Excerpts: miscellaneous prose and poetry (selections)

Excerpts (selections)

Faith

She woke in sudden, sharp perplexity.

Glancing beside, three o'clock, she—she was hot and sweaty. Shamed, guilty, she lifted herself from the bed, careful not to disturb her husband's sleep, and knelt on the cold rug. Forgive-me-Father-for-I-have-not-sinned—she looked up in abrupt remembrance—it was not that kind of dream. There was a word. She knelt back on her heels. But why so clammy and tensed, what was the word? Exasperated at the typical elusiveness of a thing intentionally sought, she rose and went to the bathroom to rinse her face. She climbed back into bed. Maybe in the morn—test. That's it. The word was test. That's stupid. I'm not going to write any tests. At three-o-five it didn't matter. She fell asleep.

The alarm rudely buzzed. She reached out to—test of fate. The phrase appeared serenely. Was that it? Test of fate? Yes, I think so. Well isn't that curious. Test of fate.

"Hey Kath—the alarm." He looked at her drugged expression. "The alarm. Turn it off. Turn off the alarm." His words finally made their way through, and she turned off the alarm.

"Good morning to you, too." She leaned over and kissed his bemused mouth.

Just then the sound of tiny, pyjama-clad feet down the hall announced the little boy's cheerful face at their doorway.

"Good morning to you, too," he imitated, and giggled. Then the sight of his mother seemed to trigger—he looked down and mumbled, "Mummy-I-wet-my-bed-I'm-sorry."

"That's okay, snookums." Resisting the smile that snuck to her lips, she added in a stern voice, "If you help me clean it up." Then she smiled anyway, "Let's go." She and the boy left the room hand in hand.

"... which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord, Amen." The bowed heads had just enough time to chorus the "Amen" before the littlest one bobbed up and declared, "Mummy 'n I are going shopping for my new school clothes and I'm getting new school shoes and she says I can pick them out if I can put them on by myself and we're going to buy a pencil case I want a red one—"

"Hold it there, shooter," laughed his father. "So you're getting ready for school. Think you'll like it?"

"Yeah, Mummy says there'll be other kids there, too."

"Joey, you'll have eggs instead of words coming out of that mouth of yours in a minute if you don't watch it." She smiled at the boy, then looked over to her husband. "Don't forget I have the Scripture Group tonight."

"Right. Got your notes prepared?"

"Oh sure. But it's a good class. They carry it quite well without my notes. I need only ask the right questions at the right time."

"Hm—sometimes difficult." He kept on chewing.

"True. But I know what I'm doing." She was irritated. He was still unconvinced that a woman could do as well as a man in the matter of adult religious instruction. Chauvinist! Conditioning or no conditioning, there's no excuse. Oh well. He'll see eventually. That's all. I'm strong, capable, intelligent. He'll have to see. She cleared the breakfast table and started the dishes as he said his goodbyes to Joey and left for the office.

Test...test of... fate...test.......kill Ty....test...kill... Kathy snapped up in the darkness, and as soon as she did, the words stopped. She was very hot again. Or is it the room that's hot? She tried to recall the superstition about having the same dream twice in a row. Same dream—who are you trying to kid. That was no dream. You know you heard words. Well, some dreams can be that real, can't they? But somebody was speaking. She cautiously got up to see if the windows were open. Feeling foolish, she returned to bed.