Fiction: Ten-year-old Narois’s mother is preparing to leave, while her father struggles to adapt

How about starting from the end? What if, in life, we could be taught to run a sprint, check out the ending, run back and be wise? Would it make life one dreary dull time? No surprises, no scary moments. What if your parents are sitting on a sofa under which a timebomb ticks? In that case, would it be such a bad idea to know? To know how it is all going to end?

Here’s a fact: we don’t choose our parents. We don’t choose what becomes of them either.

Sometimes I wonder: could I, Vera Narois, ten-yearold pianist with a friend problem, only child of Imon and Danish – two pixelated, hazy shadows who belong nowhere, not even to themselves – possibly have known the true meaning of sadness?

First, I ask, do we really know what we know? Second, is meaning essential to know what we do know?

Sadness is not a bicycle that you learn to ride, and once you have learnt it, you cross over to the other side and become a sadcyclist.

Sadness is a smell, a colour, a person. It is singular, plural, common and proper. Onion rings in your gravy may make you sad one day and then...

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