What I Did On Thursday

I am writing to apologise for what I did on Thursday.

I stare at the sentence until the words begin to separate from themselves, the ink of my pen hovering as though it, too, is unsure of what it writes. My fingers remain curled around the implement, but I don’t remember beginning to write. There it is, in my own handwriting; careful, measured, certain. But I am not certain. I do not remember writing this.

Across from me, Mrs Halden holds her hands over each other. Something in her stony stare instills fear like no other in me, and I can feel the pulse in my hand when I squeeze it. I think it’s because of how fast my heart is beating.

She sees me pause. “You can continue.”

Her voice is calm like she’s practised a way of not being angry. It feels as though she’s rehearsed this moment.

“I don’t know what I did,” I tell her.

“You do,” she insists. There’s no hesitation. “You just need to write it down.”

The room smells faintly of bleach. Someone must have cleaned in here recently, scrubbing away the messes of all the schoolchildren who remain unbound by authority’s rule. But this is just another thing to distract me. The windows are shut, blinds half-drawn, and the door is locked. An afternoon like this should be loud, I think – students outside, chairs scraping as they escape the classroom’s confines, doors slamming after them. Instead, everything feels sealed.

“I don’t remember Thursday,” I repeat, insistent. She tilts her head to the side just a little, but she doesn’t seem confused. Her eyes drag up and down, assessing me.

“Start with that, then,” she says. I don’t know how she wants me to write this with such a beginning, but it isn’t as though I’ll be leaving anytime soon.

I lower my pen again.

I do not remember what happened on Thursday.

The sentence flows from there, easily. Too easily. It’s like I’m tracing over something already written, ink spilling from my pen with precision I’ve never seen before. I pause again, waiting for resistance, for that feeling of forcing my words into some semblance of a shape, but it doesn’t come. Words stream like water from a fountain, controlled and careful. I wait again, trying to make sense of it – I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then:

I didn’t mean for it to happen.

My hand stops as I frown at the page, forcing my eyes to move back and forth. I read the sentence again and again, and the repetition makes my head hurt. The words don’t look like words anymore, and they are certainly not my own. I hardly remember thinking them, let alone writing them. Letters scramble, moving so that coherence is not an option. The words lose meaning as seconds pass, and my own mind begins to spiral.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen?” I ask out loud, as though Mrs Halden will have some kind of an answer for me.

I watch her eyes flick briefly to the paper, and then back to me.

She shrugs. “You tell me.”

There’s something in her face; I can see it. At first I think it’s anger; she’s frustrated that this is taking so long, irritated that she has to sit here and wait. Then I see a twitch in her eyes that looks something like fear – but what does she have to be scared of? I settle on expectation; she’s expecting me to know what to say.

I look back down. The sentence is sitting there, patient.

I didn’t mean for it to happen.

Something tightens in my chest. Not quite panic, but something close. It’s more like recognition without context, like hearing a name you should know but you don’t. There’s an expectation for you to nod and say you know exactly who that is, but you feel a panic because you know that you don’t. That’s what this is. Something happened on Thursday – I don’t know what.

I press the pen against the page again.

It was supposed to be quick.

My heart has skipped a beat. The words are coming even smoother – how is that possible? At first I think the pen has a mind of its own, but that’s ridiculous. More ridiculous than forgetting last Thursday? I’m not sure. But I know I didn’t write that sentence. I’m not quite sure that I’m not going crazy.

I stop, look up.

“Quick?” I say, asking once more for some guidance.

Silence. She’s looking at me with absence in her irises, like I am not here. She’s looking through me, unaware. When her eyes snap to meet mine, I gasp – if she hears it, it does not show. If it offends her, I’ll never know.

I look at the page again, read over the words.

I didn’t mean for it to happen. It was supposed to be quick.

Now as I scan the letters again, it feels like these words are starting to form something. A shape, a pattern, a narrative, I’m not sure – but it’s not yet a memory. There are no sounds, no smells, no images. But there’s a sequence. Steps for me to take if I follow blindly, my eyes closed as I step forward into what seems to be nothing.

I swallow, hard. Then I keep going.

I didn’t think anyone would be there.

Another pause, as soon as I finish that line. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by now, but those words did not come from me. There’s another flutter in my heart, and so long as I sit in this chair and write these supposed words I will remain uncertain and anxious about what lies on this paper.

“Who?” I ask, quieter now.

