How The Light Gets In - M. J. Hyland

She tells me so many things it feels like every new fact is pushing an old one out of my brain.


My father and I tried not to forget what might have happened to us, but we have.


''Well, to me God is just a word for what I do when I talk to th ebest possible version of things: perfection. Or maybe God is the best possible version of myself. Maybe when I say this prayer, I 'm appealing to a future, possible and perfect chair.'

I throw the word chair in there to check her listening skills. But she hasn't heard the last bit of my sentence. She clicks her tongue on the roof of her mouth. ' It's not God if it's just all about you.'

'It's not God if it isn't me. It can't be God without me thinking of God,' I say.

'You're not God!'

'I'm not saying that. I'm saying that God is the thought of God. The very thought of God is what God is. There are no words for that thought and the thought is different for every person and by necessity, beyond language.'

I sit up and start using y hands. I'm starting to feel as though I understand what I'm saying. I don't care for her, but I want to say this.

'The whole point of God,' I continue, ' is that God can't be explained. God is the very thing that causes the thought of God and the thought itself. I have God thoughts and that's what God is: the fact that my brain has the thought is...'

I have no real idea what I'm saying after all.

Mandy rolls over noisily to face the wall. 'That doesn't make sense! How can God be just the thought of God? You're just going around in circles! I'm going to sleep.'

Mandy falls asleep quickly (as I thought she would) and she snores; a kind of vacant rattle.

I lie on my back for hours and think of life and whether I believe in anything at all. I open my mouth and exhale my final answer into the silence. God is like all those bits of wood in Mr Bell's shed waiting to be made into a chair and God is what happens when Mr Bell talks himself into making the chair even when his hands are cold and his stomach is full of bright green soup.

'G'night,' I say to myself. 'Sleep well.'