust that falls slowly around her.