Do Not Say We Have Nothing

by Madeleine Thien

He stopped running, his hands up for them to see. His daughter, his wife. What had any of them done that was criminal? Hadn’t they done their best to listen and to believe? There was nothing in his hands and never had been. The crack of the gun was delayed and came to him too late, but the sound gave him the sensation of closing a thousand doors behind him. Light from the tanks found him, as if they could collect all the irreconcilable parts of his life. No matter how many lights they shone, they could never take away the darkness. Daylight was blinding, but in the dark he still existed. What did they see, he wondered, his hands still open. Of all the people he had loved and who had loved him, of all the things that he had witnessed, lived and hoped for, of all the music he had created, how much was it possible to see?