Britt-Marie Was Here

Because life is more than the shoes your feet are in. More than the person you are. It’s the togetherness. The parts of yourself in another. Memories and walls and cupboards and drawers with compartments for cutlery, so you know where everything is.

If a human being closes her eyes she can remember all the choices in her life. And realize they have all been for the sake of someone else.

Death is powerlessness. Powerlessness is desperation. Desperate people choose desperate measures.

Because that is what women like Britt-Marie do. They find the strength when they have to do something for others.

If a human being closes her eyes she can remember all the choices in her life. And realize they have all been for the sake of someone else.

She knows that once upon a time he did care. That was back in the days when he still looked at her as if he knew she was there. It’s difficult to know when love blooms; suddenly one day you wake up and it’s in full flower. It works the same way when it wilts—one day it is just too late. Love has a great deal in common with balcony plants in that way. Sometimes not even baking soda makes a difference.

It’s January in a place that is one of millions rather than one in a million. A place like all the others, and a place like no other.

ank’s stick pokes at the coach person by accident the first time, and possibly a little less by accident the following five times. The woman looks concerned.

“I may be many things, Sami, but I’m no idiot.”

But then Omar utters those golden words that have the magical power to obliterate every child’s self-restraint anywhere in the world:
“You don’t have the guts to do it!”