Page 31 - The Midnight Library

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Two hours before she decided to die, she opened a bottle of wine.

Old philosophy textbooks looked down at her, ghost furnishings from her
university days, when life still had possibility. A yucca plant and three tiny,
squat potted cacti. She imagined being a non-sentient life form sitting in a
pot all day was probably an easier existence.

She sat down at the little electric piano but played nothing. She thought of
sitting by Leo’s side, teaching him Chopin’s Prelude in E Minor. Happy
moments can turn into pain, given time.
ere was an old musician’s cliché, about how there were no wrong notes

on a piano. But her life was a cacophony of nonsense. A piece that could
have gone in wonderful directions, but now went nowhere at all.
Time slipped by. She stared into space.
Aer the wine a realisation hit her with total clarity. She wasn’t made for

this life.
Ever y move had been a mistake, ever y decision a disaster, ever y day a
retreat from who she’d imagined she’d be.
Swimmer. Musician. Philosopher. Spouse. Traveller. Glaciologist. Happy.

Loved.
Nothing.
She couldn’t even manage ‘cat owner’. Or ‘one-hour-a-week piano tutor’.
Or ‘human capable of conversation’.

e tablets weren’t working.
She finished the wine. All of it.
‘I miss you,’ she said into the air, as if the spirits of ever y person she’d
loved were in the room with her.

She called her brother and le a voicemail when he didn’t pick up.
‘I love you, Joe. I just wanted you to know that. ere’s nothing you could
have done. is is about me. ank you for being my brother. I love you.
Bye.’

It began to rain again, so she sat there with the blinds open, staring at the
drops on the glass.
e time was now twenty-two minutes past eleven.
She knew only one thing with absolute certainty : she didn’t want to reach

tomorrow. She stood up. She found a pen and a piece of paper.
It was, she decided, a ver y good time to die.