DEATH OF THE AUTHOR
Liefdevol omringd door zijn gezin is, na een lange periode waarin hij zichzelf langzaamaan
verloor, kalm ingeslapen mijn lieve man, onze zorgzame vader, schoonvader, trotse
grootvader en overgrootvader.
Any important thing should start with a cup of coffee.
The small coffee shop that sits opposite my home is run by a family friend of forty or so
years; I can’t quite remember the details. All I knew was that he knows me well enough to
have a coffee ready every morning at the same time before I go to work.
I can’t seem to find the key despite my familiarity with the lock that fits it. My lateness for
work hurries me on in a desperate bid to seem on top of things again, but I can feel my
body failing once more. I’ve forgotten my keys. My memory is not what it once was, but at
least it helps that I never locked the door in the first place.
The workshop is as I left it, the centrepiece in the form of a prototype gas heater. I stumble
over a wrench left there for me by a broken hook. It screeches across the floor, dragging
curdled sparks across the cold lifeless room. I notice the letter left halfway across the floor
by the wrench. I stoop over to pick it up and notice the return address to a gas corporation
that knew my letters well. This was the first I had got from them.
Rejected.
Sledgehammers always feel oddly heavy in our hands; one would expect such a crucial
tool to feel more capable of human use. It seems my gas heater wasn’t. I made sure every
worker in a hundred-metre radius knew this. That would have been the case if it weren’t a
weekend.
Snow always presented a problem in my working conditions but today it could have
bothered me less. The cold half full coffee cup I left on my bike bothered me much more.
Wasted potential. My wife sensed this when I got back. That and the hanging of my keys
in her hand as I arrived. Warm embraces with cold empty coffee cups in between; each a
singular moment not unlike my earlier affinity with sledgehammers.
‘I’m sorry, I assume you got an unfavourable reply’
You have little to apologize for. How has the writing been going?
‘Fine, but I was actually at Claire’s house this morning.’
Sorry, I forgot that you were organising the wedding.
21