Starvation

Starvation becomes a double-edged condition for Shirley: it brings her close to death, yet leaves her mind unusually clear and at moments euphoric. In the account dated Friday, May 16, 2014, the effects of hunger and thirst reshape both her sense of the future and what she chooses to do with her last strength.

Physical Deprivation

An accidental flush sends valuable water down the drain and leaves only a small amount in the toilet. The loss is more than practical. Shirley has been sparing with what remains, and the flush extinguishes the hope she had attached to getting through her ordeal. Her body is weak and tired; her mouth is extremely dry, and the smell of bodily waste adds to the physical indignity of confinement. Since her nighttime trip to the toilet, she no longer feels the need to relieve herself.

The ordeal has lasted barely a week, but Shirley understands that general accounts of people surviving for weeks without food, or for a long time on very little water, do not apply to her. She believes she will die soon. The narrative does not present her bodily decline as a simple, steady collapse: even as her physical condition worsens, her mental state begins to change in the opposite direction.

A Reversal in Her State of Mind

Shirley’s old hopes had shifted repeatedly—from recognition by her parents, to losing weight, finding a partner or a good friend, and securing meaningful work. Looking back, she sees that each hope had been replaced by another without bringing her the answer she wanted. With the water nearly gone, she can no longer imagine a new hope that might sustain her.

Yet over the last day her state of mind has improved hour by hour. She experiences a feeling close to euphoria, which she tentatively connects to her organs having less work to do as digestion subsides, while acknowledging that she does not understand all the causes. Hunger and thirst, which should make the situation only more frightening, instead leave her feeling lighter and freer. For a moment she even laughs at the strangeness of that response. The relief is not a recovery: her awareness that she is dying remains intact.

Efforts to Escape and Be Heard

For hours, Shirley tries to free one board so she can reach the outer cladding. When she finally makes a gap wide enough to see behind it, she finds an aluminum sheet. She does not know its purpose beyond a possible connection to the thermal properties Pirjo had discussed, but recognizes that her inadequate tools cannot break through it. The discovery closes off another possible route out.

A hole in the skylight offers a different prospect: someone might hear her. Shirley prays to Horus, then screams as loudly as she can. After ten minutes she stops. The house is so well insulated that her calls do not reach anyone. The repeated failures—water lost, a route blocked, and a cry unanswered—make survival seem less possible, but they also narrow her attention to the actions still within reach.

Resolve and the Last Use of Her Strength

Once Shirley accepts that she is going to die, she decides that she will not do so quietly. Her remaining purpose is to ensure that the blame points toward Pirjo. That resolve gives her a clear objective even when escape appears impossible: she cannot control the outcome, but she can try to make her death implicate the person she holds responsible.

She takes off her glasses and uses them to concentrate the sun’s rays into a small bright point, first on the wall and then on a crumpled sheet from the blue notebook. The paper slowly darkens. The act turns the sunlight that reaches her through the skylight into a last, improvised tool. Starvation has reduced her choices to almost nothing, but the scene ends with Shirley still attempting to act—and to leave evidence—rather than simply surrendering.