This time, there is no answer. My fingers tighten around the pen again, and my pulse returns right in my palm. I feel it beat, and I use it as a rhythm. Something about that calms me, makes this situation seem more bearable. But I still don’t remember a place. I don’t remember a person. I don’t remember anything about Thursday, except that it exists. It exists like an empty box with a label attached, waiting to be filled and stored away. But I have nothing to store inside. Do I?

The door wasn’t supposed to lock.

My breath catches this time – it’s not just in my heart. Is repetition a kind of madness? Because I catch myself going across the sentence again and again, just as I have before. It has not yet yielded anything helpful, so why do I think that it will now?

“The door?” I whisper to myself, trying to make this real. This is not a hallucination. It is not a dream. It is not a figment of my imagination. This is happening.

Something shifts behind my eyes. Not a memory, but a sensation. I feel the weight of something closing, a click. Then there’s the absence of sound after.

I press my palm flat against the desk, trying to supress the tremor.

“I don’t remember a door,” I say again, hoping that this time she’ll respond with something helpful.

“You’re doing well,” she tells me simply, and it doesn’t sound sarcastic. It sounds genuine, like she’s proud. Like she encouraging me to go on, to finish. Will I finish? What comes at the end of this?

I thought they’d leave.

My handwriting has changed. I notice it halfway through this sentence as I watch it fade into something that isn’t quite mine. The letters are more erratic, like they themselves are trying to escape. They’re less careful, like I’m trying to keep up with something. I’m running a sprint and I’ve slipped into someone else’s lane, my calves burning as they beg for salvation. I’m going to start begging for salvation soon.

“They? Was someone hurt?” I ask, though my attempt is futile. Mrs Halden won’t answer the question, and she doesn’t.

“Write the truth,” she says, like this is the easiest thing in the world.

Something cold settles in my stomach. An uncomfortable ache, a sensation that I can’t escape.

“I don’t know what the truth is,” I tell her again.

Her next reply surprises me most.

“Let the paper tell you.”

These words shouldn’t make sense; they don’t make sense, I know that they don’t. This task is Sisyphean in nature – every time I get the ball rolling I push and I push, and a sentence is produced. But that is all I can muster before I reach the edge and the boulder comes crashing back down, and the words stop flowing so that my mind can speak. Did Sisyphus go mad? Or did he find satisfaction in the repetition, eternal hope in the chance that he might succeed one day?

I look down again and the pen moves before I decide to let it.

They weren’t supposed to stay.

My hand is shaking again. My breath hitches. I press harder and the ink darkens.

“They followed me.” The words slip out under my breath before I manage to write them, before I can even think about the way my lips are moving or the sounds my voice is making and then –

A flicker. Not an image, not yet. But…a shape. In the doorway. Or is it a voice? The idea of one? I don’t know what it is.

Mrs Halden doesn’t move. “You need to finish.”

“Why?” I ask, the single word climbing out of my hoarse throat.

Her gaze refuses to waver. It stays trained on me, like a bullet is about to penetrate the centre of my face.

“Because you didn’t finish it before.”

Her words hang in the subsequent silence. Before. I’ve been here before. In this chair, in this room, with this teacher – I’ve been here. Have I?

Something twists in my chest, almost painful. I look back at the page; there’s more now. More that I don’t remember writing.

You shouldn’t have followed me.

The pen remains in my hand but my fingers are numb. They tingle when I move like they do not know what they are. I do not know what I am, who I am. What am I here for? I am writing about a day that exists but that I do not remember, and these words exist but they are not mine.

“I didn’t –” I can’t even get a sentence out of my mouth. I can’t deny this. This handwriting is mine; this pen is mine, these words – they have to be mine. I don’t know what I am denying.

“I didn’t what?”

No answer.

I let out a slow breath, but it is not gentle. It is hard and heavy, a thunderstorm that is shaking the earth. The room feels suddenly smaller, and the air is heavier – I look back at the last line that I must have written.

You shouldn’t have followed me.

There’s something wrong with it. Not with the words – somehow, they make sense. They make sense without context; there is no wrong order. But the tone, it’s wrong. What am I meant to be writing? My eyes follow the lines back to the very first sentence; I’m writing an apology. These words are not an apology; these words are a warning.

I swallow again.

“I’m meant to be writing an apology,” I tell Mrs Halden, looking back up.

“Make it one.”

Her words are sharp, urgent. For the first time I look away from her face to her hands – they’re clenched. Clenched like she is angry, like she is ready to use force.

I look back at the page in front of me. My heart is beating faster now, hastening with every thought that I think. Every second is a step closer to the wrath I may have to face if I do not finish this.

