The End of Men

by Christina Sweeney-Baird

We need a holiday. Now that we’re in our mid-thirties I seem to say that every fortnight, even when we’ve just had a holiday.

becoming an academic meant a lifetime of homework

‘If she’s bringing it up then it’s not ridiculous. She’s not ridiculous.’

it is a massive red cape that we should all be watching carefully for the bull just behind it.

I’ve got a cottage by the sea, enough tins stocked up to last me six months and very few shits left to give.

Whenever my daughter asks me what my job is like, I say that my job isn’t just boring, my job is to be boring.

I can see the beginnings of insanity from here.

The way he knew, even when we were teenagers and he had no right to such wisdom, that love is more than fireworks and declarations. It is steady, certain sureness. It is knowing that you are loved. It is knowing that you are not alone.

“You go no more on your exultant feet Up paths that only mist and morning knew, Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat Of a bird’s wings too high in the air to view, —But you were something more than young and sweet And fair, — and the long year remembers you.”’

I have never felt so powerful. This must be what men used to feel like. My mere physical presence is enough to terrify someone into running. No wonder they used to get drunk on it.

‘If you manage to escape death by a few days, I consider it rude to refuse such good fortune.’

It’s the end of men.

The deal with communism is that someone makes sure you have food and a job, in return for your freedom.

The harder you work, the luckier you get.’

Fear takes the promise of adulthood out of a child’s face, I find.

I think no one handed me any of this. I built this weird, challenging, rewarding life in London for myself. Why not me?

‘I’m hanging on by a thread here, let’s not snip it.’

It’s going to be a bit less satisfying being right when my former enemies are almost all dead. But still, some satisfaction will no doubt shine through.

You’re not meant to profit from the apocalypse.

tragedy doesn’t immunise you against further tragedy.’

‘Remarkable what the threat of no sugar or booze can do for people’s moral compasses, isn’t it?

‘Bad things and good things can coexist,’ Amaya says with a sad smile. ‘And we have to find the good where we can.’

Surviving and living a life I want are very different things.

Ah, the confidence of the mediocre white man.

‘I like to ask, so you know they’re not forgotten,’ Poppy says. ‘You remember them and now so do I.’

A human need, thousands of years old, to be known. I was here.

When people ask me what I’m researching for I should be honest. Remembrance: mine and theirs.

I used to love true crime podcasts; now they’re too heavy. I don’t want to hear about miscarriages of justice. Life has been a miscarriage of justice

Is she a wife or a cheerleader? Perhaps he thinks they’re the same thing.

Just remember, fertility is a game of fortune and chance. It’s not a moral failing.’

‘You know, the world doesn’t have to remember you for you to matter. We were loved by those we loved. Not everyone can say that,’ she tells me softly.

Perhaps some traumas are too overwhelming to recover from.’