A Gift From Kerry

Guy Drivers finds a CD and a note in his bag. As he plays it, you hear a song in which many sounds you find familiar: the clang of the central heater, the hum of the generator, the sound of melting ice, the ventilation system, the fire alarm, and the voice of a young woman with a guitar. The production's minimal, but whoever sang the song must've worked very hard on it.

Everything that came before my time in here—my whole life before this—feels like a dream. There's no one who comments and likes my things. Nobody cared where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do… or that I'm doing anything at all.

I watched people argue and fight. Anything I did was wrong. But not doing anything felt wrong, too. Nothing seemed to have a right answer.

Eddie told me he didn't know what he's doing. I'm the same. I didn't know what kind of consequences the things I do will lead to, so I've only ever done whatever felt easiest—avoiding problems, cancelling plans. The best I could do is try to make everyone, who's already in so much pain, just a little happier.

Emi encouraged me to write something. I just couldn't do it. I wrote so many stories, and threw all of them away. I cannot stop myself from thinking what they'd do to others. Will it make you hate me? Will it make you like me? Will it make you happy? Will it make you sad?

It doesn't mean anything.

The thing I feared most has finally happened to me. Nothing happens here will leave any trace. Perhaps this was some kind of revelation. It felt as though fate's telling me that my life as a human being's always been the same. I came with nothing, and I'll leave with nothing.

But I do not want to forget how I feel now.

But I do not want to forget the kindness I was shown here.

In a place where no one can come in, nothing can go out, where there's no sunrise or sunset, in the long stretches of stolen time outside production schedules and daily routines, I lost my sense of time. I slept for whole days and stayed awake for whole nights, looking out of the window at the permanent twilight. I became someone with nothing at all, but that freed me from myself. I started reading my old diaries. I wanted to know how I used to think when I was still a child.

I know now.

I don't have a beautiful singing voice. Most of my hit songs are written by my producers in a writing camp. This I know. Before all of that, I really loved singing. I realised that maybe the reason I started singing was actually very simple, when I thought I'd lose music forever.

It's partly because I thought other girls liked dolls and dresses, and I felt cooler in a T-shirt with a guitar. And it's true. I want to stand on the biggest stage in the world. I want my songs to be heard by everyone.

But that wasn't why I picked up the guitar the first time.

In the past weeks, I came up with a melody. I wrote the lyrics when I was 16—it's a lovely idea. A story that belongs only to me. I want to share that story with you.

I have a song.

I want to sing it for you.

There's a line written at the back of the disc:

Remember me.