3 December 2024
Good morning,
It is a graduation day in St Andrews. Congratulations if you are crossing the stage of the Younger Hall today to receive your degree. The day begins with a Service of Thanksgiving in St Salvator’s Chapel at 9.30 am for 30 minutes to which all are welcome. Chapel Choir will sing and Bill Shackman, Assistant Chaplain, will preach the sermon. There is plenty of time to attend the service and be at the 10.30 am ceremony. And now, behind today’s window:
Feathers
Part 3
The story so far: Maryam’s curious Instagram visitor has told her she will give birth to a special child, news which she has accepted.
By the time Maryam got back to her room in Sallies Hall she was beginning to doubt what had happened. The video on Instagram just for her. That curious dislocated voice. The promise – or was it imposition – of pregnancy. Her feeling she was floating, upheld by this purpose. Looking at her room, her acceptance seemed to belong to a different world. Her clothes were still where she had dropped them, her bedcovers all in a tangle, her narrow desk hidden under printouts and books. A Domino’s box, still faintly reeking of melted cheese and tomato sauce, remained half-stuffed in her bin. Nothing had changed. Maybe it had been a trick after all, and not only on her.
In a lull in conversation with her friends at dinner, she took her chance.
“Hey guys, what did you think of that weird thing on Insta this afternoon?”
“What?”
“You know, the guy in the white T-shirt with the message?”
No-one knew what she was talking about, though Millie had seen a gorgeous guy promoting a new kind of yoga mat. Was that him?
Maryam tried again. “It was a message about how your life would change if you dropped out of Uni.”
Her friends were sure they hadn’t seen it. But they’d like to. So Maryam fished out her phone and scrolled up and down but it was gone – she had nothing to show them. Maybe she’d fallen asleep in the library over McKenzie and Simpson’s Whose Middle East? Monarchs, Messiahs and Moderates. She did have vivid dreams, especially since she’d arrived in St Andrews. This was just a particularly strange one, which she couldn’t remember waking up from. Dream or not, she was wary now when scrolling, of what could fly her way.
The Annunciation, Tuscan, 16th Century, Palazzo Rosso, Genoa
Yours,
Donald.
Revd Dr Donald MacEwan
Chaplain