Literature
Her Nerves
"My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad."
--T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
No one quite knows how or when or where or even why the nightmares began. All they know is that they are bad. Very bad.
Her parents had always known she was different. She ate less, slept less, and cried much more than a child even that age ought to. During her first year of life, she'd sometimes scream for hours at a time at the top of her lungs, and her parents regarded it a miracle that no one had called Child Protective Services on them. She stopped taking naps at two years old. She was late in talking and walking, and the doctors had told them at one point in time t
