The human brain cannot encompass total absence. Like infinity, it is simply not something that the organ runs to. The space someone leaves must be filled, so we dream forever of those who are no longer here. Our minds make them live again.
Anna FunderThough it is the hardest thing, to work out one's weight and heft in the world, to whittle down all that I am and give it a value.
Anna FunderCan you rework your past, the grit that rubs in you, until it is shiny and smooth as a pearl?
Anna FunderMy father was a doctor,' she says, 'a very kind man. He died in the early '70s, relatively young.' She taps the cigarette packet on the table. 'Of lung cancer.'
'Oh.'
'But the thing about that is,' she says as she exhales, 'it doesn't take very long at all.
Tags: death dying cancer death-wish suicidal die-young slow-death
Betrayal clearly has its own reward: the small deep human satisfaction of having one up on someone else. It is the psychology of the mistress, and this regime used it as fuel.
Anna FunderTags: politics betrayal germany traitor mistress gdr betray informer security-state
Ten days is time enough to die, to be born, to fall in love and to go mad. Ten days is a very long time.
Anna FunderWhen I got out of prison, I was basically no longer human,' Miriam says.
Anna FunderTags: humanity prison human torture trauma ptsd traumatic-experiences traumatic no-longer-human political-prisoner
In this land
I have made myself sick with silence
In this land
I have wandered, lost
In this land
I hunkered down to see
What will become of me.
In this land
I held myself tight
So as not to scream.
-But I did scream, so loud
That this land howled back at me
As hideously
As it builds its houses.
In this land
I have been sown
Only my head sticks
Defiant, out of the earth
But one day it too will be mown
Making me, finally
Of this land.
-Charlie's poem
Tags: politics pain lost silence oppression defiance land resistance scream
Prison left me with some strange little tics.' She has taken all the door off their hinges in all the apartments she has lived in since. It's not that she has anxiety attacks about small spaces, she says, it's just that she starts to sweat and go cold. 'This apartment is perfect for me,' she says, looking around the open space.
'How about elevators?' I ask, recalling the schlepp up the stairs.
'Exactly,' she replies, 'I don't like them much either.'
One day, years later, her husband Charlie was fooling around at home, playing the guitar. Miriam said something provocative and he stood up suddenly, lifting his arm to take off the guitar strap. He was probably just going to say 'That's outrageous', or tickle her or tackle her. But she was gone. She was already down in the courtyard of the building. She does not remember getting down the stairs-it was an automatic flight reaction.
Tags: fear flight fight anxiety trauma ptsd freeze captive claustrophobil
Miriam is upset. Her voice is stretched and I can't look at her. Perhaps they beat something out of her she didn't get back.
Anna FunderTags: beat germany goverment trauma survivor gdr ptsd beating traumatic security-state phsyical-abuse
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