The Deal of a Lifetime

by Fredrik Backman

If we’re asked, “Are all lives worth the same?” the majority of us will reply with a resounding “Yes!” But only until someone points to a person we love and asks: “What about that life?” Does it make a difference if I killed a good person? A loved person? A valuable life? If it was a child?

When five-year-old girls die, no one writes about that, there aren’t any memorials in the evening papers, their feet are still too small, they haven’t had time to make anyone care about their footsteps yet.

It’s so easy to kill someone, all a person like me needs is a car and a few seconds. Because people like you trust me, you drive thousands of kilos of metal at hundreds of kilometers an hour, hurtling through the darkness with the people you love most sleeping in the backseat, and when someone like me approaches from the opposite direction, you trust that I don’t have bad brakes. That I’m not looking for my phone between the seats, not driving too fast, not drifting between lanes because I’m blinking the tears from my eyes. That I’m not sitting on the slip road to the 111 with my headlights out, just waiting for a lorry. You trust me. That I’m not drunk. That I’m not going to kill you.

“Don’t be brave. If you’re scared, be scared. All survivors are.”

I’m not evil, even I understand that cancer should have an age limit.

You were always someone who could be happy. You don’t know how much of a blessing that is.

Happy people don’t create anything, their world is one without art and music and skyscrapers, without discoveries and innovations. All leaders, all of your heroes, they’ve been obsessed. Happy people don’t get obsessed, they don’t devote their lives to curing illnesses or making planes take off. The happy leave nothing behind. They live for the sake of living, they’re only on earth as consumers. Not me.

You humans always think you’re ready to give your lives, but only until you understand what that really involves. You’re obsessed with your legacy, aren’t you? You can’t bear to die and be forgotten.”

“You’re not scared. You’re just grieving. No one tells you humans that your sorrow feels like fear.”