"She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses,"cried the young Student; "but in all my garden there is no redrose."From her nest in the holm-oak tree the Nightingale heard him, andshe looked out through the leaves, and wondered."No red rose in all my garden!" he cried, and his beautiful eyesfilled with tears. "Ah, on what little things does happinessdepend! I have read all that the wise men have written, and allthe secrets of philosophy are mine, yet for want of a red rose ismy life made wretched.""Here at last is a true lover," said the Nightingale. "Night afternight have I sung of him, though I knew him not: night after nighthave I told his story to the stars, and now I see him. His hair isdark as the hyacinth-blossom, and his lips are red as the rose ofhis desire; but passion has made his face like pale ivory, andsorrow has set her seal upon his brow."
He lay awake in bed. Late afternoon sun drifted in shafts through the cracks in the blinds. He liked to watch the dust floating around in the concentrated light, it reminded him of church. Of Sunday mornings and navy ties that were tied too tight, because apparently looking smart went hand in hand with cutting off your oxygen supply.
It reminded him of wasted time and boring sermons and adults all standing around looking bored, but attempting to look inspired. It reminded him of when he was ten years old, one day when his mother had had a cold and he'd been taken to church by aunt Marjorie, and instead of letting him sit and write in his notebook like his mother always did Aunt Marjorie had held his hand and made him listen to the priest.
He couldn't remember most of specific details of the day, it was a long time ago after all. But at the end of it all Father Bailey had made the cross with his hands and said the same thing he always said.
"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen"
"Amen" the congregation repeated, as they always did, and he had always said it too. But today he was interested in other things. He was tugging on Aunt Marjorie's arm, and she was trying to ignore him, Father Bailey was reading from his book of psalms and Aunt Marjorie loved the psalms, but he needed to know. He just had to.
"Aunt Marjorie!" It was only a whisper, but he was hoping that it held enough of a threat of increasing volume to get her to pay attention to him. He was right.
"What is it Gil? I'm trying to listen."
"Aunt Marjorie, is there really a Holy Ghost?"
Aunt Marjorie looked at him as if he'd gone quite mad, much in the way that adults did when he asked questions. Apart from his mother, she never looked at him that way, nor did Dr Herbert, his science teacher at school, Dr Herbert would always answer his questions, or at least try to. But most adults just tended to think he was a little off his rocker. He didn't mind though, as long as he got answers.
"Of course there's a Holy Ghost Gil, why?"
"Well where is he?"
"What?"
"Is he in the church? Or does he fly around the world visiting all the churches?" It had never occurred to him as a child that the Holy Ghost may not have been male. In fact, it only just occurred to him now that the spirit probably didn't have any kind of assigned gender. But he forgave his ten year old self for being so thoughtless.
Aunt Marjorie was putting on that face, that face that meant she was trying to come up with an answer to satisfy him, even though she had no real idea what she was supposed to say.
"He's all around us Gil. Not just in church. All the time. Now be a good boy and keep quiet, ok?"
He nodded and let go her arm. He spent the rest of the service looking all around the church, up in the ceiling, toward the back wall, to see if he could find the Holy Ghost.
Aunt Marjorie said that he was all around, all the time, so he obviously couldn't be one single thing, it has to be something small, with lots of parts, something that's everywhere. And then he saw it. A great big shaft of sunlight was beaming in through the broken window on the East wall and was cutting right across onto Lucy Moran who was in his English class and whose mother was friends with his mother.
In that shaft of sunlight he could see it, hundreds of tiny little floating specks of dust, flowing around each other, and around everyone else. The Holy Ghost.
And even now, as he watches the dust fly through the air in the warmth of his bedroom, forty years since that day in church, he doesn't really think it was such an absurd idea.
Sara was distracted, he could tell. She kept running her hands through her hair and scratching her head. One minute she'd be leaning forward, head resting on her wrists, the next she'd sit up straight and look away as if she'd seen someone she knew, or was hoping to. Then she'd look back at him and smile and try to look relaxed, but he could tell by the way that she was fingering the peppershaker that she was anything but.
"Sara," the thing was, it amused him. He was always the one rattled. Always the one speechless and often without an idea in his mind of what to say to her, and she was nervous. Downright made him chuckle. "Sara." She heard him the second time.
"Mmm?" She seemed surprised that he was still there. He had to smile.
"You're fidgeting. Are you uncomfortable?"
"No! No not at all!" But her answer came too quickly, too enthusiastically to be believed, and she knew it. She smiled again, properly this time, a little embarrassed. She ducked her head and ran her hand through her hair once more. "I guess I just don't understand why we're here, is all."
Grissom nodded and slightly pursed his lips.
"Well I guess that all depends on your viewpoint. Some people believe that our existence is a divine destiny, a creation of God, or of some purposive energy. Others say that the greatest meaning of life is to share love. From a scientist's point of view I would say that we are here merely to procreate and ensure the survival of the species. But then you would have to consider wh-" He stopped when he looked at her face.
Sara Sidle was now looking at him with a mixture of irritation and contempt. He was sure that that would not work out well for him with what he had planned.
"What?"
Sara rolled her eyes.
"I meant hereGrissom. As in here. At this table. In this restaurant which is, by the way, nowhere near work and pretty far from either of our homes. You picked this restaurant, and then you asked me to it without any explanation and I came along in anticipation of that explanation. But so far it's not forthcoming. You seem perfectly content to sit there and talk about the meaning of existence when you haven't actually properly spoken to me in what seems like a fair while and I don't understand why."
Finally allowing herself to breathe Sara sat back in her chair, taking a glass of water with her and pretty much gulping down its contents. Then she met his eyes again. He looked amused. She felt angry.
"Oh well that's great. You just sit there and laugh at me, I'll sit here and fume and then we can both go home and forget all about this horrible moment."
"Sara, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh, I'm not laughing. It's just, you always say how you over-talk around me and I can't say that I ever really noticed before, but, yeah, you just don't come up for air do you?"
"Grissom would you please just answer my question?"
He wasn't ready for it. He didn't know what he wanted to say, or how to phrase it, or where to look or how to look. He simply wasn't ready. But her earlier nervousness had been replaced by weariness and he could tell her patience was running out. So he nodded. Poured himself some water and took a sip. And then started, for lack of a better place, at the beginning.