Edde's Journey Across the Sea

Chapter One.

Once upon a time, there lived a spidery girl who liked to be called Edde, at least in the stories which were written about her (like this one). When Edde was a much younger girl than she is now, she used to write stories. Now she is older, and she has forgotten how to write anything creative at all, and instead spends her days staring out of windows, and at television screens, and avoiding the eyes of strangers as she walks down crowded (and also not-so-crowded) streets.

Things used to be very different. Very, very different. Edde had so many ideas, and daydreams, and fictions, that it was all she could do not to explode onto the pages of her many, many notebooks. Now, Edde feels like a part of her brain had shrivelled up and all but died. And maybe, just maybe, it had...

Edde realized that something was most terribly, inexplicably wrong on a Saturday. It appeared to be a Saturday like any other: no school, no post, and nothing interesting on the television. Edde was lying on her bed, and monotonously counting the swirly bits in the ceiling tiles. By the time she got to 134, she sat bolt up right, and exclaimed to absolutely no one but herself: "I feel like a part of my brain has shrivelled up and all but died!"