Appendix 13 · free

Fifteen scenes.

What it looks like when it really happens.

G.0 Why a scene, and not an explanation

This book has one weakness: it explains too much. This appendix was made differently because of that. It has no concepts, no terms and no tables. Just fifteen short scenes — one for each stage — and one sentence below each.

The scene is read quickly. What stays in it stays longer than any definition.

G.1 Three years old, in the hallway

The mother stands at the door, in a coat, bag in hand. She has somewhere to be. The child is stuck to her shoe and won't let go of her leg.

— Get up.

— I won't.

— Get up, please. You'll ruin everything.

— I won't!

— Come on, please, not now.

And then, when nothing helps, the mother says what is always said: — If you get up, you'll be good. Mum will bring you something nice.

The child gets up. He hasn't learned that the hallway is safe. He has learned that there is a price.

G.2 Five years old, trembling

It is minus four outside. The child is in a thin jacket because he refused the thick one this morning.

— I'm cold.

— You're not cold, you wanted the thin one.

The child says nothing more. He hasn't learned that there is a difference between “I wanted” and “I'm cold”. He has learned that his feeling is not data.

G.3 Eight years old, listening to adults talk about him

He sits at the table, eating, and hears his aunt say: — He's just like his father. Just like. Look at him, under his eyebrows.

The mother laughs and says nothing. The child keeps eating and doesn't lift his head. He hasn't learned that he is “like his father”. He has learned that something about him is seen better by others than by himself. And that it shouldn't be talked about.

G.4 Ten years old, in front of the blackboard

He doesn't know the answer. The teacher sighs and says, in front of everyone: — So you did this at home. Didn't you?

Twenty-eight pupils laugh. Someone says something quietly. The child looks at his shoe and thinks: now I'll faint or cry, I just don't know which comes first.

Later, at home, when asked “how was school”, he says: — Good. He hasn't learned the mathematics. He has learned how to be good when it isn't.

G.5 Fourteen years old, looking at her phone

She sent a message to her friend at 20:14. She sees it was read at 20:16. It is now 22:40 and there is no answer.

In the meantime she has been through everything. Someone said she said something stupid. Someone said she was boring. Someone said her friend found a better group. Someone said she was always too much trouble. Someone said she would stay alone.

At 22:41 the answer arrives: “omg sorry, I was in the bathroom, fell asleep 😴”.

This time there was nothing. But she has already learned that 20:14–22:40 is the confirmation she waits for since she was thirteen.

G.6 Seventeen years old, first in love

He doesn't know what to say. He stands in front of the school. She passes. He looks at her shoes.

Later he confesses to another: — What would I say to her. I have nothing to offer. And the other says: — Don't be silly. And that is all anyone will say to him about it.

He hasn't learned that he was rejected. He has learned that he shouldn't try until he has something to offer.

G.7 Twenty-two years old, the first CV

He writes “I know computers”. Deletes it. He writes “basic knowledge”. Deletes it. After half an hour he leaves: “Communicative, ready to learn, a team player.”

At the interview, when they ask about salary, he says: — Well… what do you think.

He gets the job. He works well. After a year he should ask for a raise — he doesn't ask.

He hasn't learned to negotiate. He has learned to ask “what do you think” — because asking about himself was rude.

G.8 Twenty-eight years old, twelve-hour days

The boss said: — You're the best in the team, I can't do this project without you. It was the nicest thing he had heard all year.

And so he stays three more months, and three more. On Friday evening, in the car, he thinks: if I leave, they'll fail. Then he smiles, because he knows they wouldn't fail. And he didn't leave for two more years.

He hasn't learned that the praise was a chain. He has learned that he must not disappoint.

G.9 Thirty-three years old, everything on him

A loan. Two children. A father who has started to forget. A wife working two shifts.

On Sunday evening he sits in the car in front of the building and doesn't get out. He doesn't cry. He just sits, engine on, for twenty minutes. Then he goes in and says: — Hello. What's for dinner?

That wasn't a breakdown. It was the only part of the day that was his.

G.10 Thirty-six years old, a child crying in the shop

The child sits on the floor between the shelves and cries. People look. She feels her face burning.

— Calm down. Calm down. Calm down!

The child cries louder. She lifts him, leaves the shop, and at home — when it settles and he falls asleep — sits on the edge of the bed and thinks: for three seconds I hated him. And then she cries, for the first time in a year.

She wasn't a bad mother. She was a person without a free hour, to whom someone had just shown what all of it carries.

G.11 Thirty-nine years old, signing

A twenty-year loan. A flat, sixty-two square metres, on the edge of town. Everything is fine: the instalment is 340 euros, the salary 900, there is enough for living.

The clerk at the bank is kind and says: — This is a big step for you. Congratulations.

He signs, and feels relief — for the first time in a long while. And the relief came because he had stopped searching, not because he had found.

He wasn't deceived. He was accurate. But from that day on, if someone at work asked for something outside the description, he thought first of the instalment.

I mustn't.

G.12 Forty-four years old, not going to the doctor

For a month his chest has been hurting. Not all the time — in the morning, when he wakes up. Every day he says: it will pass.

On Wednesday he went to the pharmacy, bought something for blood pressure, and didn't measure it. His daughter asked: — Dad, did you go to the doctor? He said: — It's nothing. Stress. And she said: — Good.

And he knew it wasn't good. He knew it while saying it. And he went to the doctor six years later, with a report that could have been smaller.

I'm not the one for that.

G.13 Fifty-two years old, his mother died

He was calm at the funeral. Shook hands, thanked people, received condolences. He didn't cry — not then, not a week later, not a year later.

Then, two years later, in the car, at a traffic light, he heard something on the radio — a song from the seventies — and stopped, and cried for ten minutes, and couldn't move.

What he said, when he could speak: — I never asked her how she was. I asked her a hundred times “how are you”, but never how she was.

It wasn't a lack of love. It was a lack of the sentence that was never said in that house.

Prove it to me.

G.14 Fifty-six years old, her son left

The room stayed the same for a week. Then she began to tidy it. First the box of posters. Then the sneakers he doesn't wear. Then the books. One T-shirt stayed on the chair, and she couldn't take it. She called him three times that week.

The first time it was fine. The second time he said: — Mum, I'm working. The third time he didn't answer, and sent a message.

Then she told her husband: — I don't need anyone any more. And he said: — You need me. And she said: — That's not the same.

And that was the truth. She wasn't ungrateful. She was a person for whom, for twenty years, identity was one job — and the job was finished.

Just a little more.

G.15 Sixty-three years old, alone in a room

Everything is tidy. The bills are paid. The flat is clean. The children are well, they call on Sundays.

And one afternoon, without reason, he thinks: I have everything. And I have nothing left.

Don't be afraid. He isn't sad. There is no reason — and that is the worst of it: no reason, and therefore no one to tell.

Then he gets up and goes to fix what doesn't need fixing. Because fixing has a purpose, and the afternoon doesn't.

This isn't the end. This is the quietest moment in the book, and it usually lasts two years — before something appears that will seem important.

What remains?

What is common to all fifteen?

No scene has a criminal. No alcoholics, no abusers, no deceivers. There isn't one person you could mark and close the question with.

There are people who did what they knew how to do, at a moment when they had nothing better. And that is why this book is heavy: there is no one to judge in it.

And when there is no one to judge, one thing remains — to see what happened, and to decide what you will do with it from now on. That is all. Fifteen scenes, and one sentence below each. The rest is your work, and your right.