Tenth of December

by George Saunders

Stood awhile watching, thinking, praying: Lord, give us more. Give us enough. Help us not fall behind peers. Help us not, that is, fall further behind peers. For kids’ sake. Do not want them scarred by how far behind we are. That is all I ask.

If kids raised too cautious, due to paucity, will not world chew them up and spit out?

Someday, I’m sure, dreams will come true. But when? Why not now? Why not?

They were both so scared they weren’t talking at all, which made me feel the kind of shame you know you’re not going to cure by saying sorry, and where the only thing to do is: go out, get more shame.

Based on my experience of life, which I have not exactly hit out of the park, I tend to agree with that thing about, If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. And would go even further, to: Even if it is broke, leave it alone, you’ll probably make it worse.

To me, fiction is the ultimate form of “doing something.” An idea or notion or image leaves the writer’s mind, goes directly into the reader’s, and has the potential to change what it finds there.

In the midst of a crisis is where we get the true measure of a character, and thus some new feeling about human tendency.

Anyway, what I really think good writing does: It enlivens that part of us that actually believes we are in this world, right now, and that being here somehow matters. It reawakens the reader to the fact and the value of her own existence. How? Hmm. Well, maybe just by holding the things of the world up for examination in a semi-sacred way.