Everything in the photo looked fake, as if it had been recolored in the most disturbing way possible. It’s always the salt marshes of Aigues-Mortes, again and again … Do you remember it at all, this image? Aigues-Mortes as it appeared on the June page of the calendar. I don’t know what good that will do, especially as I keep on having the same one. The new therapist has recommended I should write down my dreams. Toppling over the cliff edge and plummeting straight into the red water. That I’m just a very sensitive, nervous individual, that apart from yesterday evening I haven’t been behind the wheel of a car since I took my test, and that the drive here was sheer hell-every time the road narrowed spelled an accident, every car behind me meant I was being followed, and that it was probably just a matter of time before my anxiety peaked in a full-blown panic attack. “Oh, you poor thing,” he says, fixing his eyes on my bleeding forehead. My right knee is shaking as if the joint had been removed and the void filled with jelly. “Don’t rush it!” Mustache man grabs my arm to support me.

I try to get to my feet, but it’s a very clumsy attempt. Another barking laugh, then he says, “Annelies, go and get a bottle of water!” The woman who just collapsed by his counter. “Not surprising, it’s sweltering today,” he now says, this time referring to me. “An old girl like that is a real guzzler, eh?” He meant the Land Rover. I remember a red-and-blue-checked, short-sleeved shirt and the barked laughter coming from beneath his nicotine-stained mustache when he made a joke as he handed me my change. His face is merely a blur at first, but I suspect he’s the cashier. “I bet it’s just her circulation,” I hear a man say. I filled up the car, locked the doors and went to pay. So I did something normal, inconspicuous. Through the shop window I had seen the cashier inquisitively craning his neck. No other vehicle that had followed me into the petrol station and none already there waiting for me. I had parked the Land Rover by one of the two pumps, got out and looked around shiftily, like a fugitive. Unleaded at 1.51 euro per liter, diesel at 1.43. The shop of a small, slightly run-down petrol station on the A13. Somebody pulls me up to a seated position and asks, “Are you okay?” I would cry for help if I hadn’t already drowned. Unconsciousness is trying to steal me away. My eyelids are fluttering like insect wings. When I touch the area on my forehead that’s throbbing I feel a slight bump and a dampness. I ought to be thankful-I’ve had it worse. I fell from the cliffs, for the fourth time this month. What happened? I want to ask-how stupid is that? I know exactly what happened. In the distance I hear voices and a flurry of activity. Shelves of sweets wash toward me, a freezer glides closer as if carried on the waves. Because every time I believe I’ve got a chance. I teeter, lose my balance and thrash about with my arms because I refuse to believe it’s happening.

It sounds like the staccato of rain drumming against a windowpane. Above me, slate-gray clouds drift across the sky that’s still the color of lavender, but only just. Don’t look down, I tell myself as I put my head back and try to breathe. A panic attack is like standing on the cliff edge.

Sleepless synonym