Fiction in Lit Up

International Truth & Reconciliation

What would happen if we all confessed and started again?

She looked over her glasses at me, crossed her office-skirted legs, and hovered a pen over a clipboard.

!So tell me everything. Everything bad you’ve ever done in your life. Legal, illegal, violent, abusive. Tell me who you’ve hurt. Men, women, animals, inanimate objects. Don’t leave anything out. Bring it all up. Lay it flat. Bare your soul. You can trust me. This is the only way. We all do bad things. We all have a past. We all have a history.”

I sized her up, and was very quiet. I couldn’t see a hint of darkness in her soul. Everyone who sits with a clipboard and analyses your pros and cons thinks they can relate.

In their heads that time they smeared cream all over their cat when they were four years old qualifies them to ask others with an open understanding of terrible deeds.

These thoughts got me talking in a ranty way.

“Listen, I bet the worst thing you’ve ever done was shout at your mum when you were 17, burst into tears, and beg for forgiveness. I’m right, aren’t I?”

She shook her head and clicked her pen a few times. Then four times. That’s pretty bad. I had to admit…