August 31

Bad news you don't know yet has no edges. As long as you put off the call or leave the email unopened, it can be anything. It grows in every direction your fear can reach, and at night it grows especially well.

When you finally read it, it is sometimes smaller than you thought. Often, though, it isn't. Some things are exactly as bad as you feared, and no amount of resolute looking changes that. That courage protects against misfortune would be a convenient claim.

The difference lies elsewhere. Before, the thing lay on you without your knowing how heavy it was. You could neither lift it nor set it down. Afterwards it stands in front of you. It has a size, a next step, perhaps a person you can call. The weight has stayed the same, but now it has a side you can take hold of.

It rarely feels brave. Usually it is just the moment when putting it off has become more exhausting than the thing itself. Only later, perhaps, do you tell that moment differently.