When I lost my will to eat and my desire to do anything I knew that things were going wrong. When Christmas came and made me feel gloomy instead of glad, I knew that it had to stop. I could not go on. Not like this. I thought about the people I’d heard of who went on this way for years on end, and staggered to think how on earth they could do it. I couldn’t see myself getting there without completely destroying myself. So I knew I had to stop. It was hard at first. Awkward. I had always laughed easily at silly things, but now I forced out the hollow sound whenever I could, trying to see how long I could make it last. Trying harder when I knew I could to see if I could make it sound convincing enough to use in other company. Maybe I was hoping that if I faked it for long enough I wouldn’t have to anymore and I could laugh for real.

That would be nice.