And Then I Woke Up

by Malcolm Devlin

When I say this is a love story, I mean this is a story about someone who believed in something impossible and beautiful and dangerous with such strength of character and devotion that they followed the thread of it all the way to the very end, no matter what the world threw at them. Whichever way you try to tell it, that sounds like a love story to me.

Isn’t it beautiful how stories can work like that? The subtle way they help the teller, the subversive way they reach the listener, how they creep inside you like waking dreams.

Macey once told me the problem with the truth was that it was so poorly written. Given the choice, the pleasantly told lie is always more seductive. That’s why religion is so potent, she said. Why history and science are still considered up for debate. Myth is more appealing than verified truth because the grey areas between the facts can still be used against us.

History is one long string of stories honed to sharpen one side over another.

And then, I suppose, you could say I wake up and I see my place in relation to everything else is tiny, insignificant, mostly known for having followed the straightest path without thought and done harm to others. My favourite dreams are the ones in which I’m forgiven. I wonder if it’s because I always wake from them a moment before they turn sour.

What if this is my new narrative? All of us here in our cosy little haven? What if we’ve simply succumbed to a different, more benign story, with Awad as our believer? What if our very idea of what “being cured” means is wrong, and that rather than turning the signal off, we’ve done little more than to change the channel?