Dawn Song by Dawn Song # (v5.0)

Author:Dawn Song # (v5.0)
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781771481809
Publisher: ChiZine
Published: 2014-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

IV

Thursday, 10:44 A.M.

With exquisite suddenness, Ed felt the thread of stability snap. The equilibrium he’d sought bled out of him, as if he exhaled all the strength he could muster for the day.

He felt the strain of maintaining the will to live.

Ed rounded the doorway of the Theology department office to check his mail and get back to the library. As he entered, Grant, the administrative assistant, flashed a wry smile. Ed gave him a look and thought, I’m not in the mood for one of your pop Latin quizzes. Grant had an MA from Harvard, thought his job beneath him, and never hid his contempt for those who could only get into Boston U Theology School.

Ed pulled his mail (nothing but flyers for conferences) as Grant leaned against his desk and cracked an even more condescending smile.

“I got some interesting mail. I get mail because I write to people. I always said, ‘Ubi nihil erit quod scribas, id ipsum scribito.’”

Ed sighed. Grant had information; Ed would have to play his game to get it, though he refused the bait of the Cicero quote.

“Yes?” His voice was hoarse.

“Mmm-hmmm.”

Grant was a big guy. Bearded. Broad shoulders. That he should act so fey was incredibly irritating. Ed leaned against the mailboxes, his leather jacket creaking.

“Ahhhmm . . . What was it?”

“It was e-mail. Do you have a modem, Sloane?”

“No. What did it say?

“Oh, it was just a note from a certain classmate of yours, now on leave.”

Amelia . . .

She, who is my friend, but not the friend of Fortune.

“Ahhh. . . What’d she say?”

“Oh . . .” Grant leaned back, made a gesture like a British royal waving from a carriage. “She wanted to know the procedure for extending her leave another semester. And she asked about you, whether you’re still enrolled. Seems she’s had a rough time getting in touch with you. I told her you were where you’ve always been.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, you are so welcome.”

Grant spun in his chair and began typing with blinding speed, grinning. Ed pushed himself off the mailbox with his shoulder and walked away.

In the hallway, he thought of the letters he’d gotten from Amelia, which he’d felt too ashamed to answer.

“Pray for me, Ed.”

Grant had inflicted a spite upon Ed that he could not have imagined.

“Pray for me, Ed.”

His soul was trapped in a cruel Egypt of his sinfulness; he suffered the tyranny of his own despair, born in turn of the wretchedness of the world he lived in. No beam of God’s light could penetrate the darkness in his heart, a darkness revealed to him in the moment that he found he could not bare his soul to God.

“Pray for me, Ed.”

Ed turned the sickness of his soul over in his mind. In this way, he could tame it awhile, much in the way one can tame a demon by naming it.

He stopped at a water fountain. The water was brackish and warm. Besieged, Ed stumbled to the Theology department chapel, lest he think too intently of freeing himself from the siege by cutting a way out through his own flesh.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.