Parasited.22.10.17.agatha.vega.the.attic.xxx.10... ((better))

"An absence," Vega said. "A thing you will never name again."

Agatha considered the cost. To never name again: to forget and forbid herself the vocabulary of a person who had once mattered. It would be a violence against memory, a lobotomy of the tongue. But in the ledger's terms, it would be payment. Parasited.22.10.17.Agatha.Vega.The.Attic.XXX.10...

"You're not leaving," said a voice in the dark, as patient as a door. "An absence," Vega said

"What would I pay?" she asked, though she could feel the terms aligning like teeth. It would be a violence against memory, a

It was not asleep. It was cataloging her.

"Memory," Vega said. "And time. And the tiny decisions you forgot to make."

The scratch appeared the next morning on the list itself, between "father" and "last summer": a neat, small cross, like a surgeon's mark. Beside it, as if answering, a burn mark in the paper that smelled of cigarette smoke and ozone. The attic hummed. The ledger liked lists.