I press the pen down again.

I’m sorry.

Those two words feel forced. Heavy. Then I continue.

I’m sorry I didn’t stop.

Something clicks. Not in the room, but in my mind – something makes sense, there’s a sense of realisation. Or clarity. Still there is no memory, but there’s some kind of an understanding that exists within me. What didn’t I stop? That’s something that remains a mystery for now.

My hand moves again.

I’m sorry that I locked the door.

My breath catches again. Another gasp, another breath that I feel I am no longer worthy of taking. I didn’t – I don’t – What did I –

“I don’t remember that,” I announce, my voice barely steady. There is no response this time, and I regret wasting my previous words. Is that how this works? I only have so many questions to ask, or statements to make?

In her silence, I continue to write.

I’m sorry that I didn’t open it when you told me to.

The pen is scratching loudly now, and each word drags across the paper as ink runs with movement that I cannot claim as my own. There is something building in these words, a story that I am not ready to listen to. This is not a memory; it’s some kind of certainty. Of whose, I don’t know.

I wasn’t trying to hurt you.

My vision blurs. I try to blink out whatever occludes my sight, but I am not sure that it’s worked.

“Someone was hurt?”

These questions go unanswered still, and I do not know why I continue to ask them. I think I feel some kind of comfort in hearing my voice, hearing something out loud rather than in my head or on a piece of paper. But this silence is the worst kind because this question remains the most important to my conscience, to my sanity – that is something I cannot promise I have anymore.

I look down. Strangely, I know that there is only one line left. This is the end of a script that I have never read but I can somehow recite; my hand hovers.

“I don’t want to write this.”

Now Mrs Halden leans forward. “You have to.”

“Why?”

No answer.

A chill runs through me. I stare down at my page for what feels like the millionth time, and I read what I have already written. I read what I haven’t remembered and then –

My pen moves. I don’t stop. I can’t.

I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.

The words sit there, wrong. Completely, utterly wrong. My heart pounds in an unsteady rhythm, and my pulse no longer comforts. I wonder what the day is. I wonder what I have done – I wonder what I am about to do.

“What does that mean?” I whisper. When I look up, she is watching me. But it is not expectation in her glare, not anymore – it is fear. Real, unmistakable fear. Something else inside me shifts, the same way it did when the sentences first appeared. A quiet, inevitable motion.

I look at the paper. At the final line.

I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.

“I didn’t write this,” I tell her. But I am still holding the pen. That handwriting is still mine. Those words have not come from anyone else.

The chair legs scrape against the floor as I stand. I don’t remember deciding to stand, but now I have risen and I do not sit down. Mrs Halden stands too, quickly.

“Stay where you are.” Her voice is tight now. Not quite angry, but assertive. Authority comes from a place of fear, a worry that without control over a person physical harm may come to a person.

I look at her. Really look at her. At the way she is positioned near the door, and at the way her eyes flick, just for a second, to the handle. The door.

The door wasn’t supposed to lock.

Something cold resettles into place, and this time it is familiar. This is not a memory. Those words are not a memory. But they are a pattern.

I step forward.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

These words feel different now. Truer. As though I have suddenly come to understand them, like they finally make sense.

She shakes her head. “Sit down.”

I take another step. My grip tightens around the pen and I feel like I could snap it. I feel like something else is going to snap – my mind, a bone.

“I thought it would be quick.”

Her hand moves to reach the door, but she doesn’t turn to look. Her eyes remain fixed on me like I am a danger. Like if she turns then I will seize an opportunity. And I notice. Of course I notice.

“You shouldn’t have followed me.”

Her breath catches, but it isn’t shock that escapes past her lips in that small sound. It’s a shiver of recognition that runs up her spine.

“Stop,” she insists, but I don’t know that she has any faith in her instruction. There’s no conviction in her voice, no real assertion of power. It sounds like she knows I won’t. I didn’t before.

I glance down, just for a second. My eyes catch the very last line of my letter.

I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. This time I feel like I mean it.

The page on the desk is blank. I watch as Mrs Halden exhales slowly, pressing her fingers to her temple like she is exasperated. She doesn’t want to be here anymore than I do, but I do not know what we are here for.

I blink; there is a pen in my hand. The paper is empty in front of her. She slides it towards me, expecting me to do something with it.

“Start over,” she says, her voice steady. “Tell the truth.”

I look down.

My hand begins to move.

I am writing to apologise for what I did on Thursday.