"I don’t know what I need but for no apparent reason I’m going terribly south. Nothing has happened, absolutely nothing, but I’m still having problems breathing."
 - House of Leaves

In the days since I started reading this book - though in actual fact before then, since Kari was taken - I've changed a lot. I've not left my house in three days. Not gone to work, not seen any friends - they all stopped coming. My floor is covered in rubbish, empty drink bottles, anything I could eat or drink without having to cook it. I don't like being out of the little sanctuary I've set up for myself. I'm under no illusions; I'm not safe anywhere, and if Daddy wants to kill me, he'll do so, and me being in my bedroom won't stop him. But it's comforting.

The copy of House of Leaves that Kari cried all over has become something of an obsession, as you may have noticed from the last few posts. That and the Zampano-esque tone of writing Bleakley adopts - a little too self satisfied, and ultimately wrong on many counts. Everything that's left of her is in those little watermarks. I've never been so scared of losing something as I was in those few days before she was taken and now I have, and all that fear isn't just anticipation. I've lost her. I find myself having to face the yawning chasm of her absence, confronted with a sense of tearless, voiceless loss. Abstract, nameless loss.

She's gone, and the enormity of that truth is enough to swallow me whole.

So I keep reading my book, and slowly forming my theories, hoping that maybe, just maybe, understanding will make things better. I'm still too scared to open my curtains.