Guilt

Conception Mission Doorway by Jess Thompson

From, The Book of Qualities, by J. Ruth Gendler

Guilt is the prosecutor who knows how to make every victim feel like the criminal.  She follows the scent of doubt and self-hatred to its sources.  She will not tell you what you have done wrong.  Her silence is brutal.  Her disapproval surrounds you in an envelope of cold nameless terror.

Guild thinks I am hopelessly lazy because I won't work the way she does.  Her court cases are scheduled years in advance.  She says horrible things about me to the neighbors.  In self-defense sometimes I tell people what she says about me before she has the chance.  I don't care as much as I did, but I can't pretend I don't care at all.

You may recognize Guilt's footsteps before you see her coming.  She limps like a crippled bird.  Even though her broken ankle is healing, the wound in her heart has become infected.