Wednesday Writing – ‘Credit Due’

Image: ngccoin.com

Credit Due

It was the hottest day so far that summer, and Mama needed sugar.

‘Go on down to the store,’ she told me, squinting out the window. ‘Ask old man Bailey to let you have it on credit. You hear?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said.

‘That’s my baby,’ she said, turning to face me, blinking the dusty path outside from her eyes. ‘Mama’ll make some lemonade, when you get home. Don’t hurry, now. I think I’ll go take me a nap.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said, already running for the door.

‘Walk!’ yelled Mama as I thumped my way out into the day, the sun like the warm hand of God on my skin. ‘Ladies walk, Ella-Marie!’

Ain’t a lady yet, I thought as I skipped away from the house, my toes like bruised earthworms against the yellowish soil. My knees winked out at me from underneath my hem. I put my face to the sky and dipped my nose right into it, my mind already swirling as I thought about the Coca-Cola girl hanging over the register down at Bailey’s General Store, and how her white dress shone like an angel, and her skin looked like it tasted of ice-cream…

‘Well, hey there, Ella-Marie,’ came a voice, and my eyes popped open. I screwed them up against the sunshine, feeling like my air had turned to dirt. ‘How you doin’ today?’

‘Hey, Mister Hadley,’ I said, my pulse rusty in the back of my throat.

‘Your Mama at home?’ Mister Hadley smiled at me, his skin all nasty, looking like sour milk with flyblown strawberry preserve smeared on top. He clutched his hat in his pink-scrubbed hands, his knuckles like rotten teeth and his suit just patched enough to still be respectable. I chewed the inside of my mouth.

‘Yessir,’ I muttered.

‘Well, ain’t that fine,’ he said. His smile, like a dog dead in a gutter, didn’t move a muscle as he reached those pale fingers into his pocket. He took them out and there was a nickel entwined in them like a trapped bird, and he stretched them out to me like I had the key to its freedom.

‘Well, go on,’ he said, laughing. ‘Take it. Get yourself somethin’ nice.’

I reached for the coin, my own dark fingers hot and suddenly sweaty and covered in filth and his cool now, like iron, like ice. My own dirty and shameful and his strong and steady.

I snatched my hand back.

His smile sang a wrong note then, and his face fell apart. He frowned, and threw the nickel in the dirt.

‘Git, then,’ he said. ‘Go on! I got business to discuss with your Mama, so don’t you go disturbin’ us, now. Y’hear me?’

I had long left him behind before I remembered: Mama’s sleepin’. She said she was sleepin’! And my ears started burning with embarrassment not my own, imagining Mama disheveled, surprised, ashamed.

But I did not go back.

Old man Bailey looked at me over his spectacles as he wrote the value of the sugar in his book. The store was empty but for us two, and the air tasted like sweat.

‘You tell your Mama to come in and settle up, Ella-Marie, just as soon as she can. I ain’t got endless reserves of credit. Times are hard for everyone, not jus’ you colored folk.’

‘Yessir,’ I said, my arms already aching.

‘Get on home, now, child,’ he said. ‘And be sure to give your Mama my regards.’

‘Yessir,’ I said, the sack of sugar like a kicking piglet.

I scuffed my feet as I walked, trailing my toes in the dust and shifting the sugar from arm to arm. My fingers slipped around it, like a tongue struggling with an unfamiliar word, and my shoulders wailed like I was being nailed to the cross. Sweat trickled down my back.

I came upon Mister Hadley’s nickel eventually. It glinted in the sunlight like the eye of a buried monster, waiting. I slid the sack of sugar to the ground and propped it against my shaking, sticky leg as I bent to pick the coin up out of the dirt. I turned it over and over, buffalo-face-buffalo-face, wondering what Mama’d say when she saw it.

And eventually I hoisted up the sugar again, and I kept walking.

