Second Comings III The Mask of Anar

"No. I could care less. Some lawyer will get them off, either there or on appeal – you can be sure of that. Those kids have money, you know. If they were poor they'd be in prison already."

"Now, now, Jordan, are we angry? What about the whole 'goodness' thing?"

"Goodness doesn't have anything to do with ignorance and sticking your head in the sand, Justin. It's about how you deal with all the miscreants that surround you!"

They laughed then, and Justin looked around the table now, at the president and all of his deans, and Lake laughed again – with the man, and at his memory of that day.

"Justin? What's so funny?" the president said, looking dismayed.

"Funny? Oh, nothing, sir. I was just thinking about Laura."

"Well, surely there's nothing very funny about her condition, is there...?"

"No sir, of course not..."

And Lake recalled the last time he saw her. How he came into her room at the hospital, how he looked at her once, at her face, at her features – frozen in time. All those memories. All the love he spent on her warped view of life, her broken view of the living.

And he continued to stare at her, not sure whether to pity her, or try to forget her. And then her eyes moved, and she was looking right at him in that last moment, then she smiled at him, and winked an eye.

(C)2016 Adrian Leverkühn | ABW

[As always, this is a work of fiction, and all characters, places and events are fictitious, and no persons, events or academic institutions are inferred in this story, or should be inferred.]