The Wall

My 7 highlights

• I think back to the first summer, it is shadowed more by the concern for my animals than by my own desperate situation. The catastrophe had relieved me of a great deal of responsibility yet, although I failed to notice it straight away, placed a new burden upon me. When I was finally able to assess the situation a little, I had long ceased to be able to change anything about it.

• In the two and a half years that I’ve been here,

• When I was still young and still took death as a personal insult, I often imagined withdrawing to a cave to die, never to be found.

• Sometimes, long before the wall existed, I wished I was dead, so that I could finally cast off my burden. I always kept quiet about this heavy load; a man wouldn’t have understood, and the women felt exactly the same way as I did.

• Not that I made much use of my freedom. I had always been sedentary by nature, and felt happiest at home.

• I’ve taken on this task to keep me from staring into the gloom and being frightened. For I am frightened. Fear creeps up on me from all sides, and I don’t want to wait until it gets to me and overpowers me. I shall write until darkness falls, and this new, unfamiliar work should make my mind tired, empty and drowsy. I’m not afraid of morning, only of the long, gloomy afternoons.

• m warm and alive, and she senses that I mean her well. We will never know anything more about each other.