‘Mama?’ I called, as the screen-door thunked shut. My brown feet slapped on the browner boards as I crossed the neat parlor, Daddy’s rifle still in one corner even though the man himself was just a memory, just a word. ‘Mama?’ The door to her room was thrown wide, and I remembered – again – that she was sleeping, and a rush of sour shame washed all through me. I tiptoed to the kitchen and shouldered the sack up onto the table, and took a breath. My throat felt raw.

And the door to the back was standing open.

I crept to it. Outside, the laundry flapped in the breeze like a preacher mid-sermon, hands raising to heaven in hope and fear, before sinking, disappointed and despairing, to earth once more. The scrubland between our house and the Wesleys’, half a mile away, yawned into the distance. Mama wasn’t anywhere.

I turned, my ears throbbing, and crossed the room until Mama’s bedroom door was staring at me, dark as a crow’s eye. Everything was still. I dropped the nickel and it rolled, sounding like the top being torn off the world, until it fell between two boards and was silent.

Mama was lying on her bed like an unfurled flower, her eyes still full of the dusty path outside. Her mouth was open, nothing coming out of it but slow redness, ink from a broken bottle. Her dress gaped, like it was kissing me goodbye.

And all around her, dollar bills were scattered one after another after another, like confetti at the feet of a bride.

 

Wednesday Write-In #88

plastic  ::  verdant  ::  gingham  ::  lighthouse  ::  bathe

 

Image: camperlands.co.uk

The Sleeper

The wind rippled across the surface of the rain-sodden plastic, lifting it into sharp-edged waves. It crackled and snapped, spitting water up at me like it was angry. It was like an animal protecting its young.

‘Between me and you,’ said Brennan, ‘d’you think this is it?’ He didn’t look at me. He just stood on the far side of the sea of plastic like a lighthouse, passing his worried gaze back and forth over it with gentle sweeps of his head. The rain ran down the lenses of his glasses.

‘I hope so,’ I said. Brennan blinked and glanced over at me, frowning. ‘You know what I mean,’ I muttered, and he said nothing for a while. I shrugged deeper into the collar of my coat, feeling cold droplets bathe me right down to the bones. I wondered if I’d ever feel warm again.

‘I suppose it’d be a comfort for the family. What’s left of them,’ he said, eventually.

‘Exactly.’

The plastic reared again, and I caught the barest glimpse of faded, dirt-encrusted gingham embedded in the claggy, dark soil. It made the bile rise inside me, and an image flashed across my mind; a tiny, smiling face, straw-coloured hair in one long plait. The little checked sundress she’d worn that day in June when she’d vanished, disappeared from the verdant fields around her house, never to be seen again.

Never, until now.

‘Jesus,’ said Brennan. ‘Grab that rock, there, and weigh it down. We have to preserve the scene until Forensics gets here.’ I turned to do as I was told, and caught a glimpse of the farmer who’d found her, standing cap in hand behind a line of luminous tape. I could hear someone talking to him, asking him questions, but all he was doing was just staring, feet planted in the soil, eyes full of water, up at the makeshift grave that had been on his land for the better part of forty years. Maybe he’d raised his own family in sight of it.

I turned back to see Brennan struggling with the groundsheet, and hurried to help. We smoothed the plastic down over her like it was a blanket, tossed by a bad dream or a too-hot summer night. She settled into peaceful sleep once more.

I put my hand on the sodden plastic and I swear I felt it rise, like a little, contented breath had been taken beneath it, and finally released.

Wednesday Write-In #87

This week’s words for CAKE.shortandsweet’s Wednesday Write-In were:

fly in the ointment  ::  suspect  ::  fairytale  ::  green  ::  shame

Image: coloringinthedark.wordpress.com

Prime Suspect

‘So. You’re paying us another little visit, are you?’ Sergeant Grehan lowered himself into his creaking chair with a sticky exhalation of breath, shifting a pile of shedding paperwork as he waved vaguely at the seat opposite. I took it with every show of gratitude.

