"My nightmares, I was saying, have robbed me the tranquility I had felt in my life." Ed began, distorting his face in an intense expression of irritation.
"I'm a person, you may say, who didn't have a critical turning point in his life. But those climacteric moments began in my life after John's trial was over. They tend to come about when my style of life and what I had believed began increasingly to hinder and interrupt my most powerful and ample energy in the society. Fighting such a great distress, I came to conclusion that for me staying busy and active was the best answer. I must admit, I achieved a small success to fight back those emotional upheaval."
"Why don't you get to the story? It's hard to believe that you were affected by your own malicious action!" Diana said with a grimace of distaste after a very long silence. It was very unmistakable that how much she disliked Ed and whatever he stood for. Her remark, somewhat confused Ed, who had thought Diana, being Jacob's wife, was his friend.
"I'm not a malicious person!" Ed responded with a wave of his hand.
"That is not for you to judge even though you want to become a judge. It's interesting that you just said that your life style is affected by that awful act, yet what I've seen in you in the last five years indicates otherwise." Diana got up and began to walk about the room, gripping her elbows.
Jacob, who still had some royalty to his long time friend, did not like what his wife just said; nonetheless, he was not in a position at that moment to contradict his wife.
Meanwhile Diana, who again was drowned into her old habit, introspecting, recited a poem to herself that she had written in her last birthday, again without her daughter, Vickie. Her voice was hushed, but not hushed enough for herself to hear the depression she had felt at the time she wrote it; and the despondency she felt right now in her house with all these people.
"Amazed by quick passing of the days
The sun rays
Overwhelmingly is exalted with praise
To sever forever, to remain with blaze
Youthful birthdays gone, the new one is a phase.
~
Bewildered by the new end
Not many friend
The vague faces, fire less eyes which pretend
The meaninglessness of today, everyday, to the end
A warm hand I have to lend.
~
Cast the ambition with grace
A profound case
The dawn so much sighed for in absence
It finally shows its face
Like a passing phantom of an embrace.
~
All these I know are only shown
Intensely known
The dawn is gone now, the sun is blown
The past, sweet, saintly past is mine alone
What little heart remembers its own."
*
Ed's eyelids were lowered, his face condensed in a gesture of a painful endurance. He began. His voice was muffled:
"Don't hate me. I'm just a human being. Who hasn't made a mistake or two in his life?"
"What kind of mistakes are we talking about, yours or others?" Rosa said, popping open a can of coke.
"I don't know what to say. I'm very regretful, repentant, that much I can say. I don't know how to repair it. I know john can't have another trial. He was acquitted. They call it double jeopardy. It's a mess, isn't it?"
Tim hissed at Ed; his teeth clenched, as his enraged eyes pierced Ed with extreme disgust.
"Ed, the consequences of your act has been devastating for a young man and his family." Jacob began somberly. He could not believe that he was Ed's best friend for all these years, and not even once had suspected him. How was it that Diana, his wife, always told him that Ed was not trustworthy, and he thought that she just did not like Ed and his wife?
"However there is something to be learned and acquired from even the blackest and the most dreary journey in our lives. Nothing goes to waste." Jacob, it appeared, that still wanted to save his old friend.
"I don't believe you said that Jacob!" Tim said with a grimace of repulsion." You don't want to change this to a subject in philosophy, do you? I hope you're not among the majority that believe there is a secret concept that something unexpected will turn our lives around; therefore, there must be a reason for every event in our lives..."
"Not at all Tim. That is not what I meant. I'm sure you know what I convey. The lesson which Ed learns from all these, I'm sure will devastate him for the rest of his life, even though it's a little too late. I must admit that I'm very disappointed to learn this. My wife had her suspicion. She didn't know about you or your son, but she knew something was going on in Ed's life. But I've never thought Ed would be that kind of a person. Once again, as always Diana was right and I was wrong." It seemed as though Jacob wanted to do two things at the same time, to please his wife, and to show his irritation.
"What kind of writer are you that you couldn't even see your best friend's vanity for power and money? He is almost as criminal as John is! I thought writers are not only introspective but also observing, who could see beneath the surface, the truth behind all lies." Tim said with extreme sadness in his voice.
"Are you here to condemn me or Ed? I guess I knew it all along but didn't want to believe it."
"Before every disgraceful act, one must forget about his pride." Diana said huskily.
"Very good,"Tim laughed, a laughter that could be as well a cry. "I know Ed has no pride. To him everything is about control; and control is only achieved by money. Yes, that is all it has been all along. He even control his wife because he practically bought her. But control can't be maintained. So much essential energy would be destroyed to achieve control. And all these lost vigor, one day, would return to haunt you, wouldn't they?
"I know John can't have another trial; and I know it's too late to save my son. You may ask how so! He is so much deteriorated emotionally and physically that he can not be saved. I don't want him to be saved. He is not, one may say, a human anymore. I consider him dead already. I'm not here to save him. It's too late. I'm not desperate. I am talking the reality. I'm here to only hear a confession, and may be, just may be, I can force Ed, or he can force himself to deteriorate as well, just like my son.
"I want all of you to hear what he had done and how he had done it. I pretty much know it myself; but I want to hear it from his mouth. I want to see shame in his eyes; and I want him when he goes home, when he returns to his normal life, for ever and ever loses his tranquility and his sleep. I don't think that is too much for a price of a life." Tim finished, while sob rose in his throat.
$$
To Be Continued
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