Hannu Rajaniemi - The New Voices of Science Fiction

The second rule is that a child must eventually, in their own words, explain how their loved one(s) died. They must Say It. There are many levels to Saying It. It may start with:

“My father has died.” And from there progress:

“My father is dead because of a gun.”

“My father fired the bullet that killed him.”

“My father committed suicide.”

“My father committed suicide, because something went wrong in his brain.”

“My father committed suicide, because something went wrong in his brain after the Event.”

“My father heard the Bad Song.”

“My father committed suicide after the Event, because he heard the Bad Song and listened.”

And so on.

It is not abnormal for children to become extremely emotional as they attempt to Say It in various ways. Do not let this alarm you. It is a natural stage of grief, and it will pass. Children have a natural tendency toward Resilience. If a child is consistently extremely emotional during their own or another’s act of grief, they may need to book Open Time in the Laughing Place or the Volcano Room. Open Time can be recommended (note the passive voice) in the “OTHER COMMENTS” section of the Incident Report.

Three days after Augie has gone through the EXIT, Tilly stands and Says It, succinctly and dispassionately. You tell her that she’s done a good job, and that you are proud of her. Other children do likewise. The shy boy next to her flashes her a quick smile, then looks away. He holds up his fist, and she bumps it. She smiles, relieved.

The boy begins to speak—perhaps to Say It himself, perhaps to say something else—and Tilly interrupts him without apology.

“I’m ready to leave,” she says.

This is her second time attesting. Her first was fourteen weeks earlier. It was the first thing she said, two minutes into her first session. Almost none of the children present today were at that session. Almost all of those children have Said It and gone, or just gone (as was the case with Augie). To these children, Tilly is as much a staple of their sessions as the chairs and canned fruit and well-worn fidget toys.

You say nothing.

Tilly stands.

The shy boy next to Tilly is clearly distressed, but he does not speak.

Do not attempt to dissuade Tilly. Do not Bargain with her. The children can—and should—Bargain with Tilly. It is part of their grief, and it is appropriate.

“You don’t have to go just ’cause you said it,” a tall girl, Marianna, says. “You can still stay. At least another day.”

“Marianna’s right,” another girl, Vanessa L., adds. “The Waiting Room will be there tomorrow, and next week, and forever.” Barring natural disaster, this is correct: The Waiting Room will likely be there forever. But that doesn’t mean one can wait forever: Food stores aren’t dire yet, but they are dwindling. There is plenty of water, though. Our well is deep. It would not be inappropriate for you to correct Vanessa L., but you let her statement stand unchallenged.

Vanessa Z., who sits next to Vanessa L., is nodding. “Announcing it is just saying that you’re gonna go. Like with Shane. He said it and Said It , but didn’t go for another six weeks.”

“It’s all bullshit anyway,” Bennie adds. He is small and young, but angry as an old cop. “Don’t do their crap their way. Keep coming to sessions with us.”

“You should at least stay until we’ve finished Buffy the Vampire Slayer ,” Jay Chen yips. He’s an excitable boy. “There’s only, like, one-third of the last season left. It won’t even be a week.”

Tilly shrugs. From prior sessions you know that she is a huge Buffy fan. But for many children their demeanor changes once they’ve Said It, and Tilly is one of those: Relieved of the weight of the things they haven’t been saying, they expand back to their normal size—like a sponge that’s had a cinderblock lifted off it—and in doing so draw into themselves. It’s natural. It is part of their process.

“Augie went.” This is Albert, with his chipmunk cheeks and glum Eeyore voice. “That didn’t go great.”

“Augie wasn’t ready,” Tilly says. “I’m ready.”

“Belinda said she was ready.” Belinda had been in the group for a month. She had Said It —and wept while doing so—and then over the next few sessions brightened, gaining strength and equilibrium, helping the other children talk their way forward in their grief. She’d announced her intention to leave, reaffirmed it the next week, and left that same day. Her nail polish had been a perfect robin’s egg blue that day, glossy and flawless. The door had snicked shut behind her, and the scream that had followed had been long and high and ended with a string of babbled begging that had finally devolved into two words repeated so quickly that they’d sounded like the chugging of a ragged, dying lawnmower:

“ killmekillmekillmekillmekillmekillmekillme… ”

“Belinda wasn’t really ready,” Tilly says. “I am very ready. I’m gone.”

The shy boy next to Tilly—his name is Marcus, and he is new—speaks just to Tilly: “We could…”

Tilly stops and turns to him. He is knotting his fingers, twisting them against each other, digging painfully into his skin, but his voice is level and clear, if quiet. “We could… try that thing that you wanted to try, but that I was nervous about.” He chews his lip, looks up at the room, then locks on to Tilly. “We could do that. We could do whatever you want if you stay.”

His eyes are wide and desperate and lost. Tilly’s mouth twitches, but she shakes her head without speaking.

Tilly leaves. The Waiting Room door latches shut. You all hear the sigh and thunk of the heavy EXIT door. Then silence.

Silence is presumed to be indicative of Acceptance (note the passive voice).

The group is dour with Tilly gone. This is odd, because Tilly hadn’t been a ray of sunshine. She was usually morose and often irritable. Once, in the midst of an especially spirited session, Bennie had shouted at Tilly: “The only thing you like is stirring shit up and making everyone as miserable as you!”

Albert had called a Time Out and then, in his plodding voice, had taken Bennie to task: “That’s not fair to Tilly,” he’d said. “She doesn’t like stirring shit up and making people feel bad. She doesn’t like anything.”

Everyone had laughed, including Tilly. Then Vanessa Z. had begun to cry and had kept doing so for five minutes and thirty-eight seconds before simply saying, “My brother is dead. He was nine, but he was Rejected anyway because of how Auntie died. My brother is not nine anymore, because he’s dead.” Her spirits had steadily improved since then, but she has yet to ask to leave.

No one seems to have much to say during the session following Tilly’s exit, and so you say:

“My father had his grandfather’s axe. The axe was old and it hung in our garage. It had been used a lot : The handle was dry and splintered and cracked, and the head was pretty rusty, except for the working edge, which Dad dressed before and after each use. My dad and his dad were both the youngest from big families, so I’d presumed my great-grandfather’s axe was very old. Maybe a century? Maybe so. I always thought that was neat: A five-year-old smartphone was practically junk, but a hundred-year-old axe was as good as ever.

“Then one day Dad mentioned how often his dad had worn through axe handles—Dad grew up out in the country, and winter was harsh back then—and I realized that the handle on his grandfather’s axe wasn’t a handle my great-grandfather had ever even seen. On a hunch, I asked how long the head would last. ‘Oh,’ Dad had said, ‘I dunno. Generations. It’s hard steel. I only replaced this one once, when I first got the axe after Dad passed. The handle had dried and shrunk, hanging unused in his shed for so long, and the first time I hauled back to split some stove wood, the head went whanging off into the brush. Never found it.’”