Work Text:
Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing
At the sound of echoing footsteps, he glanced up and watched the figure move hesitantly, almost reluctantly, to a pew and sit, head bowed. Even from where he sat, he could see the shoulders heave in a sigh.
It finally became too much and he left the altar, pausing to genuflect before the crucifix and approached the stranger. Sorrow dripped off him like rain from a leaf.
“I will leave you, if that is your wish, but you seem to need a friendly ear.”
Red-rimmed eyes met his and he watched conflict playing in them. “What burden I have, Father, you can’t help with.” He leaned forward and rested his arms on the back of the pew.
The man’s accent was British and something else? He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “Why don’t you let me decide that? Are you having a conflict of faith?”
“First, I’d have to have faith for it to be conflicted.”
“We all have faith, my son, but it often goes by other names.”
His laugh was a short sharp cough. “Not me, I fear. I’m the one people seem to turn to when they’ve lost faith. I’m the one they believe in or used to at any rate. I’m not so sure anymore. I’ve failed so many.”
“Why do you say that, my son?”
“Because of who... and what I am. Because of what I did.” His head dropped forward to touch his arms. “I’m so tired.”
“Why don’t you rest, my son?”
“I can’t.” It came out as a half choked sob. “There’s no ending, no stopping, no nothing. I’m the end point, you see.”
“It might feel that way, but it’s not. Let me help you.”
Instead the stranger drew a deep breath and murmured,
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
He smiled at that and patted the closest arm. “You know TS Eliot! That’s from his poem, Ash Wednesday.” He looked back at the altar. “You are a few days too late. There’s more to the poem. My favorite was always,”
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us
He stopped and smiled at the thought. “I suspect your judgement is the hardest of all. God can relieve you of your burden. You just have to trust him.”
“What makes you think he will trust me?”
“You will never know until you try.”
The man sat back, weariness etched upon his face as if the weight of a million stars crippled him. “Or until he does.” He got to his feet and started back to the door. Over one shoulder he flung,
Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking.
And he was gone.