He laughs slightly, bitterly. “If you really need help, you have to say that you want to die, then everything can suddenly happen very quickly. But I don’t want that. My family means everything to me, they have already been so much to me. Sometimes I find myself in the middle of the night at their doorstep, because I can’t handle it alone. Then I keep worrying, and worrying, and worrying.” Since the event, Arthur hardly sees his friends anymore, but that is his own choice. “They are right on my doorstep when I need them,” he says, “but I just don’t want to talk about it. Then I prefer to stay alone.”
His only support is his house. The house he wants to keep at all costs. “If I sell it, I will be rid of everything. But then I will have nothing left. Then all that hard work will be for nothing. I cannot accept that.” Arthur is silent for a moment, but continues: “I’m holding on. For my family. For myself. But sometimes I think: how much longer?”