The Undying Light The Rising Dawn Saga, #4 by Stephen Zimmer

Author:Stephen Zimmer
Format: epub

Father Brunner

A palpable sense of fear and anxiety pervaded the air as Father Brunner settled down into one of the few open seats left near the rear of the crowded hall. What few people still talked did so in hushed, pensive voices. Faces were somber and nervous, with not a trace of good humor to be found.

With his section of the city receiving no power at the moment, there was not much that Father Brunner could be doing back at St. Bosco. The outage was part of the rolling blackouts administered by the provincial authorities to ration energy use. At the very least, it was not the dead of winter, when such outages could be extremely dangerous for the sick and elderly.

Father Rader had opted to stay back at the church and do some reading with the use of a battery-powered lamp, but Father Brunner had grown curious about the town hall meeting being held on campus at Mary Riley College. The assembly’s stated purpose was to explain several new government initiatives being set in place.

As always with such affairs, the event advertised the opportunity for discussion and input from the citizens. The invitation for public participation did not fool Father Brunner in the slightest.

He knew the opinions and desires of regular people were entirely irrelevant to the individuals hosting the gathering. It would be the same process as it had been for quite some time: the government officials would do whatever they planned to do, with or without the consent of the citizenry.

It was all just a grand display of theater, to give the people the illusion that they had some say in the process. Sadly, most of the people sitting in the hall would probably go home later that evening thinking they actually did have some influence.

Undoubtedly, more controls were coming, and whatever shreds of freedom still remained to the people were going to suffer another vigorous round of assaults. The whole thing was diabolical at its core, and Father Brunner found it increasingly harder to hide his disgust with all of it.

Yet there was a little of use to be extracted from the night’s itinerary. Father Brunner wanted to see if he could read between the lines and get a better idea of the mechanisms the authorities would be using in the days to come. Figuring out what his community would be dealing with went along with the adage his father often told him when he was growing up; forewarned is fore-armed.

Being well-prepared for the sake of others was a mandate as Father Brunner saw it, in light of his responsibilities. Every day of his life was spent tending to all kinds of people. The government initiatives would be affecting them all, adding to their struggles and bearing down upon their worries.

To give wise counsel to others was to understand, as best as possible, what people were contending with in their day to day lives. Only in knowing the nature of those problems could he hope to render the kind of help that would truly address their concerns.

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