Lanny

by Max Porter

Ah, Lanny, my friend, look at these blank pages. Don’t you feel like God at the start of the ages? You could do anything.

Some very old trees round this way. Saints.

Which do you think is more patient, an idea or a hope?

He’s come right back at me with a story about forests knowing if a person’s good or bad. A decent human they’ll keep alive, guiding them to water and food. A bad person they’ll kill in a day, all forces of the forest united against the impure imposter.

Because Dad’s parents are dead do you think he loves us more? Do you think he gives us the spare love he would normally give his mum and dad? Is there extra love for us? No, I think.

I am not brave, I do not fight, have never fought, I work in asset management and only fight in subtle ways on Microsoft Outlook. I’m terrified.

I will close my eyes and draw Lanny on the inside of my eyelids in detail only I am capable of and when I open them I want to see him.

None of us actually feel anything for anyone else. It’s all pretend.

and she realises their life at home, his time at school, what she thought of as his real existence, was only a place he visited.

Like the last speaker of any language he has had to forget in order to survive, but some knowledge of it lives in his marrow.