Saturday 21 January 2012

Death At Intervals - Short Story

While reading Death at intervals by José Saramago, I got to this touching chapter where the writer tells a little story:

"Once upon a time, in the ancient land of fables,there was a family consisting of a father,a mother,a grandfather who was the father's father,and a child of eight,a little boy.Now the grandfather was very old and because of that his hands shook and when he was at table he sometimes dropped his food,to the great irritation of his son and his daughter-in-law,who were always telling him to eat more carefully,but the poor old man, however hard he tried, could not stop his shaking,which only got worse when they told him off,and so he was always staining the tablecloth or dropping food on the floor,not to mention on the napkin they tied around his neck and which they had to change three times a day,at lunch,dinner and supper.
This was how things stood,with no hope of improvement,when the son decided to put a stop to the unpleasant situation.He arrived home with a wooden bowl and said to his father, 'From now on,you'll eat here,sitting on the doorstep because that's easier to clean,and your daughter-in-law won't have to deal with all those dirty tablecloths and napkins.
And so it was. Lunch,dinner and supper,the old man sat alone on the doorstep,raising the food to his mouth as best as he could,losing half on the way,while part of the other half dribbled onto his chin.

The grandson seemed entirely unmoved by the cruel treatment being meted out to his grandfather,he would look at him,then look at his mother and father, and continue to eat as if it were none of his business. Then one afternoon,when the father came home from work,he saw his son carving a piece of wood and assumed he was making himself a toy,as was normal in those distant days.
The following day,however,he realized that the boy wasn't making a toy car,or at least if he was, he couldn't see where the wheels would go,and so he asked, 'What are you making'.
The boy pretended he hadn't heard and continued whittling away at the wood with the point of his knife,this happened in the days when parents were less fearful and wouldn't immediately snatch from their children's hands such a useful tool for making toys.'Didn't you hear me?I asked what were you making with that piece of wood' the father asked again, and his son, without glancing up from what he was doing,replied 'I'm making a bowl for when you are old and your hands shake and you're sent to sit on the front step to eat your meals, like you did with grandpa'. These words had a magical effect. The scales fell from the father's eyes,he saw the truth and its light,and went at once to ask for his father's forgiveness,and when supper-time arrived,he helped him sit down in the chair,fed him with a spoon and gently wiped his chin,because he could still do that,and his dear father could not.
History fails to recount what happened afterwards,but we know for certain that the boy's carving was interrupted and the piece of wood is still there. No one wanted to throw it away, perhaps because they didn't want the lesson to be forgotten..."

The End.

"Hold the grim reaper...The brilliant satire of José Saramago's Death at Intervals examines the nature of mortality"