‘Just keeping up with developments,’ I said. ‘You know yourself.’

Grehan raised a flabby eyebrow. ‘Hmm.’

‘So, about this new suspect,’- I reached into the pocket of my coat, where an envelope, stuffed fat, was sitting.

‘Now, now, let me just stop you there,’ said Grehan, holding up a moist palm. ‘You know as well as I do that whatever you have in that envelope could be prejudicial. It could be damaging. It could be a fairytale, for God’s sake!’ He slapped his hand off his desk, tutting loudly. ‘Just, listen to me for a minute. Will you get out of here and let us get on with our jobs. Will you do that?’

I licked my lips. ‘The only fly in the ointment with that,’ I said, slowly shoving the envelope back into its hiding place, ‘is that I might have information which you lot need. Did you never think of that?’

Grehan chuckled, his face wobbling. ‘Now, now. A high opinion of ourselves, haven’t we?’

‘I’m good at what I do,’ I said, my eyes flicking around the framed photographs and certificates on Grehan’s walls.

‘And what’s that, exactly?’ he sneered, drawing my gaze back to him. ‘Wasting police time? Poking around in cold cases? Destroying evidence, making mistakes that no officer – no matter how green – would make?’ He wiped his sweating face with one large hand. ‘Get out of my office, now, like a good man. Will you? I’m sick of pandering to your nonsense. Any more of this sort of carry-on, and I’ll see what I can do about having you brought in for questioning.’

I put my hands up. ‘Right, right. I’m only trying to help. In all honesty.’

‘In all honesty, Frank, you’re a pain in my rear end,’ said Grehan, hauling himself to his feet. He stuck out one warm, damp hand. ‘Will you give me your word, now, that you’ll leave this alone? I don’t want to see you in this office again. Let the poor girl rest in peace. There’s nothing you can do. Leave it to us, now.’

After a second’s frowning hesitation, I shook Grehan’s hand. I felt his sweat cooling on my skin as I stood. ‘Right, so. I’m sorry, Officer. I – look, I won’t be back. If ye hear anything,’-

‘God, Frank, of course we’ll let you know,’ said Grehan, blinking, lying to my face. ‘Straight away. Make sure you leave your contact number with the desk, there.’

‘I will. I’ll do that. And, Sergeant Grehan?’ He was already back in his chair, turning towards his ancient, clapped-out computer. He frowned at me before raising an eyebrow in polite, patient inquiry. ‘I just wanted to say thanks. For all you’ve done, I mean. Fair play to you, and all your lads.’

‘Grand, grand, Frank,’ he said, waving his hand again. ‘I hope I won’t be seeing you again for a long time. No offence to you, now.’

‘Oh, God, I think I can guarantee you that,’ I said, chuckling. I turned for the door.

‘Good luck, Frank,’ called Grehan as I stepped out into the corridor. I nodded, throwing him a quick grin.

I winked at the officer behind the desk as I left the station, ignoring the mocking light in her eyes, and I stepped out into the warmth of the bright spring day, putting my face to the sky and dragging in a few deep breaths. The thick envelope was making my jacket uncomfortable and so I dragged it out, wondering for a few seconds whether I should put it in the bin just outside the station door, or if that’d be hubris. Eventually, I strode off into the bustle of the town, the envelope held lightly between finger and thumb, like it was nothing.

I’d wanted to confess. God knows the truth of it. I’d had everything Grehan needed, right there. My confession was stapled to the front of the photographs I’d taken of Maisie’s body, signed and everything. I’d been ready.

What a shame, then – what an absolute crying disgrace – that he’d given me another chance.

O, My Country

In the last week, in Ireland, there have been five violent deaths.

Since the beginning of the year, there have been seven violent deaths. That’s seven, in thirteen days.

