November

When I consider the short span of my life, absorbed in the eternity which precedes and the eternity which follows it, the little space that I fill, and even the space I see, swallowed up in the infinite immensity of the spaces which I know not and which know not me, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here rather than there, for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Why put me here? By whose order and act were this time and place destined for me? ~ Blaise Pascal, Pensées Is life just a series of random events with no underlying purpose or plan or is there a reason why things happen as they do? That is the question which drives this tale of murder, guilt, repentance and redemption. It’s Remembrance Day, 2017 and we find John D’Alessandro, high school History teacher, at the podium of the school auditorium explaining to the students assembled what ‘remembrance’ actually means. In that moment, memories from forty-years before return to haunt him. With the help of a priest, a psychiatrist and an old sibyl, John begins to deal with the demons he’d once consigned to his “forget locker”. As the story approaches its denouement, he is forced to confront life’s most fundamental questions and pull himself out of the abyss. “November” is a thought-provoking story which will have readers reflecting on their own lives: on choices made and not made, on roads taken and not taken.

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