Tin Man

by Sarah Winman

But hadn’t the road always been a point of tension between east and west? Two ends of the spectrum, the haves and have-nots, whether it be faith or money or tolerance.

all of the above...still relevant today....humanity has not been able to grow up

The armchairs might have been re-covered but tug away the maroon and navy fabric and the melancholic imprint of the past was still there.

so true...of humanity and it's trappings of hypocrisy

Men and boys should be capable of beautiful things. Never forget that, you two, she said,

i think this very adult idea is getting battered again by the christian nationalists and trumpaholics...for no reason other than they are incapable of reason

he clung to her every word as if they were handholds up a cliff face.

beautiful and intense description

Her eyes were sunken and the light they emitted was dusk not dawn. She was thinner too, sharp around her temples, her nose more pronounced. Really, though, it was about her touch and gaze, because when either fell on him, neither wanted to let him go.

it took my breath away

He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t cry. Staring at the floor, struggling to remember the color of his mother’s eyes, just something to hold on to, but he couldn’t. Only later would Michael tell him they were green.

a very painful and traumatic fear...losing someone in their entirety

They sat there quietly, not talking about death, or the kiss, or how life was going to change. They watched the shifting colors of the sun and the deep shadows eavesdropped on their grief, and the vivid descant of birdsong slowly muted to unimaginable silence.

unimaginably beautiful and sad

A brief window, not yet shattered, when music still stirred, when beer still tasted good, when dreams could still be hatched at the sight of a plane careering across a perfect summer sky.

life...it is just concentric circles

There’s a line of fat around my belly that wasn’t there a few weeks ago, and my abs used to be harder, too, more defined. If I was describing myself, I’d say this body has seen better days.

definitely can relate to that

He’s all bone, a T-cell count of zero. What keeps him alive, God only knows, the memory of living, I suppose. Every victory over infection we’ve celebrated, only to be dumped by a wave of despair a week or so later, as the mercury rose again. I know if he goes into hospital he won’t come out, but we said our good-byes long ago. The morphine drips and I whisper sweet everythings to him.

it's the hard facts. it's the inevitable ending. but right now is everything

I can’t do deadlines when everyone is dying. I actually wrote that on my resignation letter. How grand was I? I thought it captured the mood of the day, a mix of the political, the desperate, the personal. Eventually, I put down the wineglass and redrafted.

so true

I said to him that just because you can’t remember doesn’t mean the past isn’t out there. All those precious moments are still there somewhere.

such comforting words

That my father had said so little had been the wound, though. For him there was nothing to discuss because discussion would have made the moment real, just as my mother’s departure had been so real. Instead, I was swept under the carpet to join her.

there are 8billion of us, and we all think and act differently

Abandoned by the rage that fueled me, I’m consumed by an overwhelming sadness that’s left me unanchored in the middle of the pool. And there I cry for everyone. For Chris, for G, for my mother and father and Mabel, and for the nameless faces that fall away each year.

it is overwhelming to realize just how tiny, and almost invisible, we all are.

I wonder what the sound of a heart breaking might be. And I think it might be quiet, unperceptively so, and not dramatic at all. Like the sound of an exhausted swallow falling gently to earth.

ohhhhh, such poetry in that image

I felt the gratitude of a stray dog brought into a family.

that undying love and gratitude of a stray dog can never be replicated by humans

I’ve missed you, he says. In my chest, the sound of an exhausted swallow falling gently to earth.

such powerful heartache but in such a beautiful way.