"You're right Diana." Tim said. "I stop but not before telling all of my story, my life. I, like all of you, have a secret; but I tell you my dreadful secret after I hear the secrets of the rest of you.
"What I want to tell you now, is about my son, my marriage, and the reason I accepted Jacob's invitation tonight. I wanted to face Ed personally. He is the one who ruined my son's life and put him in jail for life by freeing his rich client." Tim said, as though involuntarily, as though talking to himself, as though there was no one besides him in the room.
Everybody suddenly overcame with confusion. The hot blood spread beneath the skin of all, who listened to depressed, yet determined talk of Tim. Diana secretly glanced from Tim to Jacob. Tim had used the words, "my dreadful secret" with sardonic purpose, which she had noticed. " What is the dreadful secrets?" She did not know. Thui was the most surprised. She had no idea what was going on. She had heard the beginning of Diana's story but not the end. She was asleep the entire time. Now, her husband was been prosecuted.
*
"I'm a person you may call nihilist." Tim went on, getting up again. " You probably think that a nihilist is a person who doesn't believe in anything. That isn't true. Quite differently, a nihilist is someone who doesn't take the principals of things for granted. I personally cherish those principals. I see you're laughing. You think I have no principals. I do, even more than all of you. But all my principals have been stolen from me.
"Nowadays, everywhere you look, people say they're nihilist without even knowing the meaning of it. Now we have to see how one person, for example me, can manage to exist in this vain, unfeeling world." Tim stopped pacing; stood in the middle of the room. There was a crude, almost arrogant tone in his voice. Then he sat on the chair by the dinning table.
"We're destroying everything, destroying..." He repeated with an indescribable composure.
"We destroy, but we forget that we need to construct, too. You think it's funny that these words come out from my mouth, someone who seeks revenge, who recognized Diana the minute he walked here, and he taught, 'ha, I must reveal her secret.' You may be right; but a man who is already destroyed can construct? Don't ask me what I mean by that! You will know before dawn.
"Now I'm thinking about principals, the principals I've believed all my life; but now I'm at a point that no principals matter anymore. That is not my affair any longer. I thought the ground must be cleared first before us, the educators, so we could teach the new generations the principals. But you know my ground has changed to an abyss that at any point would devour me in it."
"Why don't you get to the point? It is not time for philosophy." Ed said with a real disgust in his voice.
"Be quiet. You must hear all these even though I'm sure you're not capable of understanding it." Tim was entangling in his words. "We set up our behavior on what we think as beneficial in today society. The most good thing we can do is to reject; like rejecting to give a helping hand to someone unless there is something in it for us; to abandon, like mothers who abandon their children; to deny, like when the truth comes to surface, like one deserts his own flash and blood and his own family; to dishonor, like dishonoring honesty; and to revoke, like when one revokes a promise, a duty. So we all forsake what we can to gain what is gained only by discarding the right thing." He got up from chair, walked a little, then poured a glass of wine for himself. This time he threw himself on the sofa, clasped his hands behind his neck, and stayed motionless for awhile, staring at the ceiling. His expression showed nothing but hopelessness. Perhaps he felt hiding from each human and each object that existed in that room. Rosa and Diana could see the true pain, Thui was mystified. Ed was annoyed; and Jacob was curious.
To Be Continued
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