Act Fourteen - Interlude: Invitation

‘It was the waiting I hated most. Not knowing. Like Norman might mess up at repairing her, and I would never see her again. But I knew, deep down inside, that he wouldn’t, he never had before.’

    Seated downstairs, so I could be closer to where she was being worked on, I was the only one available to answer the door when the courier came.

   “Roger Smith?” the young man asked, as though he did not recognize me, and I suppose with my state of disarray, he shouldn’t have been expected to.

    “Speaking,” I was surprised at the bass rumble in my own voice.

    “I was sent to deliver you this invitation for the Saint’s Day Ball.”

    I glance at the envelope the young man is holding out, and remember a time when I would’ve been overjoyed to go back and spend some time with my old comrades, if only for an hour or two, but I shake my head. “It seems you’ve come to the wrong place.”

    “Major Dastun was… most vehement that you should accept the invitation, sir.”

    I narrow my eyes at the young cadet in his dress uniform. He swallows, somewhat nervous, and I grudgingly take the envelope, but cut off his next sentence by slamming the door in his face.

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