Good bye.

Normally, when a short book starts getting into their hundred page or so, the reader is expecting some type of conclusion, or big climax that will leave the reader with their mouth open, or not being able to continue with their life for a period of time, or a happy ending that will make everything okay and stop your nightmares (I’m sure I’m not the only one), but in this book, something unexpected happens, it starts to say good-bye.

"On the mattress lay a man with his legs gone to the hip and the stumps of them blackened

and burnt. The smell was hideous.

Jesus, he whispered.

Then one by one they turned and blinked in the pitiful light. Help us, they

whispered. Please help us. Christ, he said. Oh Christ.

He turned and grabbed the boy. Hurry, he said. Hurry." (pg 110)

The father is preparing himself to die, along with his son and goes to God for help. The desperation of dying may be because they are just too scared to continue with their path, or simply they are in too much pain to carry on. Either way, the book is not ending with a happy moment or a climax, that won’t let you sleep for days, but with a sad truth.

"If they find you you are going to have to do it. Do you understand? Shh. No crying. Do you

hear me? You know how to do it. You put it in your mouth and point it up. Do it

quick and hard. Do you understand? Stop crying. Do you understand?

I think so.

No. Do you understand?

Yes." (pg 113)

This conversation from the book, gives the reader a simple but shocking fact, that the father doesn’t want to live anymore, it can be because of the pain he ahs or because of fact on only imagining a life with nobody, whichever reason, it is so influential that he asks his own son to kill him. His humanity is simply lost.