From Those We Love the Most

Part 8

                Sister Hazel remembered the moment she made the decision to become a nun. It was a moment as big as saying “yes” to anyone’s marriage proposal, or accepting that huge job out west.

                She had been sleeping in her darkened girlhood bedroom. The moon and streetlights had cast unfamiliar shapes upon the white walls. Strange geometry, as it were. At first, she had watched, both hypnotized and terrified at the same time in space. It was like triangles morphing into squares and vice versa.

                Everyone else in the house was fast in the confines of sleep. Everyone else in the house was untouchable. So if she had wanted to call out to her mother or father, for no reason really, it would have been one very lost cause.

                The night will pass. She assured herself, gripping tighter to the blanket. They always do, don’t they?

                Then she began a discourse with God. One of those lengthy monologues people do, even to other people. Of course, with other mere people, hand gestures are often involved.

                All her questions she shot at God, directed squarely at the Creator in his resonance, were neither mean-spirited nor too much. They were just questions begging to be answered.

                “God, please turn my light off.”

                And they were mundane. Most of the time, God did not answer Hazel. But this did not put a hinder on her curiosity, no. She took this on as a challenge. She could make God talk. She could be the God Whisperer, the sacred vessel.

                It was a frustrating duty as much as it was rewarding. Still, she wondered.

                She also wondered if it was the same set-up that would demand Charlie to practice for once. He had been progressively getting worse through their lessons, and she was (fairly certain) that was backwards logic.

                The night will pass. But maybe not.

                Sister Hazel could not get too upset with the boy. In a pathetic, whimpering way:  she loved him.

                “Do you want to give it another go, Charlie?” she asked after he butchered yet another song. Veronica watched the other pupil with sympathy and maybe the slightest taste of non-existent empathy.

                “Um, no.” He sighed and looked up at where the wall met ceiling. “That’s all right with me.”

                “I’ll play again,” Veronica volunteered brightly. She had a toothy smile that would scare away small children and shot-nerve cats. It was a replica of a real smile, but naturally Sister Hazel wouldn’t know that. She had her suspicions and she kept them at arm’s length.

                “All right.” She sat back and closed her eyes. When she closed her own, she saw Charlie’s.

it occurs to me I abandoned my novella for the time being.

I 

NEED

TO

FINISH

IT

RIGHT

that is all.