Easter Reflection: A Story of Mary Fleming

Editor: Invited to write the Easter reflection, Renee Yann rsm responded 'I had planned to write a new story for this, but an old story kept suggesting itself to me.' Her award-winning story, although fictionalized, she said, is written from personal experience.     

Image: iStock. Used under licence

The experience of Easter takes many forms. Mary Fleming's is one invitation to reflection.

'She holds the coat for me to slide my arms into, the way men used to when I had a name.

The young woman comes along the extremity of the space where I seem sleeping. She is like an ant measuring the surface of a box. This box is my home, a rectangle of the late morning sun in Suburban Terminal, under the clock with an hour hand stuck at three.

She creeps on tiptoe along the imaginary wall I have layered at the edge of myself, brick by isolating brick. Maybe she is afraid to wake me; maybe she is afraid I am dead. Her fears are well placed. I am as good as dead, I think...'

Download the story: A4 Paper size (3pps PDF), US Letter size (3pps, PDF)

Messages to: Renee Yann rsm (Americas)