Into the breach
There was a professor at a respected university in north America who was well into his late eighties, on his time off, or on his breaks he would sit underneath a juniper tree and would watch birds scan for prey in a circular motion, and then a bird or two would descend on his shoulder and rest while he was deep in thought unfazed by the phenomena in which took place quite often when he visited there.
His name was Professor Donahue, and he had an early diagnosis of Demetia that he kept hidden from his colleagues in his profession for the first half of his last year at the college before he was forced to retire. he was a very well-respected man of science and profound thought, however sadly he was deteriorating, suspicious by this he was then monitored by a few of his collogues.
two weeks before his retirement he was pointing out the dimensions of a black hole on the chalk board to his students while quoting Shakespeare '' Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more'' and then he beheld the birds in their circular pattern that appeared like a haunting vision in the void that was his illustrated black hole, he then froze confused for quite a time until his students and his overseers where alarmed by this.
Professor Donahue was forced to retire within that last two weeks and his decline in mental clarity had plummeted beyond what he himself could see.
The day he was let go after a Farwell he went immediately to sit under the juniper tree yet again and ponder as he saw the birds scanning for prey once more in a circular motion ''into the breach'' he whispered and then the two birds came to sit on him like in times past, but this bird duo transitioned like static in reality as they transformed into human beings, tender, love filled human beings embracing with tight arms, one his wife and the other his daughter crying on his shoulder, the professor was lost in deep thought as his memory then faded.
Timothy Whitu Phillips © 2024
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