On the Other Side of the Clouds
[This was Mark's response to Vice.]
© Mark Hastings 1995
The pain had been unendurable, just as Dr Malcolm intended.
Only gradually had he become aware of it, so used to its intensity had he grown, over such a long time. Each day he saw her in the Chapel, went through the same agony of doubt, but still seemed to know.
And then the moment had presented itself, serrated, sharp, and before he could seize it, “Mr. Harrison, if you’d be kind enough to take Hastings upstairs and wait for me there.” And she was gone.
Standing in the high attic, in the sanctum sanctorum, before the birching pony, he had heard every second of her beating. Each stroke tore another layer of hide away, and with each tear, the pain grew stronger and more unbearable. He wanted to set it all right, to scream away the final triumph of the mediocre by turning Orwell on his head and crying, “Do it to me! Do it to me! Not Casey! Me! I don’t care what you do to me! Cut me to the bone. Not Casey! Me!”
As the last four fell, Mark Hastings wept. Huge, dry sobs, each one a retch from somewhere so deep it seemed to have lain hidden a thousand years. Tim Harrison laid a quiet hand upon his shoulder, but Mark stabbed it away.
The birching itself was long, and quite severe, but if truth be told it was probably no worse than others Mark had endured. He had no more idea than Casey of what, if anything, the Headmaster actually said to him. It was of no consequence, any more than the myriad of tiny cuts inflicted by the birch rod mattered. The other pain was far worse, and would need something immeasurably more powerful than witch-hazel to assuage it.
And when he reached the summerhouse, the bench was empty. The vice that gripped his temples tightened a final, fatal notch. In his mind, he thought he heard the splintering of bone. He had been crushed, and the tears flowed, like that first cloudburst after the unendurable African drought.
Except that she came.
Even before she was fully in the room, the image of quarks had flashed through his mind, just as it had through hers. He would have wanted that first touch to be gentle, compassionate, kind. But that was asking too much, infinitely too much. Later, there would be time for compassion, kindness, anger, frustration, play. Now there was just the two of them.
It’s me, he heard her say.
“I know it’s you,” shot into her ear. “I know it is. And this is me.”
He opened his eyes, and looked into hers. And like some perfectly twisted periscope, they pointed down, not up. Down into the unskinned reaches of her soul. Wherein, beyond the rain, on the other side of the clouds, he found light, peace, and love.
