My Friends

by Fredrik Backman

They had nowhere to go, they were too small and the planet wasn’t big enough for them to run from that man.

He jumped up and down on the pier and just screamed out loud with joy. How many reasons do you get to do that in an entire life?

“Maybe it isn’t the wrong direction for him,” Joar’s mom said tentatively. “How do you know it’s a boy?” Ali asked. “Because it’s flying in the wrong direction,” Joar’s mom smiled.

For a moment he seeks shelter under the tree, like people do in movies, but that doesn’t help at all. Trees are far less loyal in real life.

“Can I ask you something?” “Can I stop you?”

Sometimes we remember the last moments before a great catastrophe as more beautiful than they actually were.

“But why do you have two, then?” Ali repeated. “Typically smart of men to have their own spare parts,” Ted smiled.

“Typical of men to need spare parts,” Ali pointed out.

problem. If anyone had asked Ali, she would probably have said that it was typical of a boy to believe that everyone could read his thoughts simply because he had so few, but in Joar’s defense, she probably wouldn’t have listened if he had explained what he was thinking in advance anyway.

It’s hard to tell a story, particularly when it doesn’t end happily for everyone. Ted

But for Ted it’s impossible to come home now, he realizes, because home was the people.

way people do when they belong to each other, as if it’s more natural to touch each other than not to.

That’s the worst thing about having a vivid imagination: it works in all directions.

Because the human body is so tough but so soft, we’re a lethal animal yet completely unprotected. Fists and elbows can break ribs and crush jaws, one blow to the temple can mean the end, one single unguarded moment can extinguish a brain. One single really hard blow is enough. We think we’re so big, but we’re small, fragile, pathetic.

Time weighs more when you’re little.

He never stood a chance. Joar was dangerous, but the world was more dangerous. The world is undefeated.

There is a particular way of missing someone, the way you can only miss your best humans when you’re fourteen years old, when you go your separate ways outside your houses and your skin feels cold when they turn away.

The world is full of miracles, but none greater than how far a young person can be carried by someone else’s belief in them.

“I’m fat, you’re ugly, at least I can go on a diet,” Joar retorts, quick as a flash.

“We are NOT the same age. We might have lived the same number of years, but we sure as hell aren’t the same age. You’ve been eighty years old since we were twelve.”

It’s a funny thing. The person we fall in love with, we hardly ever call by their name. Because it’s somehow just so obvious that it’s you I’m talking to, that it’s you I’m always thinking of. Who else?

“The biggest threat to men’s health, statistically, is heart disease,” Ted says thoughtfully at the kitchen table. “Do you know what the biggest threat to women’s health is?” “Men,” Louisa says, because all women know that.

The coffee cup spins around, around on the kitchen table, leaving wounds in the wood. Louisa thinks about the men who stood there outside Joar’s apartment building, and she thinks about Fish telling her what evil among men is like: It’s like water being heated up a little at a time. It gets worse and worse, but so slowly it’s hardly noticeable, so everyone can convince themselves that it’s probably normal, until we’re all boiling.

“Time’s such a damn thief, you don’t notice what it’s stealing from you,”

“Damned if I know… I don’t even think all the people who go to church every Sunday believe in God. I think they just need company. To feel that they belong to a group.” Kimkim nodded gently and replied: “But I don’t think that means that God doesn’t exist, Joar. I think maybe that’s what God is.”

“How old are you?” “Eighteen.” He snorts. “And you don’t know what to do with shitloads of money? Damn, you’re a bad teenager. Buy a sports car! And drugs! Start a zoo! I would have bought a bunch of monkeys. You can’t be in a bad mood if you’ve got a bunch of monkeys. Especially not if you’ve also got drugs.”

She said people like her and me couldn’t be with each other, because you can’t both be broken and crazy. You need to have one of you who’s ordinary.”

“But you never found anyone?” “I never looked.” “Was Ali your first love?” “My last.”

“There. That’s the house I live in when I’ve sold the painting and got all the money. With my friend Fish.” “Fish?” Louisa nods, but then she looks embarrassed. “Yes. Only she’s dead. Can you live with dead people in this game?” Joar nods.

Then she leaned against his neck so that he disappeared in all her hair, and she said: “Now you know that you don’t want to die either. You’re not allowed to, okay? If you die before I come back here, I’ll beat you to death!” “Come back here?” he teased. “Why would you come back here? Aren’t you going to live in a big house with someone ordinary?” “One day maybe we can be ordinary enough, you and me,” she whispered.

“Forget you?” Ted mumbled. “We can’t even remember a life before you turned up. How could we forget you?”

Disappointment is a powerful thing. Used correctly, it is stronger than fear, more terrible than physical pain, if you see it in the eyes of the one you love, you’ll do almost anything to make it stop.

“The army ought to find a way to use disappointment as a weapon,” Joar says up on the roof.

The four friends had stood there thinking that that was nice of the guard, to give them that chance, but above all to think that they had an adult they could call.

“Did you get over it? Christian dying?” The woman shakes her head sadly. “No, no, my dear. You never get over death. Not if you’re someone who loves. But it’s easier if you’re a parent. Then you don’t have a choice. I have another child, Christian’s younger sister, I have grandchildren now.

People always say that you should live as if every day was your last, but when you have children you realize that you have to live as if every day was their first. That’s hard for you to understand, you’re only a child yourself—”

No one who’s had any training paints like that! Art doesn’t require training, dear child, art just needs friends.”

it horrible being an adult?” the girl asked. “Unbearable,” the mother replied. “You fail with almost everything, all the time.”

That’s the worst thing about death, that it happens over and over again. That the human body can cry forever.

“It’s art that helps me cope. Because art is a fragile magic, just like love, and that’s humanity’s only defense against death. That we create and paint and dance and fall in love, that’s our rebellion against eternity. Everything beautiful is a shield. Vincent van Gogh wrote: ‘I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.’ ”

Tomas Transtromer: “Don’t be ashamed to be a human being—be proud! Inside you one vault after another opens endlessly. You’ll never be complete, and that’s as it should be.”

She goes to art galleries, she cries, she finds out how hard her heart can beat.