Requiem in April

The Pope was dying.

It was a strange thing to think about on such a night.

The sky above her was filled with stars and the dew on the grass beneath her feet was shimmering in the moonlight. She wore his over shirt while the wind whipped through her hair. He walked silently beside her occasionally glancing up ward to see where she was looking.

It did seem rather lovely. By all means it was perfect. Exactly how she had always pictured such a night going. But something wasn’t right.

The Pope was dying.

She remembered the moments before perfection when she sat at the computer desk softly singing anything in Latin she could think of, while she watched pictures of the Vatican and Rosarys. She wasn’t sure why it had affected her so. She wasn’t catholic. But there she sat, sobbing over her computer screen and forming conspiracy theories about the sly looking German cardinal.

Perhaps it was because of what she had told the other one in January. The one she needed to forget.

“I’m a bit of a Catholic at heart.”

That’s what she had told him. She didn’t know why. She had never said that to anyone else. Even her father who was catholic.

But it was no use thinking about the other one now. Not when perfection lay ahead of her and the Pope lay dying behind.

She had suspected at first that they would discuss it. It was after all, the type of thing she usually talked about (Along with Politics, Harry Potter, and the Opera world today).

Yes, once she left her room made up and in her summer dress, she fully intended it to be one of the first things she mentioned.

All through the walk to the restaurant, she tried to find an appropriate place to bring it up. But it never seemed appropriate. They talked about safe mundane things like pets and computers, not the sorts of things she usually found interesting.

At dinner, they fell into a discussion about movies. And not really the sort that she watched. He had seen XXX and the Matrix trilogy. Never Charade or Casa Blanca. It didn’t seem the time to bring up a sickly Pope.

Before the play, nearly all thoughts of the Pope were pushed from her mind. After all, the boy she was sitting with had never so much as heard of Sondheim, it was her job to educate him.

So she told him about the great period of the 1980’s and the musicals it produced. She mentioned things like Assassins, and Sunday in the Park with George. She told him all about the other greats like Les Miserables, and the Phantom of the Opera, and Andrew Loyd Webber could certainly be called ear pleasing but nothing made for pure musical genius like Sondheim.

He smiled and nodded politely and she could tell that he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. Most normal people didn’t.

But even as the play started, even as her mind was filled, suddenly with life and music…and the way Cinderella could never quite reach the top notes, it was there lurking strangely in the backward realms of her mind: The Pope was dying.

It still had not been said as they began the walk home. The wind made the evening chilly and she wondered why she hadn’t brought a sweater. He picked up on this and placed his over shirt around her shoulders.

She tried to protest

“You’ll freeze!” She said looking at the thin t-shirt he wore underneath.

“No. I’m fine, really take it,” He insisted.

So she took it. In the silence she had tried, more than once to say something about Popes and the Roman Catholic Church, and did they have a certain special place in heaven for people like that?

But here they were, silently walking, almost reaching the campus. And it still hadn’t been said. No, not even mentioned. It was a very strange situation indeed.

So she continued to gaze up at the stars. She remembered when the other one had told her how to find Polaris, the North Star. It was at the tip of the four- pointed constellation.

“What are you thinking about?” He asked.

“Oh, nothing, just looking at the stars. The only constellation I’ve ever really been able to find is Orion’s belt.”

Yes. There was Orion’s belt. Now the other constellation, the four-pointed one, was somewhere over…

“I’ve never been much of a stargazer myself,” He said. All though, he too was looking up at the night sky

“I’m trying to find the North Star. My mother told me how to find it once.”

She didn’t mention the other one; he didn’t need to be mentioned.

He nodded in understanding, and was silent again.

She was trying to find the North Star so that she could make a wish. A wish for the pope that was dying. She didn’t know why, she didn’t know what to wish for. The Pope would die. There was nothing anyone could do about that.

Come to think of it, she wasn’t sure that she would do anything about it even if she could.

She didn’t tell him this. It didn’t seem to be something he would be interested in.

Yes…the North Star was somewhere over...

“You can’t really see the stars now.”

He was right. The lights from the campus union were now blazing in their eyes, blinding them.

Wishing on a star to save a Pope was a strange thing to do anyway. What she really should do was pray. Yes a prayer would be much better, more acceptable. But what prayer?

“You could see them better when we were walking,” He was still starring upward, as if determined to help her find the star.

