Composing came easily now—music flowed out of her dreams and pooled in little ponds on the staffs of her notebook. O resented the flow of sound that she could not control—it was no longer her music, it was someone else’s, it was the voice’s music, her damned muse’s. Her life took on a pattern, she woke up, convinced herself that today would be a normal day, but it never was normal. She would either stub her toe, fall down flat, space out for hours, almost drown, alienate all those who tried to talk to her or, on the days the visions left her alone, she felt the dread and spent the day imagining what would happen if she left reality during dinner with an old friend, while crossing the road, driving her car, or chopping vegetables for her mother’s favorite gratin. Slowly, methodically, O stopped crossing roads, riding her bike, crossing the bridge, or any other activity that could be deemed dangerous to someone whose hold on her mental life was as shaky as hers.
