{"id":3427,"date":"2023-05-29T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-29T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/?p=3427"},"modified":"2024-11-18T10:49:01","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T09:49:01","slug":"erase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/2023\/05\/erase\/","title":{"rendered":"Erase"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Image<\/strong>: “Gorgeous autochrome girl in bonnet, with dog” by whatsthatpicture. Source<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author<\/strong>: Leah Didisheim<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Content Warning: Missing person, Death]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHas she come home yet? \u2026 No? \u2026 Where is she? \u2026 What do you mean you don\u2019t know? How can you not know? \u2026 I swear sometimes you\u2019re as useless as Myriam. \u2026 Well of course you should know! Do you even care that she\u2019s gone? \u2026 Are you even searching for her, poor soul? For all we know, she could be in severe danger. Breaks my heart to think of her smile. She did have a beautiful smile, didn\u2019t she? \u2026 What do you mean you haven\u2019t thought of her smile? \u2026 Why aren\u2019t you more stressed out? \u2026 I know it\u2019s not the first time \u2026 But I\u2019m telling you I can feel something is different this time around \u2026 Yeah, well, I\u2019ll be sorry when you\u2019ll prove me wrong! \u2026 Oh, but how I miss her \u2026 What do you mean I\u2019m speaking as if she\u2019s dead already? What else am I supposed to do? \u2026 Well believe what you will. I\u2019ll keep on searching. I won\u2019t stop worrying until she\u2019s home. \u2026 Poor Lula\u2026 alone in the cold. \u2026 No she\u2019s not just another teenager crossing her parents. That\u2019s just not her. \u2026 Well, I\u2019ve never known her like that\u2026 and God, Frank, even if she was, she\u2019s just fourteen\u2026 Are we not supposed to love our children unconditionally? \u2026 Yeah, yeah, you say that, but where\u2019s your love when it requires you to take action huh? \u2026 Look, I have to go. I can\u2019t have the same argument again. Just please do something. \u2026 Yeah, I know you\u2019re worried. You know how I get sometimes. I\u2019ll call you tomorrow, ok? Or sooner if I hear anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            She touched her cheeks, surprised to find them wet with tears. She hadn\u2019t realised she had been crying. It must have been the tenth time she was listening to this conversation she had had with her brother on the phone. Yes, she had been the one laying her worries on the table. And yet she had never really trusted her own words. She had always thought Lula would call her, reassure her. Oh, how she could almost hear the tiny voice say \u201cdon\u2019t worry, mummy, I\u2019m safe. I\u2019ll be home soon. Love you.\u201d Maybe, in retrospect, Frank was the one being more realistic. It wasn\u2019t that he was not worried, but maybe more that he had accepted the wicked truth. She<\/em> hadn\u2019t of course. Maybe she still didn\u2019t. The proof was right there; she was still listening to this old phone conversation, always resenting herself for the way she had talked to her brother that day. But that conversation wasn\u2019t going to change anything. She knew that. Of course, she knew that. And yet, today was no exception.  She had listened to the recording of that phone call again with the strong intention of it being the last time. She was going to delete it. She really was. But of course, this time again, she had locked her phone, the recording still there safe and sound. \u201cNext time\u201d, she thought. But of course, we all knew she wouldn\u2019t. It had been three years already. And she was not any closer to deleting that phone call from her phone than she was to letting go of Lula\u2019s memory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image: “Gorgeous autochrome girl in bonnet, with dog” by whatsthatpicture. Source Author: Leah Didisheim [Content Warning: Missing person, Death] \u201cHas she come home yet? \u2026 No? \u2026 Where is she? \u2026 What do you mean you don\u2019t know? How can you not know? \u2026 I swear sometimes you\u2019re as useless as Myriam. \u2026 Well of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001999,"featured_media":5008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[37],"class_list":{"0":"post-3427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-2023-spring","8":"tag-prose"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001999"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3427"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5259,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427\/revisions\/5259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}