10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

by Elif Shafak

‘Good girl,’ said the midwife. ‘What took you so long? Cry, my dear. Never be ashamed of your tears. Cry and everyone knows you’re alive.’

Little did she yet understand that the end of childhood comes not when a child’s body changes with puberty, but when her mind is finally able to see her life through the eyes of an outsider.

If there was a God up there, He must be laughing His head off at a human race capable of making atomic bombs and building artificial intelligence, but still uncomfortable with their own mortality and unable to sort out what to do with their dead.

‘Grief is a swallow,’ he said. ‘One day you wake up and you think it’s gone, but it’s only migrated to some other place, warming its feathers. Sooner or later, it will return and perch in your heart again.’

‘Not at all. We must do what we can to mend our lives, we owe that to ourselves – but we need to be careful not to break others while achieving that.’

If she were summoned by God one day, and had a chance to sit in His presence, she would love to ask Him just one simple question: ‘Why did you allow Yourself to be so widely misunderstood, my beautiful and merciful God?’