Image: thejournal.ie

Ireland is a small country. It’s a country in which a violent death – increasingly, death as a result of knife crime – still has the power to shock. It’s a country where watching the news and seeing an ordinary family, one just like yours, ripped to pieces by violence, still gives you pause. You wonder what on earth is wrong. Why people are getting into arguments and, instead of using words to sort it out, they’re resorting to knives, or fists, or guns.

The most recent murder in Ireland happened over the weekend in Dublin, in an affluent suburb – the kind of place where you’d love to live, if only you had the money. It’s not the sort of place you’d associate with violent crime, but then distinctions like that are starting to look shaky and irrelevant in our brand new, ultra-modern little country. At the time of writing this, it appears that the victim lost his life over a disputed move in a game of chess.

A disputed move in a game of chess.

And it has cost a man his life.

This morning, really early, our neighbours moved out. They – father, mother, three children under ten – have decided to emigrate to Australia in search of a better life. Neither of the parents were unemployed, but for so many reasons they felt things might be better for them on the other side of the world. ‘Things are going nowhere here,’ the mother remarked to me the other day. ‘It’s a dead end.’ Their decision to leave may have nothing to do with crime, per se, but I do know they were driven out of their old home by criminal and disruptive behaviour all around them, and they came to live beside my husband and me in an attempt to find a more peaceful existence. I hoped they found it, for the years they spent here, and I wish them well in their new life. I will miss them, particularly their beautiful children, very much.

Those left behind after emigration – a difficult burden to carry.
Image: news.ie.msn.com

They’ll be joining a long queue of people leaving this country looking for something abroad that they cannot find here. Most people will return to Ireland in the years to come – because, despite it all, home exerts a huge draw – but that doesn’t help us in the short term. Every family in Ireland has been touched by emigration. We all know what it feels like to have someone we love – in most cases, someone young – living far away from home.

I love my country. In a lot of ways, it’s a wonderful place. Increasingly, though, we are struggling with things like mental health – a mental health helpline recorded a 29% increase in calls to its services last year, for example – and with violent disorder. There has always been a problem with alcohol in Ireland, which goes far beyond the ‘fun-loving party people’ image the rest of the world seems to have of us; we’re a lot more Nordic than that, I think, insofar as our relationship with drink can be dark, cold, inward-looking, and extremely isolated. I’m not a sociologist, and can only speak from my own experience, but it seems to me that Ireland is finding it hard to adjust to new realities – a complicated relationship with religion, increased exposure to immigration, economic difficulties, and a total lack of faith in the government, and indeed in all forms of authority – and, perhaps, many other things as well. The police force is probably the only public body (if, indeed, that’s the right term to describe it) in which the people of Ireland have any faith left. If we lose that, then I fear we might lose ourselves as well.

Irish people tend to be resilient. We just keep on going, getting on with our own lives, keeping the ‘best side out’, as the old saying goes, no matter what happens around us. Suffering is bred into us, some would say. This is all very well, but sometimes I wonder if it allows us the space we need to deal with what’s inside, as well as keeping up a good front. I also wonder, sometimes, how much we can put up with, or when we’ll reach the point where we can’t take any more. All I know is, I think my little country is in trouble – and has been for some time – and figuring out a solution to it is beyond me.

But surely, picking up a knife and destroying not only your victim’s life, but also your own, isn’t the way to deal with whatever might be wrong? There has to be a better way forward than this.

There has to be.

 

Wednesday Write-In #61

This week’s words for CAKE.shortandsweet‘s Wednesday Write-In challenge were:

menthol  ::  blind date  ::  fried  ::  secret  ::  chit-chat

Image: youtube.com

Engine Trouble

Luggy was chewin’ so hard on his lower lip, I thought it was gonna bust open like an overdone sausage.

‘Ain’t no good. It’s fried, all of it. The whole dang thing.’ He slammed his wrench down on the ground and it sent up a good ol’ clang. Barely missed my boot, too.

