Sarah wondered if catharsis was a real thing. Or if indeed repressing your feelings was a good idea, in the long run. After all, what was it Freud had said? - that all culture was based on not letting everything hang out? On being polite, on not speaking your mind, on not allowing the Id to have its wicked way with you?

This idea had been a long time coming. She had always been polite and had rarely spoken her mind about negative things: about how silly people looked in stripes, about  how washing with a lick and a promise was never enough, about how it didn’t really matter if you came or not. Or (to change key), about how the wrong ones always died, about how people’s eyes slid to one side when you explained how you really felt, about how folk had no eye for detail, about how a fair morning rarely lasted till nightfall. That. That.

She could feel the sob rising in her throat. No, Sarah thought, not this time. I will not swallow it down, I will give it full throttle. When the scream came, it was astonishing, like a cascade pouring from a rocky face, an express roaring out of a tunnel, a tin drum going ratatat at a wake. This was more than a kerfuffle. As the wild sound unleashed itself from her body, the tiles began to loosen from the rooves and the leaves swirled from the trees. The windows burst open, the buttons shot from people’s clothes like bullets in reverse.  She was astride the scream like the cavalry in a charge. When it died down (if it ever did), nothing would ever be the same again. Nothing unsaid.