Bitter Passage

by Colin Mills

Have you never thought the choices we make are not our own? That the Almighty plots a path for each of us? I am drawn onward like a slave shackled at the wrists.”

“But is history not a procession of the living over the bodies of the fallen?

bed for a long time, her hand in his. Pretending to ignore the lies you tell yourself, he thought, is like trying to pick cobwebs from your jacket. No matter what you do, they stick to your fingers, your hair, your stockings. There is simply no getting rid of them.

“‘Seek happiness in tranquillity, and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.’”

“There will always be more to find. More to know.”

Why will Their Lordships not listen to such a learned man?” “I agree, my dear. But they are disinclined to heed a man without a cocked hat and epaulets.”

Shame weighed upon him like chain mail. “I thought God had chosen me.” Robinson’s response was terse. “If you must pity anyone, pity them, not yourself.”

Adams’ devotion smouldered like a low fire, embers glowing on the coldest night. He needed only a prayer or hymn to fan his zeal into flame whenever misery or exhaustion threatened to snuff it out.

obstreperous

it was a dilemma with no solution, a boulder he pushed against but could not move.

He wished he knew how to speak to the man. There was a wall around him; he was a city of one, and the gates never swung open.