The Book of Tomorrow

And that is how the Goodwin problems were always fixed. Fix them on the surface but don’t go to the root, always ignoring the elephant in the room.

Hope like that, as I thought before, doesn’t make you a weak person. It’s hopelessness that makes you weak. Hope makes you stronger, because it brings with it a sense of reason. Not a reason for how or why they were taken from you, but a reason for you to live. Because it’s a maybe. A ‘maybe someday things won’t always be this shit.’ And that ‘maybe’ immediately makes the shittiness better.

Of course she doesn’t want life to go on while she’s sitting up there in that bedroom. It’s only when you come outside and realise life is moving on, that you just have to go with the flow

rite what’s up there,’ Sister Ignatius pointed at her temple, ‘and what’s in there,’ she pointed at her heart. ‘As a great man once called it, ‘’a secret garden.’’ We’ve all got one of those.’

Would you prefer to be given a life already lived too, Tamara? That way you can sit back and observe it. Or would you rather live it yourself?’ she asked, her eyes smiling.

o throw in the towel

Many won’t struggle to believe it, though, for their minds have been opened; unlocked by whatever kind of key causes people to believe. Those people are either born that way or, as babies, when their minds are like little buds, they are nurtured until their petals slowly open and prepare for the very nature of life to feed them. As the rain falls and the sun shines, they grow, grow, grow; minds so open, they go through life aware and accepting, seeing light where there’s dark,

seeing possibility in dead ends, tasting victory as others spit out failure, questioning when others accept. Just a little less jaded, a little less cynical. A little less likely to throw in the towel. Some people’s minds open later in life, through tragedy or triumph. Either thing acting as the key to unlatch and lift the lid on that know-it-all box, to accept the unknown, to say goodbye to pragmatism and straight lines

ve heard people say that when they dream about a loved one that has died, they feel that it’s real, that the person is really there, sending them a message, giving them a hug. That somehow dreams are a blurred line between here and there, like a meeting room in a prison. You’re both in the same room, yet on different sides and in different worlds.

I think that morning was when I realized I’d grown up with an elephant in every room of my life. It was practically our family pet.