A Handful of Rain
A Handful of Rain
Niklas RådströmWe are prepared to do almost anything to keep life in those we love. We throw ourselves to the ground and try, with our bare hands, to stem the flow of blood from battered bodies. Again and again, we insist that what we have been told cannot be true, that there must be a mistake, that it must be someone else. We walk along the shore as if we believe the drowned will suddenly come toward us and say something about the clear autumn air. We ask those gathered at the accident site to speak more quietly, so as not to wake the dead in the wrecked car, if only so we can continue to believe that the lifeless bodies belong to people who are merely asleep. We are prepared to do almost anything to keep life in those we love. We are prepared to do everything, constantly searching for every possible way out of the darkness, before grief seizes us with its black fingers and drags us out of the safe hiding place of hope.
In A Handful of Rain, Niklas Rådström returns to memories of his closest childhood friend, one of the young dead. Together they created a world of play and imagination, close to the crystal-clear source of all creativity. It is a world constantly growing—of creation and curiosity, transformation and engagement—but also a place where anxiety and fear lurk: of silence, loneliness, and death. Niklas Rådström has written a deeply personal and candid book that spans an entire life. It is a book about becoming and living as a human being, about what truly matters in life, and about the path each person must walk, through both luminous arches and dark ones.
