Jasper Jones

by Craig Silvey

See, most people you meet, they’ll talk to you through fifty layers of gauze and tinting. Sometimes you know they’re lying even before they’ve started speaking.

‘But you can’t not know it. Which is probably why they made up all that rubbish about heaven, to make people feel better about the whole thing. When Cheeses started saying, “Oh, you know, don’t worry. It’s not all over. After this stuff, you get to sit on a cloud and learn the harp and play volleyball in the nude, as long as you’re good,” everyone just nodded and smiled and worried about behaving themselves instead.’

That’s what I think prayer is all about. It doesn’t matter which stories they believe in, they’re all doing that same thing, kind of casting a line out to outer space, like there’s something out there to connect to and their worries are echoed back as comfort by something that knows better. It’s like people make themselves part of something bigger that way, and maybe it makes them less afraid.’

‘Right. I guess it must be comforting to actually believe in God and Jesus and all that. It must fill in all that space so you don’t have to worry about it anymore. But it’s a bit like closing a door when there’s a cold draught, isn’t it? It’s still cold out there, it’s just that you don’t notice anymore because you’re warm.’

But, see, that’s what I reckon God really is, Charlie. It’s that part inside me that’s stronger and harder than anything else. And I reckon prayer is just trustin in it, havin faith in it, just askin meself to be tough.

Sorry means you feel the pulse of other people’s pain, as well as your own, and saying it means you take a share of it. And so it binds us together, makes us as trodden and sodden as one another. Sorry is a lot of things. It’s a hole refilled. A debt repaid. Sorry is the wake of misdeed. It’s the crippling ripple of consequence. Sorry is sadness, just as knowing is sadness. Sorry is sometimes self-pity. But Sorry, really, is not about you. It’s theirs to take or leave. Sorry means you leave yourself open, to embrace or to ridicule or revenge. Sorry is a question that begs forgiveness, because the metronome of a good heart won’t settle until things are set right and true. Sorry doesn’t take things back, but it pushes things forward. It bridges the gap. Sorry is sacrament. It’s an offering. A gift.

just happened in her room? What was the ruckus? Why had she been