You sit in a chair in the locked room staring at your reflection in the mirror taking in your eyes that stare back at you look at the nose the mouth the hair at the lost ness you see there and all the time downstairs the hum of voices which carry up the stairs as if they had legs of their own and amongst them your husband’s voice that deep baritone that dark sound voice that resides in your memory even when you do not see him for days and outside the window which is sealed your children play at their games their loud voices and laughter reach up to you and take your hand in theirs in your imagination as you look away momentarily and gaze at the window at the curtains that are drawn at the morning sunlight trying to permeate through the cloth at the way pictures on the walls hang lopsided as if they too are slightly mad as if they are merely reflection of your mind and at your inner turmoil and imbalance the Van Gogh with its greens and yellows and birds dark as death and fields that sway insanely wrestling with the angry sky and whole scene reaching out to you wanting to draw you into the inferno of colours and shapes and hardened oils and looking back at the mirror the eyes are still on you the stare hard as marble the pupils like deep pools the chin solid the mouth stretched tight as if drawn in dull red by a child and as you stare at the eyes you remember your mother’s eyes that hint of madness even then in her before the big plunge came prior to the demons settling up home within her mind before they took her way screaming like some banshee out of the house leaving you at the top of the stairs peering down at her through your nine year old eyes crying for her return even though her eyes were wild with fires and demons and voices left her lips voices not hers words foul and high and deep and curses that echoed down the passages years afterward and your father fearing that the madness would be in you  too would beat you at any sign of such a malady raising its head in words or in your eyes or gestures and your sister Clare strapped in her wheelchair was pushed out in the garden in all weathers so as to be away from you away from your potential insanity where in one harsh winter she died of influenza saved at least from you and the latent madness your father feared and buried in the family site beneath a yew that sheltered her from the hot sun and as you gaze at your lips you watch them move formulating words uttering sounds which suddenly become songs French chansons the ones your mother taught you the very ones she sang to you as she held you close even though the dark demons were gradually creeping upon her and all this your husband now knows and the whole cycle begins again and the children outside play as you did once as your mother stared down at you as you too played with all innocence as they are doing now with black crows gathering in a nearby fields beneath a darkening sky.