Who Knows Man's Measure
Every Sunday John sits up straight in the high-backed wooden pew, his feet dangling inches above the floor, and listens. The preacher talks of right and wrong, the many sins of mankind, redemption for some and not others, and the rewards or downfalls thusly reaped.
John joins the line at the end, his line of sight blocked by two unfamiliar shuffling forms until suddenly, out of nowhere it's his turn.
He tips his head back to receive the wafer and a sip of wine. The alcohol burns its way down his throat and warms his chest. He is blessed.
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye
John meets his father by the steps, the man's eyes cloudy and not quite focused but his gait steady, practiced. His breath stinks of peppermint mouthwash as he leans down to whisper.
"You remember to tell your mother that I was sitting in church next to you the whole time, right, boy?"
John jerks his head stiffly and his father straightens again.
"That's my Johnny," he says with a smile, ruffling John's hair.
As they head back home, John looks at the back of his father's head and remembers the preacher's words. His father, the sinner.
Some years late, a older teenage John sits again in a wooden bench. On the other side of him, his father seems to have shrunk in the wake of his wife's death. His little sister Harry plays with her dolls on the floor, too young to know what's going on.
John's feet still don't quite reach the floor.
At the front of the room the judge calls for quiet and the prosecution stands to deliver its closing statement.
He talks about a pattern of poor judgment, reckless behavior and its consequences, a life unfairly taken and for justice to be done. This is all familiar to John, and he nods along with the jury.
When his father is convicted, measured and found wanting, John thinks to himself, Just right, and feels a warm glow of satisfaction in his chest.
For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.
On the way our of the courtroom, clutching his little sister's hand in his, he sees a statue. It is a lady, dressed in long flowing robes and brandishing a set of golden scales.
They glint in the sunlight, larger than life.
John carries those scales with him the rest of his life.
A few weeks after arriving home, John reluctantly agrees to meet his sister at a café. She is half an hour late and though she doesn't wobble as she walks in, her eyes are cloudy and she smells strongly of citrus air freshener.
She tells him how Clara has left her and he nods, unsurprised.
She glances up at him, her gaze a bit desperate.
"So, how are you getting on, then?" She asks, and John tells her what he has told everyone, that his shoulder is fine, he's fine, it's all fine.
She nods, accepting these polite lies.
They sit and sip their coffee, John glancing at his watch every few minutes.
As he's getting up to go, Harry grabs his sleeve. He looks down at her, his baby sister.
"What happened with us, John?" She asks plaintively. "We used to be so close, and now. . ." she doesn't finish her sentence.
John just shakes his head,
"I don't know, we just. . . lost touch," he finishes lamely.
Do not be deceived: "Bad company ruins good morals."
Harry presses a mobile phone into his hand and tells him to call her, to stay in touch.
He nods and says he will. He knows he won't.
The first night in Angelo's as they sit and wait for a murderer, John weighs what he knows of Sherlock.
He considers: Sherlock's razor sharp intellect, his deductions. That mention of a riding crop in the morgue. His apparent fondness for the landlady, Mrs. Hudson, versus his elation at the news there's been a fourth murder-suicide. His "friend", a human skull.
He stacks rude, crazy(?) against brilliant, solves crimes.
On one side he piles indifference to the dead woman, withholding evidence from the police, on the other the way he solves puzzles, his mind jumping from observation to answer with ease, how alive John felt for the first time, running after a cab that could contain a murderer.
The scales tip back and forth but ultimately they settle in place, split down the middle. Neither side outweighing the other.
John reserves judgment.