Luck

The priest sits against the stone wall. He lives on the border of mystery and faith, way behind the frequencies of time and truth that operate their tyrannies over his daily life. The pagan signs are daubed upon the walls, but he no longer reads them. Behind him the ripped ballgown of the evening sky sheds shreds of light into the church and across the gravestones. Soon the early moon will settle in its autumn cradle, and the bell will toll him back indoors. He creaks to his feet, performs the last of his duties with a touching courtesy.
He sweeps the leaves, collects the broken skeletons of the dead birds, goes into the church and lights the evening candles against the grim shutting sky. He has reached the moment when every impulse is quietened, every jumping nerve stilled. He is certain there is a great Plan, unknown to him but nevertheless a Plan with him in mind. His duties complete he kneels, about halfway down the church, and prays for the community of the dead. He recognises them.Thinks he's almost there already. And when he has listed all those known to him privately in his heart, he returns to the outside evening and a landscape that briefly links the randomness of road, church and man in the evening. It is, he thinks, his lucky day.