What Must I Do

What Must I Do:

The servants saw their young master coming from a distance. His head leaning forward, shoulders slumped, and the usual swagger completely gone. He looked to be dragging himself up the perfectly manicured path to the front of his estate. The young man looked utterly dejected. The servants gazed at one another with silent, frantic, and panicked queries – uncertain of what to do. As the young master approached the moment of paralysis shattered abruptly and the world was racing at full speed again.  They approached him to take his cloak and to wash their master’s feet, but he snapped at them, “Be gone!” and in a moment the young lord was alone.  His servants had scurried away hiding just out of sight. They knew better than to go too far because at any moment he might call for them and they had better appear instantly. As he entered his mansion it was silent. It was always quiet when the master was home – ever bereft of music, laughter, and jovial conversations, but never before had there been this level of eerie silence, this lingering sense of foreboding desolation.

The young master liked his home quiet. His servants knew to snap to attention when their lord entered a room. They were never at ease when their master was at home. O, how they desperately longed for times when he would venture into town for business or politics so they could relax - even if only for a moment.  When the young lord was absent they could unwind a bit, joke, play pranks, or just have a conversation; but they were always watching – always subconsciously anxious. Today the silence seemed very different. When their master returned home the air was filled with a tension - a tangible and palpable presence, which everyone in the house could taste.  This silence was different; it was heavy - almost suffocating.  They peered around the massive marble columns and watched him.  He was just sitting there on the floor gazing at the ground with a blank stare and his head in his hands.  It seemed as though he was a different person. It seemed as though his arrogance was gone, but not only his arrogance – his dignity too.  The usually crisp and pristine air of haughtiness was not only vacant from his sails, but it seemed the sails themselves were rent from the mast of his immaculate ship of egotism and the whole thing had been violently run aground.  Their young lord looked like a child who had suffered a scolding, but worse.  He looked like a man whose very soul had been crushed...

Tune in tomorrow for Act 2 of "What Must I Do?"

Blessings,
-Kevin