Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes by Per Petterson

Author:Per Petterson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55597-334-6
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2015-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

People Are Not Animals

He held the piece of bread and jam as level as possible and at the same time tried to flip the little animal over the sand pile it was so desperately struggling to climb, but it kept falling back down. It was a beetle with yellow stripes down its black back, not pretty at all, almost ugly, but it was so sad when it tumbled backwards, so he thought he had to help.

And in the end he did it, an elegant twist of his foot and the beetle was over, and even if he didn’t expect any gratitude, beetles are quiet creatures, then at least a sign, a wave from one of its legs perhaps, but no. The beetle just headed straight for the next sand heap probably thinking Arvid would give assistance once again, like some super-hero, Superman perhaps, but now this was it. Disgusting insect. With the tip of his shoe he kicked the beetle, and it flew in a large arc over the sandpit, but instead of crashing into the log on the other side it unfolded two small wings, looped the loop and banked beautifully across the road and was gone behind Johansen’s Opel Kadett. Why the hell didn’t it do that straight away?

Now it had gone there was nothing else to concentrate on, and he knew that soon he would have to turn round. He could hear them, their soles scraping sand on the tarmac, and they were whispering to each other.

He stared down at his feet as he took a bite of his bread, and they were odd, seen from above, large and alien, as though they didn’t belong to his body at all. He had checked in the mirror a few times, but they were not the same feet at all, because the ones in the mirror were OK. Those strange feet sticking out, and the knees. But the knees were his, he could tell by the grazes. Yet they were strange, nobbly and big, and then someone laughed a nasty laugh, and he would rather have been beaten up than listen to what was coming now, but it came anyway and there was nothing he could do about it.

‘Arvid fucks his mum! Arvid fucks his mum!’

They chanted in unison, but that didn’t make it more true, he was only eight years old and hadn’t fucked anyone, and so far he had flatly denied that anyone did such a thing and least of all his mother, but if there was one thing the boys knew about it was his opinions on fucking. That was why they went for him as soon as they had a chance.

‘Arvid fucks his mum! Arvid fucks his mum!’

They would not stop, they just chanted louder and louder, and he felt his fury rising as it always did, even though he tried with all his might to hold it back, and perhaps the worst thing was the way he blushed. With willpower alone he tried to

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