The Discomfort of Evening

by Lucas Rijneveld

I looked at my hands, at their irregular lines. They were still too small to be used for anything other than holding stuff. They still fitted in my parents’ hands but Mum’s and Dad’s didn’t fit in mine. That was the difference between them and me – they could put theirs around a rabbit’s neck, or around a cheese that had just been flipped in its brine. Their hands were always searching for something and if you were no longer able to hold an animal or a person tenderly, it was better to let go and turn your attention to other useful things instead.

No one in the village liked to dwell: the crops might wither, and we only knew about the harvest that came from the land, not about things that grew inside ourselves.

She felt I was good at putting myself in another’s shoes but not so great at kicking off my own and having fun. Sometimes I’d get stuck in the other person for too long because that was easier than staying inside myself.

It’s confusing, but grown-ups are often confusing because their heads work like a Tetris game and they have to arrange all their worries in the right place. When there are too many of them, they pile up and everything gets stuck. Game over.

‘Are you angry?’ ‘No,’ Mum says. ‘Sad?’ ‘No.’ ‘Happy?’ ‘Just normal,’ Mum says, ‘I’m just normal.’

Sadness ends up in your spine.

I’ve discovered that there are two ways of losing your belief: some people lose God when they find themselves; some people lose God when they lose themselves.

You’ve got two kinds of people, those who hold on and those who let go. I belong to the second category. I can only hold on to a person or a memory with the things I collect. I can safely stow them away in my coat pocket.