‘Hey! You wanna take a little care with that thing?’ I threw my eyes aroun’, checkin’ for any whiff of Ol’ Garth, heart as black as his teeth and breath stinkin’ of that menthol-stuff he chews to try to mask his graveyard breath. We was clear, though. No sign.

‘We can’t keep this secret no more,’ muttered Luggy. His hand left a damp echo on the cold metal. A tremor was runnin’ all through him, like someone’d screwed a wire into the soles of his feet. ‘Garth needs to know what we’ve been doin’.’

‘You know what that’d mean, Luggy,’ I said, leanin’ in close. ‘They’d shovel our behinds rock-side without even givin’ us time to pack.’ I grabbed his shoulder and squeezed, just hard enough to make my point. ‘I don’t know ‘bout you, but I sure as hell don’t wanna spend the rest of my life -’

‘If this thing blows, we won’t have a rest of our life to worry about!’ Luggy’s words came out all strained, bustin’ their way out between his teeth like ribbons of razor wire.

‘Well, well!’ The sing-song voice smashed its way into our ears before I’d even had a chance to think about what Luggy’d said. ‘What’s this? You boys enjoyin’ a little chit-chat, here on your lonesomes?’ I turned to see Prentis, that damned treacle-headed good for nothin’, hustlin’ his way down the corridor toward us. A gush of cooler air made the skin on my arms pickle, and I knew Luggy was makin’ a move. I let him hide behind me as he did whatever was needful. There was plenty of room back there.

‘What you lookin’ for, Prentis?’ My voice sounded, even to me, like one o’ them guns with a spike on top. ‘Ain’t nothin’ down here. Me an’ Luggy here, we was just fixin’ up this engine patch, is all.’

‘Havin’ a little blind date, it seems to me,’ sang Prentis, his eyebrows dancin’. I wanted to tear ‘em off his face. ‘A little one-on-one. You know what the guys upstairs is sayin’ about you, don’t ya? Come on, now.’ I watched him laughin’, rockin’ back and forth in his fancy leather boots. Rest of us worked the shine out of ours, but not ol’ Prentis.

‘We was just on our way back up,’ I said, my voice full of clenched fists. ‘We was gon’ have a talk with Mr. Garth, ‘bout somethin’ important. So, if you’d kindly let us be gettin’ on with that -‘ He held up his hands and stopped my words in their tracks like he was Moses holdin’ back the waters.

‘Not so fast, now. How long you boys think I’ve been standin’ here?’ He was a walkin’ oil slick, this one. Dark and sticky, and hard to get out of. ‘I know all about your tinkerin’ with the engines. Tryin’ to get into Garth’s good books? Or do you guys got somethin’ in particular you need to get home for?’ I could hear Luggy breathin’ hard right behind me, and I knew his mind was on a planet we hadn’t seen for best of eight years. He’d a baby girl he’d never seen; she’d be grown and gone before he made it back, if this dyin’ ol’ engine wasn’t given a helpin’ hand. We thought we’d found a way to boost it, and it had worked – for a while.

But I said nothin’, and Luggy said less.

‘So it’s like that,’ murmured Prentis. ‘Scratchin’ one another’s backs, as usual.’ He heaved in a big ol’ sigh, like we were disobedient children and he our patient Papa. ‘Well, frankly, I ain’t got no choice but to tell Mr. Garth. I’m sure he won’t be pleased at the damage done to his property, but maybe, if I plead your case, he’ll let you stay on board.’ He got a grin then, looked just like an axe had smashed a hole in his face. ‘Maybe.’

I didn’t move a muscle when I felt Luggy’s cold fingers on my arm. Hopin’ I’d read his intentions right, I just moved to one side, givin’ him enough swingin’ room.

The wrench fell like the hand of God, and split Prentis’ face right in two. He dropped, and said no more.

‘Best get him put away before someone comes lookin’ for him,’ murmured Luggy, as Prentis started to drip. ‘Dangerous place, an engine room. Someone like him, no knowledge ‘bout what he’s doin’, shouldn’t even be down here.’

