What now, Maurice?
“What now, Maurice?”
“What now what, Jerome?”
“Now that we know he’s not coming. What now?”
“He might still come.”
“Maurice, he told us, if I’m not with you by then, I’ll be late, so late that I won’t be coming. At all.”
“Jerome, it’s muy, molto, muito dificile to accept that. You know how I feel.”
“I do, Maurice. However you say it, I share your distress. But we still need a plan. We need to discuss: What now?”
“Jerome, he might not really be late.”
“Oh dear. I’ll put it another way. He’s late.”
“That’s not another way, Jerome. That’s the same way.”
“Maurice, look at that squirrel.”
“Squirrel?”
“Out the window. The squirrel has its acorns, its tree branch, its general outlook on life. The squirrel doesn’t beat around the bush. If the squirrel were in on this with us, the squirrel would know as well as I do, as well as you should, and I feel you really do know: he’s late, and he’s not coming. At all.”
“Oh Jerome, squirrel aside, how I wish he would come and prove you wrong.”
“Maurice, we’ve seen this time and time again. First the twins were late, then the bishop, then the milkman, and that was that. We accepted it. Late is late is late. Now he is late, the same degree and kind — Maurice, the same degree and kind — of lateness as the twins and the bishop and the milkman. And we know all about them, don’t we?”
“Yes, yes, yes, I’m beginning to see your point, Jerome, it’s a valid and logical point, but I still wish, I still hope. Still, thank you so much for your patience. I can see now, without giving up the hope in my heart, that holding out hope against hope is fruitless. Late, in this case, is indeed late, and cannot be made early, or on time, or even alive. So now I feel able to discuss what now.”
“I’m glad, Maurice. I’m glad you’ve come around. But because we’ve used up so much time waiting for you to accept the fact that he is late, and what that means, I must tell you that I can’t stay to discuss what now. I am expected elsewhere. I will come back and we can discuss what now then. And I must warn you: I may be late.”
First posted, in shorter form, in response to Prompt 58 at what now? by mary g