TM 221: "Never pray for justice, because you might get some."
"Never pray for justice, because you might get some." - Margaret Atwood.
Camilla learned at a very young age that praying didn't help much of anything. Prayers couldn't bring her parents back. It was a lesson nearly everyone in fairy tales learned anyway, and one that didn't surprise her. People died and praying couldn't bring them back. The ancillary lesson was life isn't fair, because she was sure her parents didn't deserve to die, and she was sure she and Charles didn't deserve to have lost their parents, but there it was, bad things happened to good people, in saecula saeculorum, amen.
God was a remote person, one she did not equate with her dead father or anyone's father. God was a good-luck coin, but one you couldn't trust in a coin-toss. Camilla's prayers were perfunctory, the beads of a rosary clicking through cold fingers, something to focus anxieties when she had to travel by train. Say enough Hail Marys and maybe the train won't derail. Beside her Charles would fidget and stir, and she would have to stop to listen to him talking.
Justice was not something anyone should have to pray for. If you had to beg, it wasn't really justice, it was alms. Anyway justice wasn't really possible in this world. One had to accept that, even learn to appreciate it, the way in which the universe depended upon inequities. Some people richer than others, some people more beautiful than others, some people able to get away with murder. Camilla didn't see anything wrong with that, getting away with murder.
Maybe there were people in Hampden who did pray for justice. Maybe their prayers were heard, eye for an eye, death for a death. Camilla couldn't know for sure. The last train ride home from Hampden she clutched her rosary and did not try to pray at all. Life isn't fair, said the relentless rhythm of the train, a machine that would not stop no matter what happened, the way the sun was a machine that would not stop, the way the sun would keep rising and setting even though Henry was dead. Life wasn't fair and death wasn't fair either. Charles made a little angry sound and took Camilla's rosary from her fingers before it could fall to the floor. "It'll get lost under the seat," he told her. She told him to go back to sleep.
Muse: Camilla Macaulay
Fandom: Donna Tartt, The Secret History
Word count: 389
Camilla learned at a very young age that praying didn't help much of anything. Prayers couldn't bring her parents back. It was a lesson nearly everyone in fairy tales learned anyway, and one that didn't surprise her. People died and praying couldn't bring them back. The ancillary lesson was life isn't fair, because she was sure her parents didn't deserve to die, and she was sure she and Charles didn't deserve to have lost their parents, but there it was, bad things happened to good people, in saecula saeculorum, amen.
God was a remote person, one she did not equate with her dead father or anyone's father. God was a good-luck coin, but one you couldn't trust in a coin-toss. Camilla's prayers were perfunctory, the beads of a rosary clicking through cold fingers, something to focus anxieties when she had to travel by train. Say enough Hail Marys and maybe the train won't derail. Beside her Charles would fidget and stir, and she would have to stop to listen to him talking.
Justice was not something anyone should have to pray for. If you had to beg, it wasn't really justice, it was alms. Anyway justice wasn't really possible in this world. One had to accept that, even learn to appreciate it, the way in which the universe depended upon inequities. Some people richer than others, some people more beautiful than others, some people able to get away with murder. Camilla didn't see anything wrong with that, getting away with murder.
Maybe there were people in Hampden who did pray for justice. Maybe their prayers were heard, eye for an eye, death for a death. Camilla couldn't know for sure. The last train ride home from Hampden she clutched her rosary and did not try to pray at all. Life isn't fair, said the relentless rhythm of the train, a machine that would not stop no matter what happened, the way the sun was a machine that would not stop, the way the sun would keep rising and setting even though Henry was dead. Life wasn't fair and death wasn't fair either. Charles made a little angry sound and took Camilla's rosary from her fingers before it could fall to the floor. "It'll get lost under the seat," he told her. She told him to go back to sleep.
Muse: Camilla Macaulay
Fandom: Donna Tartt, The Secret History
Word count: 389