Valli : Personal Journal of Valli Pillay, a Living Dead Pandemic Survivor

Entry 1

Yesterday I had my third session with my psychiatrist, Dr. Lawrence Ferguson, or Fergie as I like to call him. He is one of the few psychiatrists around, or rather one of the few left. He suggested I start a journal to help me deal with my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. All right Fergie, let's make the first entry of the journal about our meeting today.

I met him in his office. I always thought of a psychiatrist's office as a place with wood panelling, a leather couch, and tweed. Fergie's office had none of that and he was not wearing any tweed. His office was a converted ship container with no air-conditioning. It had four windows on each side, which kept it cool. There was a plastic desk, a couple of chairs, and a bookshelf with lots of files. I'd guess patient files. Fergie wore board shorts and an old blue t-shirt.

When I got to the office, Fergie was on the phone. He indicated for me to sit, and put up his hand to give him five minutes. I sat down and found myself right across from a small mirror on the bookshelf. My hair had been recently trimmed, just above the nape of my neck. Short hair was better, easier to maintain, uncomplicated. No time for style, a simple cut and trim. Gone was the black shoulder-length hair from my teenage years in Mauritius. White hair streaks spread across my head, as if I were trying to be cool, as if I were making some kind of fashion statement. Was a twenty-one-year-old supposed to have white hair? I also had bags under my eyes. I touched them. They weren't so visible because of my skin tone. I had Dad's skin tone. I could see that now. From the time I left home in Mauritius until I got to the Skeleton Coast of Namibia, I had spent most of my time outdoors. Seven years of being outside, surviving, getting by, subject to the elements had given my skin a rich chocolate hue like Dad's. When I was fourteen, I had Mom's skin tone, light brown. Now, it was "Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate brown," as Mom liked to say. I wondered if it would get darker. The white hair contrasted sharply with my black hair and brown skin. I read somewhere white hair can suddenly grow when someone is subjected to extreme stress and absolute terror.

Absolute terror. I know a thing or two about that. Which survivor doesn't? As I sat there waiting for Fergie, I thought about the terror and the past. My past, running through my head like a horror movie. A very long horror movie in which I am the star. And lately, the one scene that keeps playing is when Andy attacked me; it happened seven years ago but the whole incident is on repeat in my brain. Playing at the worst times, when I am at work or about to sleep and I can't escape it. That horrible scene; Andy, my first love, my first boyfriend, he has turned, he is no longer Andy, he is coming after me, he is one of them, he wants to eat me, he will stop at nothing. He is terror personified.

And repeat.

"What are you thinking about?" Fergie asked, interrupting my thoughts.

"Terror," I said.

"What about terror?"

"Andy," I said. Distracted. Not concentrating on the conversation.

"Valli, who is Andy?"

"My first boyfriend," I said. "I was fourteen. He was fifteen."

"Ah!" Fergie smiled. "Teenage love. That can be terrifying! Did he break up with you?"

"He did and then I killed him. I stabbed him in the head with a wine opener."

Fergie didn't say anything.

"Andy broke up with me when I asked him to stop taking the pills," I continued. "We lost touch when things went to shit. I tried finding him again, but it was too late. He came for me at home when I was alone. I mean to this day I have no idea how he remembered where I lived. He got into my house."