I stopped thinking of the little boy we lost. At first he invaded my thoughts from the moment I woke until the moment I slept. I hated the world and its inhabitants because they went on living while he did not, and didn't even acknowledge it. I hated people complaining about their jobs, and wanted to ask if they lost a little boy on their last shift. But I kept quiet, because no one who wasn't there could possibly understand what it's like.

I saw Brian on the Wednesday afternoon after it happened. I was quiet, and he asked what I was thinking. "About the little boy", I managed to whisper without tears. And then I saw him lying on that bed again, and I couldn't stop them again. Brian wrapped me in the coccoon of his arms and chest and I sobbed for an hour. "Will it always be this hard?" I kept thinking.

I still wonder. I dread work some days because I can still see his lifeless body on that bed. I can't picture his face, but I know his body as though I'm staring at it right now.

But now I don't think about him. I push and I push, and he slips from my mind. And it gets easier as time goes by, and I want it to keep sliding away until I know longer know what that body looks like, or what the moans of the father sounded like.

...........

Until the next death.

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*notes*