O Night

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine.

 ‘It isn’t night,’ Katrine said, as Geissel was polishing off the first chorus.

‘It’s not bloody Christmas either!’ added Masterson.

‘Where is the night?’ asked Geissel.  ‘There looks to be no sign of the sun setting.’

Katrine looked to the sun and saw it was slipping behind some cloud again. ‘The solstice hasn’t started yet.  So night should come.  Don’t urge its departure, Geissel.  The sun may set before we get all of this done and then where will we be?  Stuck.’

‘But we’re practically done.’

They were.  A hole in the ground capacious enough to seat Mrs. Juhl’s body had been fashioned by this time.  Whatever time it was.  They were not wrong to question the affairs of time and the puzzling behaviour of the light.  They had entered into a seasonal limbo, and it wasn’t tempered by the perpetual carolling.  They had left a wintry mid-spring in Ireland, happened upon an autumnal late winter on the Faroes, and now here was the onset of a relatively winterish midsummery spring. There was no kicking that cold winter in the north.  Not even the sun could weather it.  Maybe that’s why it had taken cover in the clouds.

After a few additional minutes of ploughing, Masterson, realising the job was done, flung his shovel in the air, and it hit the nearest sunflower, damaging slightly the fleshy stem.  The impact made the flower’s head jiggle wildly for a moment but it held together steady.     

Katrine walked off and re-established the sitting position she had established previously on her mother’s coffin which they had set down on the ground a few feet away.  It was time for some peace and quiet and further reflection; but Masterson was having none of it and slinked after her to wreck that peace and quiet.  He had something on his mind which he felt more comfortable addressing in Geissel’s absence.  Yes, even the insolent Masterson had potential for discretionary moments.  He had a rolled-up cigarette in his coat; he lit it up in front of Katrine and said, while motioning to her chest: ‘You kept that quiet!’

‘What?’

‘Your condition?’

‘Quiet?  Don’t you mean hidden?’

‘Yes.  But it didn’t stay hidden, did it?  How come I didn’t notice it that night in the alleyway?’

‘One was good enough for you, I seem to recall.  Anyway, that was an incongruous event in time.’

‘It was – but... I can’t say I wouldn’t try it again.’

‘Are you actually making propositions while the dead body of my mother lies here beneath me?’

Masterson abated.  Being a provocateur, he had a good mind to say Yes.  He usually would.  But he had the better impulse to stay silent.  There wasn’t any point.

Geissel meanwhile strolled a bit, flicking through a little pocket bible he had, but he didn’t stray too far from the others, as there was a thick fog creeping overhead.  He kept within sight the grave and Littlewood’s bag of supplies lying nearby.  O Holy Night lingered on his closed lips in a trembling hum.

He was looking for a decent passage to read, something apt for a heathen funeral that wouldn’t upset God too much.

After leafing for a while, he remembered something from Isaiah:

The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.

Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.

He tended to avoid the Old Testament for sermons, preferring instead the New, and, what were in his opinion, its comparative subtleties.  But this part was nice.  And he thought it might do well to honour Mrs. Juhl. 

 As he read the passage aloud to the tune of O Holy Night, there were drumming sounds in the blanket of fog ahead of him.  Like stomping feet.  His head leaned forward to listen. 

‘Captain Littlewood?  Aidan?’ he called out, thinking it might be their companions returning. 

No response.  But the drumming got louder.

He turned to check on Masterson and Katrine.  They were obscured in the fog, but he could hear the two of them mumbling back there.  Mrs. Juhl’s ready grave and the bag of supplies remained clear. 

As he put his pocket bible away, a section in the foggy mass broke and two figures took shape: Littlewood, running; the wolf, chasing.