The Forty-Third Night

Last Saturday, after dinner, Nick and I stepped out onto the veranda, where we lay back on the deck chairs I keep there, and watched the stars. It was a moonless night, and we could see the Milky Way stretching across the sky like an embrace over the sea.

“In the States I knew the constellations way better,” Nick said. “Here they’re all different.”

“There are still a few you can see from the Northern Hemisphere.”

“Yeah? Like which ones?”

“For instance, Orion.”

“The Hunter?”

“That’s the one. Right there,” I said, pointing to the stars. “Those three form his belt.”

“I’m seein’ it!” my friend exclaimed. “So Scorpius is close by, right?”

“Yes. Let me see… There! Do you see that sinuous line of stars?”

“How did I never notice that?”

“The stars aren’t in the same position here, that’s all.”

“Sometimes that’s all it is, huh?”

“What do you mean, Nick?”

“Just… changing how you look at things. Seeing them from another angle, a different perspective. Kinda helps with life, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. I quite agree. A rigid thing breaks easily, while a flexible one withstands tremendous pressure. In life, we need that flexibility.”

“But why is it that—even knowin’ all that—people still hold on to things that hurt them? I catch myself doin’ it, in this fear of falling back into drugs. I keep thinkin’ some part of me still wants them, even knowing how bad they are.”

“Like those who suffer for being overweight but cling to the pleasure of food. I have my afflictions too. We all do. But you saw the problem from another side, and you changed your life.”

“Yeah… mostly ’cause I’m scared of goin’ back to the old one.”

“Because the old one gave you some pleasure, satisfied something in you. Then you realized that this pleasure, this satisfaction, was deadly poison. Evil is like that—it’s pleasant. It has to be, or we would never embrace it.”

“You speak of evil as if it were a being.”

“As an observer of life, it’s easy to see there is evil within us. As a Catholic, I understand it as the corruption caused by Adam’s sin—sin that began through the action of a being, the Devil. On one hand, we bear a corrupted nature; on the other, a wicked creature calls us toward that corruption.”

A fish leapt from the water, as though to have a better look at the stars.

“And where’s the solution in all that?”

“A nature corrupted by evil does not mean absolute evil. We are still essentially good, for we were created by Holy Goodness. Our origin lies in the act of a being infinitely greater and more powerful than the Devil. Fighting for the good is the way God, in His infinite Wisdom, chose to make us strong, and to grant us forgiveness for the evil we do.”

“A fight…” Nick said. “Yeah, that really describes what I feel. Every day—one more fight.”

Nick let out a long yawn and said, “Guess it’s time I head back to my little spot.”

Rising from the deck chair, he added, “D’you think I’ll win this fight?”

“You’re already winning.”

He smiled at me, then walked toward his red car.