The Five Sorrowful Mysteries
opening excerpt
As he swung his dull middle-aged frame over the fence he repeated to himself: They won’t charge me for stealing junk.
He landed with a loud, graceless scrape, gravel and dirt rolling slowly down the slope, enough to draw attention even at three in the morning. The nails and broken glass meant he couldn’t just scurry to the bottom of the pit where the streetlights didn’t reach.
Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy because they should have just asked for the damned piano when they had the chance.
As he felt his way slowly to the bottom he could hear Fiona laughing. Her gentle approval of his transgression registered in the chirping of the crickets and the graveyard-shift traffic on the distant highway.
Partway down the slope he stubbed his foot on rebar.
The First Sorrowful Mystery: The Agony in the Garden.
Some garden...
He limped carefully through the back end of the demolition pit. Above him the excavator stood silently against the stars, jaws closed. He rounded the quarter-shell that remained of Trinity Anglican Church, then ducked under the jagged shelf of the stage.
Father, by the merits of the agony in my left foot and the rotten-egg gypsum dust on my clothes, have mercy.
He turned on his cellphone flashlight. The piano was right where he saw it land.
Her playing gathered them all around the piano, on this church hall stage, that summer afternoon, Fiona swaying and smiling the way she did when the music transported her, curly hair bouncing to the melodies, the day they said goodbye. The church was kind enough to give them back their “non-denominational stage” for one last afternoon and they went through some of the songs from their high school theatre years... yes he did dream of being in showbiz long ago but he didn’t have the voice and on that late summer afternoon it really showed.
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