‘Ain’t that the truth,’ I said, bending to pick up the leg of the former Prentis. Luggy grabbed his arms. Those shiny boots caught my eye one last time as we found a quiet stairway to throw him down, but I left ‘em where they was. Not even I’d deny a man the right to die with his boots on.

Funny, I thought later: for a fella who talked so much, ol’ Prentis weighed less than a whisper, and he went down into the dark without a word.

Book Review Saturday – ‘The Shining Girls’

I can’t quite believe, after so many months of wanting to get my hands on ‘The Shining Girls’, that I’ve finally read it. It’s been experienced. I can never experience it again. Time’s sort of funny like that, isn’t it? It only goes one way.

Unless you’re Harper Curtis, that is.

Image: forbiddenplanet.co.uk

‘The Shining Girls’ has one of the best central ideas I’ve ever heard of – a serial killer who can travel through time, meaning that his crimes are pretty much impossible to connect to one another. In other words, he is untraceable, unstoppable and terrifying. Harper Curtis is this serial killer, a man who has been psychopathic from childhood (a chapter detailing his role in an accident involving his older brother, a truck and an unpulled handbrake was, to me, one of the most chilling episodes in the entire novel – and Harper was only eleven at that time.)

Early in the book, we see him gain access to a mysterious House, one with eerie capability; he comes across the key to this House through committing an act of violence, and that same violence powers the House. At various junctures in the book, when characters peer in the windows, the House looks like a rundown flophouse, ransacked and ramshackle and unfit for human habitation. But when Curtis enters (along with several other characters, who seem to be able to ‘see’ the House properly), it becomes a well-appointed, attractive place with fixtures and fittings from Chicago in the 1930s. When he opens the front door again, Curtis steps out into an entirely different reality, years in the future. The time-travel has sensible limits on it; Curtis is always in Chicago, and he cannot seem to travel to any point earlier than 1929 or later than 1993, but he always has one thing on his mind – the destruction of the Shining Girls.

And who are the Shining Girls? They are young women who burn and sparkle with potential. They are dancers, performers, scientists, journalists, architects, welders, wives, widows, maidens, mothers… all manner of womanhood is here. For reasons we are never truly privy to, these girls must die, and their potential – their shine – must be quenched.

Curtis has been murdering women since the 1930s, taking a token from each woman and leaving it on the body of another victim. When he first arrived in the House, he saw a list of names scrawled on a wall, in his own handwriting, and he knew what he was going to do – in a way, because he had already done it. His actions were inevitable. We encounter him first in 1974, when he meets the six-year-old Kirby Mazrachi, who we know is one of the Shining Girls. The darkness within Curtis as he interacts with the innocent Kirby is like a miasma around him, like a stench emanating from him. I’ve never been so repulsed by a character, and I mean that as a compliment to Lauren Beukes’ writing. We see him give Kirby a plastic horse, a toy which becomes vital to her story at the end of the book, and we know he will be back at some point in her future.

Kirby meets Curtis again in 1989, when he attempts to murder her. Out of all his victims, she is the only one to survive – and, at that, only by pure chance. For a long time Curtis thinks he has been successful in killing her, but when he realises that she survived, he becomes determined to finish what he started.

I wanted to love this novel. It’s exactly the kind of thing I enjoy – time travel, compelling characters (particularly compelling female characters), an excellent core concept, a bit of mystery, psychological intrigue, crime – but I can’t say that I did. I really, really liked it, and I would recommend it, but… I’m not sure. There was something missing, for me, at the end, perhaps as a consequence of having spent so many months looking forward to reading it. Some readers were disappointed by the fact that a lot of the mystery at the core of Curtis’ time travelling ability is left unexplained, but that didn’t bother me at all. I was perfectly willing to accept that this House (it deserves the initial capital, believe me) was able to transport its occupants to any point in its own timeline, and I was perfectly willing to accept that it would draw a man like Harper Curtis to itself in order to carry out the murders it felt were necessary. I loved the concept of the ‘shine’, the potential for greatness that existed within each of the victims, even though they were divided by time, race, sexuality, ability and age; I loved every character (from the point of view of how well they were created, that is, not an actual ‘love’ of their personalities.) I can see why some readers would find it hard to suspend their disbelief, but it didn’t cause any issues for me. I loved how Beukes handled her time-travel. Still, having said all that, something about the ending felt flat.

