Excerpt From The Bad Book Affair by Ian Samson in Hello

George paused, just for a moment, and Israel realized: it was the pause. The pause that everyone dreads, and that everyone knows ultimately is coming, and whose meaning is as clear as any outpouring of how many words; the total eloquence of a moment’s silence.
“No?” said Israel.
“I’m so sorry,” said George.
“No!” said Israel.
George averted her gaze
“Oh, no.”
“I know you were fond of him.”
“But…I was…just. I just saw him yesterday.”
“I know.”
George reached out and patted Israel’s arm, and it was the touch that was like the pause, a touch entirely expressive and direct in meaning: the black spot, the bad news, the curse. And it suddenly brought everything back, the way she touched him: the day his father died. He was thirteen. His mother. They were in the front room. They had this new sofa–almost as if it’s been born into the room. And he was there, sitting on the sofa. He’d been watching TV. His father had been in the hospital for some time. But Israel still somehow had no idea his father was going to die; it just hadn’t occurred to him. He’d thought it was like in a television drama–that it was a difficult story, but that everything sorted itself out at the end. As if life were like a drama. Like Dawson’s Creek. And his mum was sitting on the sofa next to him, and she was saying his name, and there was a pause, and she ruffled his hair, and he somehow knew in that moment everything didn’t sort itself out. That things went wrong and couldn’t be put right, that beyond crisis there was…nothing. Darkness. And everything after that moment, after his father’s death, seemed to lose its color, as if someone had literally put on a filter that had blocked out the light. As though a cloud has passed over. And the colors had never quite returned. As though the world was on mute. Which is why he read books. That’s when he’d become a serious reader. To try and regain the color. But he never could regain the color. The books always promised they would help him regain the color–as though the stories could somehow redeem things. But they never could. So he had to read more and more books, just in case the next book was going to be be the one that made the colors return. Thirteen. Which was when he’d started suffering from migraines. And he started putting on weight. And retreating. Into a sort of long insomnia. Which was why, ultimately, he was here. Nowhere. With the touch and the pause, awakening him again to grief.

Beautifully written, in my opinion.
For a fish out of water comedy, that hits.

Last updated June 30, 2024