The Hanging Girl

41

Sunday, May 11th, and Monday, May 12th, 2014

For the first hour she was very unsure about her new situation.

Despite having been left to her own devices for most of her adult life, Shirley had always been a sociable person. Even when she was alone, there were many ways to avoid feeling lonely. Back home when neither Wanda nor any of her other friends had been available, she’d listened to the radio, watched soaps on TV, talked on the phone, or looked out the window. Here at the center, she’d also had a few friends she could hang out with once in a while. Not an exciting life, but many people had it worse.

In the purification room, there were absolutely none of the things that would normally keep her occupied. No contact with anyone. No incoming stimuli. Only the small blue bible of the Nature Absorption Academy, a deck of cards, and a hole up to the sky where she could watch the clouds drifting by. That took a bit of getting used to.

Surrounded by this void, Shirley began thinking her own thoughts—something she wasn’t used to. Not about what she normally did, or pressing issues, but about the abstract and unusual situation of suddenly feeling privileged.

Little by little, she realized that she’d been appointed. Appointed to be the ambassador to London, and what a big thing that was. According to the very first page of Atu’s manual, already on the tenth day she’d feel liberated from all the usual mundane and unnecessary distractions. On the twentieth day she’d feel purified, and when the entire period came to an end, she’d be reborn as a whole person living in harmony with nature and Atu’s wisdom of life.

That was actually why she was here in this empty, wood-clad, neutral room, she needed to remind herself. She’d been appointed! Appointed! It was such a beautiful word, something she’d never felt before. Pointed at, yes, she’d experienced that! Pointed at and poked because she was too fat, too stupid, wore the wrong clothes, or maybe even sometimes the right ones.

Pointed at and appointed—what a gap there was between the two.

For some time, to her great surprise, Shirley felt that she was almost happy. The feeling continued until her stomach began to rumble and the sun had passed by the glass section in the ceiling long ago.

Shouldn’t her food have been brought over quite a few hours ago? She would’ve liked to have her watch now. Wasn’t it long past the time when the disciples were summoned to the late afternoon meal and communal meditation? She could feel it both in her soul and her stomach region.

So where was Pirjo?

As evening approached, she decided that she must’ve misheard from the outset. Pirjo must’ve meant that Shirley wouldn’t be catered to like the others until the second day. She was meant to fast a bit to kind of kick things off.

Having realized this, she took the academy bible and slowly read through what Atu intended for a disciple to achieve during this purification period, and especially what rituals you had to struggle through in order to benefit fully from the voluntary isolation.

Voluntary! That was a word she needed to chew on. Well, she supposed it had been. At least, she hadn’t been forced in here. It had been voluntary.

Shirley read on, but couldn’t find any procedure parallel to the one she was about to go through in Atu’s instructions. Nothing about fasting, nothing about catering, laundry, and all the practical details.

At first it puzzled her.

Then it worried her.

And when she came to page thirty-five, she was convinced that something was completely wrong.

* * *

When the morning sun ricocheted across the glass surface high above her head, she thought about how they’d all be on their way back from the morning ritual by the sea.

The construction team working on the new timber circle would probably be there in a few minutes. Even though it was several hundred meters from here, they must be able to hear her if she shouted loudly enough.

She sat on the bunk, nodding her head. The question was how to interpret the circumstances. She had accused Pirjo of nasty things, and now she was here. Was it possible that this was a kind of revenge, or perhaps rather a tribulation, like the one God subjected Moses or Abraham to? Was it a trial of strength, like the forty-year walk in the desert, or Job’s disasters? Were they testing her loyalty and faith in what nature absorption could do for her?

She frowned. Why they? Wasn’t this more likely to be Pirjo’s doing? Wasn’t it her undisputed decision and act, and hers alone?

Shirley leaned her head back and stared up toward the drifting clouds, rocking from side to side. The greatest comfort during every tribulation had been the same throughout history: the bargemen’s songs when they worked themselves into the ground along the shores of the river Don, the black slaves’ gospel and blues out in the cotton fields, or the mother’s comforting lullaby to her sick child.

After Shirley’s mom had quarreled with her dad, she’d always grumbled that singing drives sorrow away, adding that if you did it loudly enough you might drive your husband away, too. That proved to be true.

Shirley smiled as she remembered what her dad had answered when he was in a decent mood again: “Easy for you to sing, you’re not the one paying the taxes, said the farmer to the lark.”

And then one day there had been no more singing in their home.

Shirley was humming and listening for signs of life for about fifteen minutes. Then she concluded that as she couldn’t hear any sounds of hammering or shouting from the timber circle construction work, they probably couldn’t hear her either.

Perhaps it was too early to raise the alarm anyway? Yes, probably.

She thought of how her dad had said that hunger could be driven away with laughter and singing, when she’d been grounded in her room without any dinner. After that she sang loudly and uninhibited for about an hour.

She had drunk liters of water from the sink in the bathroom, trying to ignore the hunger. She’d done everything to avoid thinking wicked thoughts, and she’d read the entire manual several times. Gone through all the rituals, said her mantras, prayed to Horus, repeated the tenets of nature absorption over and over, and tried to sink so deep into meditation that it would make up for sleep.

After having spent thirty-six hours doing that sort of thing, she began to seriously cry for help.

When her vocal cords no longer obeyed her, she stopped.