Leonard and Hungry Paul

by Ronan Hession

‘I think you have to put your relationship first. I mean really first, not just say that it’s No.1 in Valentine’s cards and things like that. I mean, you even have to put it ahead of your kids. Otherwise, you get sucked into being a parent and forget to prioritise your husband or wife and before you know it, you find yourself in the worst situation of all: married with children, but deeply lonely. As you both change, you will periodically lose each other. You need to find each other again and—here’s the trick—instead of trying to rekindle what you had, you need to reinvent yourselves and your relationship. You have to keep starting new relationships with the same person.

the universe, being senior to Hungry Paul in its age and wisdom—by some degree on both counts—had seen fit to reveal itself through happenstance, and so he accepted the inadvertent discovery as a simple question of fate.

He tuned his ears to listen to the ever-present silence itself, rather than the bubbles of noise that floated in it. He began to appreciate its profound scale. All major spiritual and philosophical traditions throughout history had emphasised the value of silence. The universe, whether expanding or contracting, does so amidst a vast ocean of it. The big bang sprang from it and will one day return to it. And yet, silence, for all its ubiquity and timelessness, had found itself at odds with the clamorous nature of modern mankind. This noisy opinionated world had made an enemy of silence: it had become something unwelcome, to be broken or filled.

She really was gone. There would be no more chats or shared little routines. The never-again-ness of that thought played through him and chimed with the sad inner harmony he had awoken to.

‘Me? I’m the one who’s been holding it together all these years! You’ve been floating about like bloody Winnie the Pooh all your life, spending a whole day looking for a fishing rod, or thinking about the shapes clouds make, while Mam and Dad and I deal with money, jobs, problems, y’know, that sort of thing.’ ‘Look. Whatever duty you have imposed on yourself towards me, I now absolve you from it.’ Hungry Paul knighted Grace on each shoulder with the toothbrush and continued, ‘I love you, but I don’t need you to look after me. I haven’t needed you for a very long time. I am not your responsibility. I am not anyone’s responsibility. I am only telling you this now because I think you’re ready to find out that you can’t help me. I am just sorry it took me so long to realise I was holding you back, but not in the way you think. I have been holding you back by letting you hold onto this precious, fictional version of yourself. You’re addicted to your own competence. I should have tried sooner to help you so that you could discover for yourself how impossible it is to help somebody.’

‘We don’t need a family superhero. You have created a world for yourself where you have this load-bearing filial and sisterly duty, but it’s all over now, if it ever truly existed. The film is finished. You can just be Grace. Be whichever Grace you want. Disappoint us if you want. We’ll love you anyway. Yes, our parents will grow old and yes they will get sick and yes they will die, but that will happen to us two as well.