An attempt at writing a philosophical story, written a few years ago. The original was in Dutch, but I translated it, revised some minor sections, and polished it.

 

Chapter 1

“So, death, huh?”
“Yes.”

We jump to the next stone to cross the small river. Actually, it’s more of a brook… or what do you call it here in the mountains? A stream?

“Hey, Gerderik… what do you call something like this? A small river like the one we’re crossing?”

“How do you come up with that now? I’m still thinking about what you just said. I guess it’s a brook. I’ve never really thought about it.”

“A brook, then. In my mind, those don’t flow down mountains, but I don’t know why I think that. I grew up among ditches. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a brook. Canals, yes, but a brook… no idea. How wide can a brook be, do you think?”

“Jesus, I don’t know. The fact that you worry about that.”

“Sorry. I’m just wondering.”

Gerderik stands on a stone, his legs pressed tightly together, and turns toward me. Just as he’s about to speak, I pretend I’m about to fall,jerking my arms up and bending my knees.

He reaches out to catch me, but because of his awkward stance, one foot slips off the stone and the rest of him follows.

I burst out laughing.

He gets back up, but the water is shallow enough for him to sit on the bottom. Sitting there, he looks at me, unsure whether to laugh or get angry.

“I think a stream is about half a meter deep and a brook at least a meter,” I say, and I see him give in and laugh.

I step into the water to help him up, and we wade the rest of the way to the bank. There’s some sunlight here, enough to warm up and dry off.

“Marit… are you afraid of death?” he asks.

“It’s still on your mind, I can tell. That little dip didn’t help. You shouldn’t take thoughts like that in big chunks. You have to give them time to settle.”

“Easy for you to say. But you’re saying quite a lot. To me, death is something that belongs to old people. And you’re telling me I should live as if I could die at any moment. That I should be afraid of death.”

“So you want to keep going. I guess I haven’t told you enough yet.”

I pause so I don’t repeat myself. In conversations like this, my thoughts tend to run ahead of me.

Gerderik looks at me, puzzled by my faint smile, but I decide not to tease him again. My thoughts just move the way they move.

“What is a human being?” I had asked him at the start of our walk, when he said he was interested in philosophy but didn’t really know what it was. He’d heard of it,something about thinking about life,but he wasn’t sure whether he actually did it.

So I kept it simple.

“A human being… that’s us, right?” he said.

“Okay. But are we a kind of animal?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Gerderik, that was your first philosophical thought.”

“Yes, but I already knew that.”