Act of Contrition -Midnight Mass

Noctiphobia

11. Noctiphobia

fear of the night, of the dark

(Hassan Shabazz & Father Paul Hill)

•••

Crockett Island is an asshole positioned in nowhere, yet Hassan wouldn't want to be anywhere else than that right now. It is not so much the fact that he is miles away from the chaos of the city, but the almost total lack of fingers pointing at him, which reminds him how different his culture is, the color of his skin and the sound of his words - and his faith. If only people knew how much they have to learn, all of them, from diversity, it probably wouldn't be there now, but it doesn't matter. The only enemy he has made, probably, is Beverly Keane but, to be honest, Hassan knows that this woman is everyone's enemy, even the new priest. He never saw him lose his temper with her but, a couple of times, caught him rolling his eyes.

That woman, after all, is the only thing that really unites Crockett, paradoxically. Nobody can stand it and everyone agrees on that.

It's a shitty day as ever - after all, that island doesn't boast decent weather by accident and, perhaps, it counted three days of sunshine altogether - one of them is where they found the dead cats on the beach. One day both he and Ali - and probably the whole population - would like to forget as soon as possible.

The boots slip into the mud of Crockett's damp, slimy streets; a feeling he still doesn't like but, after all, the sheriff has to be on the lookout, although hardly a shit has happened in about five or six years - exactly since Joe Collie accidentally shot Leeza Scarborough in the back by sending her in a wheelchair. Poor girl and a poor Joe's drunk. He was lucky enough to know him after the accident and, perhaps, for this reason he does not feel hatred towards him, only a great, gigantic and perhaps unmotivated compassion. Unlike the local population who, without too many compliments, isolated that man and made him an outcast. He is certainly not a saint but, in the end, he did not do it even intentionally. He was wrong, that yes,

He was wrong, it was an accident, the court acquitted him, and that is enough for Hassan. He is a man of the law and the law works like this.

He sighs. He passes the school and Erin Greene, intent on watering some plants just outside the door, raises a hand and smiles. With his free hand from the watering can he holds up his belly which is slightly visible and which, apparently, contains a new life that awaits, perhaps enthusiastically, to appear in life.

On that island? In total boredom? At the very thought of it he shakes his head, but he doesn't, and he simply smiles back, while his mind flies to Ali who, even if he has found a friend like Warren, with whom he seems inseparable, Hassan is convinced that he hates him for having brought it down there, in the middle of the ocean, an hour by ferry from the mainland.
A prison.