Free The Five Pearls by Barry James Hickey Page A

his eyes and lowered his head.
“What do you hope to accomplish with what little time you have left?”
“I can’t tell you, Mrs. Powel,” he conceded.
“Why not, John?”
“Because it is a foolish idea.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “And yet I can think of no other approach to my dilemma.”
“Talk to me about it. Tell me what it is. There might be a better solution.”
John left his seat and crossed to the window, staring out at the yard. “I sat in a steel and cinder block cell for fifteen years. Why? Because of my ego. I used to be an attorney, Mrs. Powell. A very good attorney. I made too much money, never lost a case. My life was all about me . I had a wife, children, a beautiful home, too many friends. It only took one night to change all that. And after that, still I was too almighty about myself.” He laughed ironically. “I even handled my own defense… searching for loopholes, digging through similar case studies for an out. You see… I wasn’t willing to accept the guilt of my crime. At first, I wanted to believe I was above punishment. After all, I was a legal insider, a player. I found myself competing with God.” He took a chair next to the old woman, desperate to be understood now. “I truly believed I could outsmart the system, that I deserved to win because of arrogance. maximum sentence. But all those days and years in prison took their toll. One day, the light finally came on in my heart and soul. God and I became friends again. My arrogance annihilated, now I’m here to make restitution. Even with so little time left, still I must move slowly and methodically.”
“Towards what, John?”
“That I cannot tell you, Mrs. Powell. Not yet.”
“Why not, John?”
“My arrogance has been replaced by humility and fear. Perhaps in time?”
“Time, John? There is so little.”
“ Time – I feel the seconds ticking, dripping from my body like droplets of blood. Time . The great dictator. A living thing in its own right. Always here, always there, we know it is ahead of us, we know it is behind us. Time .” His voice turned bitter… “But time doesn’t really exist for us. We exist for time. Where does the time go? Nowhere. It is men that must who I was . The judge, the jury, they hated my When I was found guilty, I was given the move on, the human life that is ticked away. Time is a false barometer.”
“Keep your mystery, then. It’s your choice.” She picked up a fork and ate. “Back to this teaching business… how can I help?”
“Access to your library for teaching purposes?”
“Consider every book yours. Do you have a lesson plan for these adopted students of yours?”
“From what I’ve been warned, I may not last a day.” He laughed, returned to his chair and began his meal. “I thought I should begin with an ancient Greek approach.”
“What is that?”
“Asking questions and listening, prattling on and on without end.”
“Like Socrates.”
“Exactly.”
“Teenagers are a little different today.”
“Are they, Mrs. Powell? With all our technology, have people really changed in the last twenty-five hundred years?”
“I don’t understand,” she said softly.
John smiled, raising a glass of water. “The real wisdom of Socrates was that he was aware of his ignorance.” He took a long sip, then winked at the old lady.
    The next day, John woke up late. He was coughing and had a terrible headache. He felt disoriented and his eyes hurt. He stumbled into the bathroom and turned on the light. The brightness hurt his eyes. He vomited and returned to the bed with the pill bottles he received in Mexico. He couldn’t focus on the small typed directions on the bottles.
    Mrs. Powell was passing through the upstairs hallway. She heard his coughing and knocked on his bedroom door.
He answered.
“About your medications,” she said. “I have some new drugs you will need to start taking. Mornings are the worst times. How do your muscles feel?”
“I feel sore all