Her own prayers sounded a bit foolish for such an old, distinguished, pope. A bit reckless. He needed a tried and true prayer, yet it had to be something she felt.

A prayer within a song perhaps. They were singing the Ave Maria’s in choir. Maybe that would work.

No. Ave Maria wasn’t really appropriate. She knew Mary would be of no use. It was best to pray to God himself in times such as these, especially for a pope.

Perhaps our father then?

“It’s one of the things I’ve never liked about this campus. It’s too bright at night time.” She had given up her search for the North Star. She would find it later. She focused her energy on a proper prayer.

Our Father was too…personal…or perhaps too general. Not the sort of thing one would say for a dying pope.

“Well what can you expect? It’s basically a city isn’t it?”

“ I suppose,”

It was a poor argument. Even in the city you could see the stars. She should know.

The prayer for the Pope had to be something from a requiem. But that all depended, did she want the Pope to die?

A voice inside her cried No! After all, if that horrid German cardinal was elected…but there was only a small chance of that. And she did not object to the other candidates, especially not the Nigerian.

She began to think of the reasons the Pope should not die, and realized she could not think of any. Popes, even good popes such as this one, lived and died just like everyone else. Everything would die sooner or latter, perhaps it was best to go out silently, at the end of a life well lived.

With this in mind, she didn’t need so much a prayer, more of a blessing.

Pie Jesus perhaps? As she wasn’t catholic and didn’t know any others…it would have to do.

So she willed it up to heaven as she thought the words and melody in her head.

“We’re almost there,” He said awkwardly.

Pie Jesus

“I didn’t realize we would get here so soon” she lied

Quital is pecata mundi

“Yeah, it did go very fast didn’t it?” He was sincere. She felt a stab of guilt as she continued to merge the words and melody in her mind.

Donaeis Requiem

“Yes it did.”

Dona eis Requiem

They had reached her dorm building and both of them stopped at the bench just beside the doors.

“Well, I had a good time,” He said

“Me too,” She answered automatically

“Thanks for telling me about the play,” He said awkwardly

“Thanks for taking me. It was fun” That was the polite thing to say. Besides it had been fun hadn’t it?

Something else was wrong. She couldn’t tell what, but she felt the same painful, piercing stab in her abdomen that she always felt when she was sure that something was about to happen.

They both paused awkwardly. He made a motion once or twice to come closer but never followed through, and that same stab returned to her stomach. Something wasn’t right. The pope was dying, she knew that, but there was something else wrong too. Something that seemed to manifest it’s self in the way he was looking at her.

“May I kiss you?”

She knew the moment he had spoken that that was it. Those previously unvoiced words were what had caused the horrible sense of loss. As if both of them were pieces, which had been stuffed into a jigsaw puzzle, where they didn’t belong.

And she knew, for the first time in her life, what she had to say to set them right again.

“Look,” perhaps she said it too forcefully. Never the less she pressed on.

“I really like you Brian but, I’m just not ready to get into a romantic relationship right now.”

“Oh, all right,” He looked vaguely heart broken. And she felt another stab in her gut, this one she knew. It was guilt.

“I’m really sorry,” She felt compelled to say it again.

“It was still a good night right?” He asked uncertainly

“A very good night.”

The pain wasn’t loosening. She wondered why.

“Well…”

Perhaps she simply hadn’t finished the prayer.

“Maybe I could stick around until you are…ready”

“I’d like that.” Yes, that sounded right. She felt the knot loosen slightly, but it still didn’t disappear.

There was one last line that she hadn’t thought about.

sempiternam that was it. The last line

“Well, see you on Monday then,”

“All right, Monday,”

Sempi Ternam. She thought it meant, for eternity…but she wasn’t sure. The other one would know. He always seemed to know things like that.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” She said gingerly taking off the over shirt and handing it back to him.

“Thanks” he nodded and smiled.

She smiled at him in return and began to make her way inside. She knew his eyes followed her as she walked into the door and she felt another stab of guilt as she entered the building.

Making her way up the staircase, she decided that she should be rather proud of herself. For one time in her life she had stood her ground and said exactly what needed to be said with out so much as a second thought.

For the first time, she had done what the Pope would have done. Regardless of who was standing behind him or who was listening on the radio. For the first time she had done the right thing.

She reached her room and opened the door. No one was there, which was a good thing. Instinctively she hurried over to her computer and clicked onto the news.

The Pope was dead.