My father died six weeks ago. It’s funny to think that his nose, his hair, his bones, his sinews, the way he made his tea, is now no more. We are a short arc in the dark sky – emerging mysteriously, disappearing like a line chalked on blackboard.

Nobody ever will sit on a chair, listen to the news or walk in the sunshine quite like him – or like me for that matter, or you. Even if you believe in reincarnation, is this not the only lifetime, the only second in the history of the world, that you will be exactly like this, think like this, breathe like this? Or does eternity contain everything, so that this one moment is both forever lost and forever lived?

Here I am, in this way, in this manner. Never again.

Cruelty

October 17, 2009

What cruelty we have inflicted on each other through the ages. What pick-axes, what slingshots, what arrows, what stocks, what racks, what gunpowder, what bombs.

Decapitations, mutilations, hangings, drawings, quarterings. The hindering, the withholding, the discrimination, the gossip, the slander, the hunting, the burning. The breaking of your tiny feet, and their binding, so that you will always walk five paces behind.

Is this our shame? Or part of our glory – the kind of glory that says at least we are struggling, at least we are trying to make something of ourselves, at least we are alive?

Can we not face this, this rich dark part of ourselves, which is why we do it again, and again, and again?

Any

October 14, 2009

Any email is good – even if you’re saying nothing particularly interesting, even if you’re asking me to buy your anti-virus software, even if you’re a Nigerian with ten million dollars trapped in an offshore account. Just email me.

Any SMS is good – even if you’re sending some inane joke, or my temporary online banking PIN, or a chain message that I must pass to seven other people or be hit by a typhoon. Just SMS me. You see, I now live in a world where content means nothing; contact is all.

Any attention is good, any distraction is good. Just any.

Death

October 11, 2009

Death is an unforgiving fire.

I saw a man, lying in hospital, crouched, wizened, struggling, fear in his face and in his body, afraid, afraid, clutching at the memories of all the things he had done, all the things he hadn’t. Then I turned and saw another man, quiet and still, a pool of acceptance, regretting nothing, grasping no one; there were simply no more games to play. And a light bathed him tenderly.

Death is redeeming fire.

Soft

September 28, 2009

It’s hard to be soft.

Much easier to make your words steely, powerful as flint, cutting, precise, glinting, strong. Much easier to make them have a purpose than let them settle limpidly, beautifully, like dewdrops on a washing line. Much easier to fling about words that are powerful, rather than sit with those that are gentle, yielding.

Much easier to use some words – any words – than no words at all.