Private Rites

by Julia Armfield

It is an accepted belief that things fall apart. The question of whether the falling apart is necessary is separate and usually secondary. People still discuss this, of course: the fact of the turn, the moment a warning mutated into the only possible outcome. When, people ask, was the last time you remember thinking Oh, it’s raining again. When was your last real sunburn, your last flying ant day, your last good look at the stars. It is easy to think about these things, recollections of things passing fast from your grip, and decide they are simply too much to acknowledge. Easy to imagine inevitability when in fact there might once have been any number of options. It was always going to turn out this way, spoken like a charm against pain, against memory. Sweat and sun feel like virtue, like expiation, so now damp and rain feel like failure, like an opportunity for some great act of heroism missed. Better, all things considered, to turn away from the fact of before until the thought fades again, the way a headache can suddenly cease, and all that exists is the now. The great washout of the world and no sense that it might have been otherwise.