The Ongoing Tales of one William Hillman

Chapter 3: Genesis

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

William stood on the street corner facing Bridgefield University's newly built medical facility, kept from him by a pitch-black iron fence and a stretch of neatly trimmed grass. The ornately decorated stone building, flanked by grotesques, rose beautifully into the cloudless mid-morning sky. The young not-quite-man hardly noticed the older fellow standing at his left as he admired it.

"Hm?" William registered the man's voice after a likely awkward amount of time and pulled his attention away from the looming monolith. He looked down, as he had to do for almost everyone he spoke to, and saw a scholarly-looking figure with square glasses and a black caterpillar mustache.

"The Blanchet School of Medicine. The architects really outdid themselves this time, didn't they?" The scholar said.

"Yes, it's amazing," William replied. There was a hint of wariness in his voice.

"My name is Andrew Brighting. Do you attend classes here as well?"

"Oh, no, no. I wish. We don't exactly have the resources. I'm just admiring the craftsmanship. My father's a builder, so I guess I've always... well, been inclined to it." He looked ahead again wistfully, then back. He half-smiled, meaning to look friendly. "My name is William, by the way. Hillman."

"Ah." Andrew extended a gloved hand. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance." The two shook, and William nodded.

"Well, Hillman, if you come to Forewell Hall tomorrow night at seven I could introduce you to some people who might be of some service to you," Andrew said. "If you're serious about it, that is." William glanced down at his feet and stuffed his hands in pockets, sighing.

"That's a kind offer, sir, really, but I don't know."

"Your choice. And finances would be the last of your worries, trust me." Andrew laughed, but it morphed into a dry cough and William looked up, raising an eyebrow.

"Besides, a charming English chap like you?" Andrew said, poorly mimicking a British accent. "They'd take you for an aristocrat if you said so. People around here don't know any better." He laugh-coughed again. This time William noticed the man's teeth appeared particularly rough (he tread lightly, even in the confines of his own thoughts).

"Welsh. But yes, I suppose you're right," he said, while silently noting the irony in Andrew's statement.

The man and the boy said their farewells and parted ways for the first time in their lives. William thought about what the man had said as he walked home. He thought about how frivolous the following day's events would surely be if he chose to go. Despite this expectation, though, Brighting had an unexplainable allure. William wanted to see him again.

When the day had turned to evening and the blue sky to a blazing orange, William tip-toed across the dark living room of his father's home, careful not to wake the snoring old carpenter on the couch. His father built the small and sturdy cabin almost two decades ago upon arriving in this land, but had since neglected repair. Each floorboard groaned with an uncannily human agony as William approached the front door and took his hat from the nearby rack. He inched the door open and then closed, and stepped onto and then off the front porch.

Somewhere in a grove of pines a mourning dove coos. A lanky seventeen-year-old skip-strolls down a dirt path trailing from his widowed father's cabin, humming a song his mother used to play on the piano. His life teeters on the brink of the rest of eternity. He could turn back, but he goes forward like he always does and will always continue to do.

Stormy the night and the waves roll high, bravely the ship doth ride;

Hark! While the lighthouse bell's solemn cry rings o'er the sullen tide.