The Promise

by Damon Galgut

What is it you want? To travel, to learn, to write poems and lead nations, he wants to grab hold of everything, all of it is possible, he wants to eat the world. But a tiny sourness at the back of his throat seems always to have been there, though his life is pure and mild as milk. Wherefrom this curdling? There is a lie at the heart of everything and I have just discovered it in myself. Spit it out.