I don’t want to say too much for fear of giving away pertinent details, because this is the sort of book you really don’t want to spoil for other readers. I will say this much: I read it all in one sitting, I found it hard to put to one side, and Lauren Beukes is a massively talented writer. The story is gripping, though a little hard to keep straight in your head due to the shifting, hopping timelines, and the crime sections are gruesome but extremely compelling. The investigation Kirby launches against the man who almost murdered her is a bit so-so, but the reader has to remember that this part of the book is set in the early 1990s when investigation techniques were not what they are now (I’ve read several reviews of this book which slam her weak investigation into her attacker – but it was a pre-internet age, we can’t forget), and I really enjoyed reading about the lives of the Shining Girls, each of them interesting enough for a novel in their own right.

The book is gory, with scenes of extreme and misogynistic violence, and I do think readers need to be aware of that. It’s not an easy book to read, but it’s a powerful and important book, and as such I would recommend it. The statement Beukes is making – that the world itself conspires, at times, to snuff out the light of its Shining Girls – is one that needs to be heard and heeded.

Happy weekend, y’all. Happy reading!

Tipping Point

Do you think there’s an actual point at which you just can’t take any more bad news?

Image: scq.ubc.ca

I’m a bit of a news junkie. I like to know what’s happening in the world. Most mornings, the first thing I do is turn on the radio to get the early news bulletin so that I can get some idea of the shape of the day. Lately, though, all that’s been happening is one horror after another, culminating this week in one of the saddest news stories I’ve ever heard in my country, a story which will stay at the forefront of my mind for a long time to come. I’m just not sure I can take any more news which breaks me open like a sledgehammer to the chest, and I wonder if I should just stop taking it all in, for a while at least.

I know, before anyone suggests it, that I have a cheek to write a blog post like this when none of these dreadful news stories are about me directly and they have no personal impact on my life – and believe me, I’m aware of how lucky I am – but as a human being who is engaged with the world and who has empathy for her fellows, it does affect me. I have wept painful tears this week at the needless loss of life, the horrors perpetrated on children by their parents, the dreadful sorrow of those left behind after an accident, the waste of humanity that occurs whenever power structures begin to rumble into place and governments rise or fall; I’ve wept because it’s always the powerless, the average person, the individual like me, who is crushed beneath the wheels of change or between the teeth of revolution.

It makes me afraid that one day I won’t be the lucky one any more, and that one day it will come for me, too. It makes me afraid to live in a world where these things can happen. It makes me wonder what I can do, if there’s anything at all, to help.

I am a person with a limited set of skills. I can’t change the world through politics or diplomacy, or with money or influence; all I can do is put words together into sentences, and hope they’re good enough to read. But if everyone did what they could – in fact, if everyone was permitted to do whatever they could, however humble – to add their thread to the picture, then I think we’d be in a much better position. However, because there are so many in the world who are not allowed to add their voice to the collective melody, it’s even more important that all of us who can do something actually do it. I am a privileged person – free, healthy, and protected – and I owe it to those who possess none of these gifts to do whatever is in my power to make the world better for those who will come after us.

I may never be a successful writer, but I hope I’m a successful human being. That, after all, is the most important thing any of us can do.

I hope everything in your corner of the world today is good, and peaceful, and happy, and I also hope that tomorrow, I’ll be in a more positive frame of mind.

Image: welcometoourreality.blogspot.com