Way Station

"We could try," said Enoch. "If you would only stay."

"And end up by hating you? And, worse than that, by your hating me. Let us keep the guilt and misery. It is better than the hate."

She moved swiftly and the pyramid of spheres was in her hand and lifted.

"No, not that!" ‘he shouted. "No, Mary…"

The pyramid flashed, spi

"Mary!" Enoch cried, striding forward in the dark.

But there was no one there.

"Mary!" he shouted, and the shouting was a whimper.

She was gone and she would not be back.

Even when he needed her, she would not be back.

He stood quietly in the dark and silence, and the voice of a century of living seemed to speak to him in a silent language.

All things are hard, it said. There is nothing easy.

There had been the farm girl living down the road, and the southern beauty who had watched him pass her gate, and now there was Mary, gone forever from him.

He turned heavily in the room and moved forward, groping for the table.

He found it and switched on the light.

He stood beside the table and looked about the room. In this corner where he stood there once had been a kitchen, and there, where the fireplace stood, the living room, and it all had changed — it had been changed for a long time now. But he still could see it as if it were only yesterday.

All the days were gone and all the people in them.

Only he was left.

He had lost his world. He had left his world behind him.

And, likewise, on this day, had all the others — all the humans that were alive this moment.

They might not know it yet, but they, too, had left their world behind them. It would never be the same again.

You said good bye to so many things, to so many loves, to so many dreams.

"Good bye, Mary," he said. Forgive me and God keep you."

He sat down at the table and pulled the journal that lay upon its top in front of him. He flipped it open, searching for the pages he must fill.

He had work to do.

Now he was ready for it.

He had said his last good bye.