Viv looks outside. She sees it immediately and knows that today is an inauspicious day. It, a fox. Perfect, even in death. Laying on the road. She wills herself to believe it is just sleeping, even though she knows from the absurd angles of its body that that's untrue. Viv's heart breaks for the thousandth time. She spies a single magpie, hopping along the pavement. She watches it, nodding solemnly, even though it isn't looking at her. She speaks the words you are supposed to. These words, though spoken quietly, echo a little in the flat that doesn't as yet have any soft furnishings.
'Good morning Mr Magpie, and how is your lady wife today?'
She wonders if she has got the phrase right, it sounds funny. For good measure and in case, she taps the table nine times. And then another nine. Another. And another. The first three nines have cancelled each other out. The fourth nine sates her yen for superstition-driven action. She couldn't explain why, if someone asked her to try. She's cross with herself for continuing with this nonsense that she had decided to cut out, but it still sometimes compels her.
Viv turns away from the Outside, her eyes sticking on the bird a little, wanting to ensure she gives it sufficient respect lest she cause offence and incur unknown but terrible woes. She calls to her little friends,
'Ignatia! Vladimir! Dominus!'
She hears the patter of tiny paws, at least one set. Viv smiles. She won't go out today but that's fine; she doesn't go out most days. She has built her world here, in this high up vantage point not far from the heart of the city. She’s peaceful and content, perhaps for the first time in years.
The dead fox burned onto her retinas, Viv sighs. She counts, firmly, out loud, in order to stop the thoughts that will otherwise come; the spirals, the loops, the traps. The whirling, swirling torture that her brain always tries to kick off in the wake of anything out of the ordinary or upsetting. Viv is wiser now though, more conscious of how it all works and more assertive, too - she corrals her brain when she needs to. She has learnt techniques to calm her overactive nervous system, to survive the world, to limit the damage it does to her. Up here, in her refuge, she is giving her full attention to the healing process that had started when she had decided to exit the world as she knew it, when she had decided to ignore what society demanded of her, when she had decided to change.
Once the process is complete she will re-emerge, but that won’t be for some time.