The young priest sighed when he recalled the weather the last time he had been through that part of the country. It had been a blindingly warm late summer day during his journey from his country home to the seminary, but today the air was heavy and soft as he breathed it, and laughing seemed a far better source of heat than shaking. The pastor of St. Augustine’s had died, and the bishop was sending this young priest home as a replacement. The priest had his doubts concerning the assignment, but he was obedient. The rain beat upon the windowpane of the compartment only periodically, for the priest had chosen the leeward side quite by accident.

He was alone in the dark, wood-paneled booth and took to resting is head on the cold and clammy glass. He found it especially unnerving that gazing upon the dream landscape was, by far, less depressing than gazing inward. Father Andreas had been the great role model for this young priest since the time when this young priest was but an altar boy, and tomorrow this altar boy would be saying the funerary rite of his old hero. In his mind, he was still only an altar boy—young Eustachius and not Father Casii.

As the dull golden stubble of tired fields rushed away from him and fell into gray oblivion, Father Casii recalled his last days at home. It had been as though he had been running, anxious to leave everything behind, yet somehow, he associated the memories with a golden glow and a warmth so contrary to the current state that it was no longer quite clear to him which dream—for as far as they concerned him, they were both dreams—was appropriate to the situation at hand. “Thou needst only to take each moment as it cometh,” he said to himself in a half-hearted attempt to end his worrying.

He regained his mental focus when suddenly the train shuddered violently. For a moment, he feared for his life but quickly returned to his wandering melancholy, lost in the lachrymal falling of the rain and rhythmic chugging of the steam pistons. Fr. Casii was so lost that as the train slowed to a halt, so did his perception of time such that the sounds of whistles, bells, hissing, and yelling were unnoticeable and meaningless to the oblivious clod of dirt.

“Father, this is Mons Parvus,” the conductor said upon finding the priest limp, staring dumbfounded into infinite space. “Father, your bag is on the platform; I’d recommend you come.”

“I shall be out forthwith,” said Fr. Casii, finally. “I should have known it from the damaged tracks,” he muttered to himself, pulling a loose thread from the tapestry of his last week’s thought.

The conductor let the door close behind him and continued to yell “Mons Parvus” down the train, whose brakes blew out another hiss of steam before Fr. Casii pulled himself off of the cold black leather of the thickly padded bench. He grabbed his khaki courier’s bag off the rack, slung it over his shoulder, and shuffled into the tight corridor. After fumbling his way past several compartments, he descended the steep stair to the wooden platform and looked for his suitcase.

The dark train slowly gained steam, and as the stokes of the pistons sped up, so too did Fr. Casii’s disconnected thoughts until, upon taking his heavy suitcase in hand, a train passed rapidly on the other side, twisting and billowing his cassock about his legs and leaving awhirl of dirt and leaves to be caught by the cold breeze. He shook off the chill before following the road into town of foot and very much alone.

“So it is unchanged,” he said aloud as he tripped on a familiarly loose cobblestone. Although the rain had stopped, the sky grew darker like a face whose tears had ceased but which had begun apathetically to brood.

He had had it in his mind to catch a cab to St. Augustine but soon realized that cabs probably now ran on petrol, so, when he heard the clattering of a horse drawn cart behind him, he decided to jump onto it. He could soon make out the smell of wet horse and hay with which he had grown to adolescence. To him, that smell was a happy one, and he recalled his adventure into the countryside. He was once again wrestling in the mud and playing hide-and-seek in piles of straw in the lofts of barns. He always became so dirty that by the time he got home, he would be encased in a large brick. Yes, he smelled it then.

Suddenly, he was at his great-uncle’s funeral procession from Mons Parvus. He could not cry for that beloved shepherd of men; his heart was wrenched dry. Everything was the same now—even that smell.

The driver of the cart lifted his gray cap to Eustachius, who matched the speed of the cart and hopped into the hay. Since the rain was over, the cold set it, but because of the warm hay, he could hardly help but sleep, though only moments before he had been fully awake. “The whole world is addicted to this passive passion.” He began his rosary. “Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum; adveniat…”

“Father, if you wan’ St. Augustine, we a’ ‘ere.”

“The Crowing with Thorns… “What? St. Augustine? I pray thee, sir, take care.”

“I do tha’, Father.”

Father Casii stepped off the cart and into the street. It became the same as it was before. He took the path to the rectory.

It was comfortably dank in the narrow gap between buildings whose stucco had decayed to modestly display long Roman brick. On his right appeared a door which he knocked quickly and lightly with his chilled knuckles. A drop of dirty water falling from the red tile roof to his cheek, he rapped harder, only to find no answer, so he want off to find someone more intelligent than a door.

Fr. Casii’ shoulder was becoming sore as he waved to a young man walking out of the sacristy at the back of the church. He wore a long tunic with a damp woolen cloak perhaps too large for his size. The priest caught himself while hurrying down a set of slippery steps to the porch at the church’s back. He could see his father’s barn in the wasted countryside below.

“Where may I find Brother Stephanus?”

“Father, you’re s’posed to go o’er to the school there quick.”

“Who art thou?”

“Don’t matter…I serve at th’altar.”

“What of Brother Stephanus?”

“In the church. You here don’t need to go there.”

“Wherefore art thou not in the school?”

“They there sent me to you here. Guess I did.”

“Perhaps thou shouldst return to thy Latin.”

“Latin ain’t but written.”

“Catch my words: thou shouldst get thyself to class!”

The boy disappeared around the corner and down the steps. Eustachius sighed, unsure of whether to laugh, weep, or rage after the boy. He simply shook his head and pulled at the sacristy door below. “Oak,” he thought. “Slow growth.”

Looking for the light switch, he found the box of matches where he had left them and lit the lamp. The room smelled of incense more strongly than the sanctuary chaplet in Roma. “How dead the air we daily breathe,” he said, laying his suitcase next to a desk whose top he had never known to see the light of day. He began to look for the black altar cloths by was distracted by a golden glint amidst a stack of papers. He flipped over the pocket watch, whose crystal was cracked and whose hour hand had broken off. The watch refused to wind, so he slipped it into his pocket.

The incense bothered him. “Why was the room not cleaned after the fire?” Looking for the small thurible, the priest noted an empty space on a shelf and knelt to open his suitcase. He removed a large gray sock which he threw on top of the desk, revealing an exquisite chalice. He filled the empty space and smiled like a proud father watching his sleeping children.

He found the large censer hanging on the hook by the door to the altar and noted that it had not been washed. “That imbecile is probably culpable,” he thought, looking for where he had once carved his name in the door. He wondered how it was possible for pine to be stained so dark. The door suddenly swung open, and Eustachius rolled into church.

“Hello?”

“Brother Stephanus?”

“The same. Are you alright?”

“Fine, thank you. I tried getting into the rectory.”

“You are needed at the school. The headmaster wishes to speak with his new chaplain.”