Marie Pfeifer

Marie Pfeifer was a contributing features writer for the now-defunct section of the Daily Record’s “Time of Your Life” for six years. She has written feature stories for regional magazines, including Black River Journal.  For seven years, she covered community and civic events for Morristown Green.com.  Pfeifer was also a co-writer and narrator for the documentary, The White Man on a Bicycle. She has attended several Platform Open Mic Nights in Madison and Boonton, as well as participating in an ARTS by the People poetry workshop in Morristown.

A Prayer for Lewis (Short Fiction)

That fall, there was something different about Lewis.  

It was our seventh year at the local Catholic School.  Since first grade sitting next to Lewis, I knew him like a brother. His dark, tight waves of hair crowning a young child’s head and somber face was much like that of an old man. A nervous eye tick now appeared on his face. His hands involuntarily tried to push it away, like an annoying insect.

Lips were always tightly closed, as if fearing they would speak without his permission.  Fidgeting in his seat gave away his discomfiture. He tapped his fingers on his desk, as if his hands had received a message.  

Did he know what was about to happen?  

Sister Vincent, known to the children as Sister “Sqwink,” was hiding in a long black, flowing Nun’s Habit.  Peeking out from the traditional white Wimple, a pointed nose that would have won her the role of the wicked witch in the “Wizard of OZ”, black rosary beads, rattling like snakes, as she moves quickly between the rows of fearful children.

She interrupted the lesson, beady eyed, tight lipped, and said, “Lewis, Father wants to see you.”

Color drained from his face, and he rose from his desk with the demeanor of a doomed man, about to face the guillotine or worse.  

Lewis’s parents, devout Catholics, I’m sure, instructed him to obey the Nuns and Father. His fate was sealed by loving parents, who saw the promise of Heaven after death.  Never imagining their lust for Heaven would put their obedient son into hell on earth.  

When Lewis returned to the classroom after one of these visits to Father, his face was flaming red.  His head hanging down, as if he wanted to fold himself inside his body.  

I was not witness to the remainder of Lewis’s life, since Sister “Sqwink” began including me in her brutal discipline sessions with a 2” ruler, which led to my mother threatening her with bodily harm if she ever touched me again.  At home, my mornings became tearful, pleading sessions. I was transferred to public schools for the duration of my education.

At the age of twenty-two, Lewis committed suicide. 

I pray there is a God who has a comforting, healing, happy place for Lewis.