Akoya was freezing to death, but she stayed in the cold, expecting she would reach an insensible point, her  white  fingers dying one after one, her little toes desensitized by  endless wait in the snow of emptiness.

She never  reached unfeeling peace, unaffected irreversible point,  she was never at last detached of inconvenient blood. She had to keep a maintaining constant dead-alive attitude.

That means she believed she had to become like the others, strong enough to ignore fear, compassion, indignation,  engagement, individuality, own thinking, own judgement, own decision.

A sort of hegemonic double bind governed her existence.

It stayed always something living in her that made her secretly suffering.

Did she have to live or to  be?

She choose to be.