Immortal Air, a Novel by Tracey Rombough

Author:Tracey Rombough
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press
Published: 2015-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21 – 1882

The Fly

It is a curious fact that private practices of law assume a collective identity to signify the combined legal training of their senior partners. This specific middle-aged collective specialized in civil litigation. Cameron was not included in the string of surnames painted on the front window of Dean, Butler and Abbott at 42 Court Street in Boston. George had worked at the same small desk in the same reception office off and on as a clerk for more than three years. Now a qualified lawyer for five years, he found himself sitting behind the same dusty desk, under the same dim lights, filing the same type of cases for the triplet of litigators. These lawyers were smaller fish in a much larger sea of prominent legal minds. The biggest fish in Boston’s legal pond was Frederick P. Fish whose firm, in its year of inception, represented the giants of American innovation. In March of 1876, six years earlier, patent number 174,465 was issued to A.G. Bell for the claim that his design could transmit vocal sounds over distance. The firm of Dean, Butler and Abbott did not handle this deposition, nor were they involved in any facet of the case, save professional envy.

Since becoming a lawyer, George had made little progress with the publication of his poetry. Yet despite his inability to gain an audience, he continued to write. He wrote editorials in response to every issue of The Globe. Some of his letters were rather contentious, and he feared his employers might not be too pleased. Especially since he wrote poetry when he should have been researching legal precedent.

George caught the almost imperceptible movements of a black dot on the inside of the firm’s front window. He watched the creature crawl across the backwards B in “Butler” and followed the fly as it made its way to the corner of the windowsill. In a sudden shift of perception, George became the fly. He was travelling across the surface of his life with what he desired most on the other side. He could see it as clearly as the people who walked by the window. His future was before him, yet he could not reach it no matter how much he scurried about. He was a simple ordinary fly, crawling across the giant letters of the senior partners. Below he noticed the crisp corpses of the flies who had spent countless hours crawling across the glass. His would never be a name engraved on a door or emboldened on the letterhead of this firm. This is not where he envisioned himself. How could he devote real time to his poetry when he had meaningless and endless tasks to perform in this crypt?

Beyond the backward letters in the window, he caught a glimpse of fur and jewels. Lurline Ainsworth. She was in an amorous embrace with an older, distinguished businessman who carried her hatboxes and packages. George’s pen stopped on the page. She looked through the glass,

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