No!

He's tried to put me out of my misery, W. says. God knows, he's tried. Hasn't everyone? No one tried hard enough, that's what W. discern, when we first met. And it became his task, to try hard enough, and what a task! How many times has he tried to explain it to me? How many emails has he sent? 

But it won't get through, W. says. I won't hear him. He's resorted to blows, W. says, but it was like beating a big, dumb animal. It seemed pointless, and cruel. How could I understand why I was being beaten? I bellowed, that was all. It was perfectly senseless.

He drew pictures, W. says. He scrawled red lines across my work, but I never understood; I carried on regardless. I'm tenacious, he has to give me that. Or rather, something is tenacious in me. How can I continue when there's so much that is wrong? It baffles everyone, W. says. Is he still going? Is he still alive?, they ask him, who can only shrug in dismay. What can he do?, he says.

No!. he writes in the margin. Rubbish!, he writes, underscoring the word several times, his biro piercing the paper. But still I continue. Still I go on, one page after another.