The partner who left in the story

In a small engraving shop in Ruwi, the owner will cut your name into a brass plaque in about twenty minutes. He will spend the same twenty minutes telling you about the partner who left him.

It happened years ago. The partner took two of the best customers, a school and a sports club, and opened a shop across town. The story has been polished by repetition. It has a villain, a betrayal, a date. Every customer hears it, whether they came for a trophy or a door sign.

He holds on to it the way a passenger holds a railing on a rough crossing, as though letting go would mean going over the side. And in a way it does keep him upright. The grievance explains why the shop is quieter than it was. It explains why he has not changed the window display, or answered the messages from people asking whether he does wedding gifts.

But a grip has a cost. Both hands are busy. The story that protects him from one uncomfortable fact, that his trade has moved and he has not, also keeps him from noticing anything new. Customers pick up the tone and do not come back to hear it again.

Most of us carry one of these. An idea about how the market ought to work, an old slight, a picture of the customer that stopped being true some time ago. We grip it because it feels like the thing keeping us safe.

It is usually the thing keeping us still. The hand that finally lets go is the only one free to pick something up.