THE CHASM 

By Tessa Harvey

    That night, young Ariella thought about Dylan. They had grown close, but she sensed a gap opening between them. She hoped it would not become a chasm. People drift apart, she mused, sleepily, a little at a time or abruptly. She would have liked to have known her birth father, but realised that the man who had taken his place loved her as though she were really his daughter....

    .....Dylan was being treated to another lecture. "Those people are Jews," Gavin Dufaye said, angrily. "They cause trouble. They are inferior. They even killed Christ!!"

    Dylan was really upset. "I thought we all did that," he raged. "Each of us in our own bigoted ways, crucifying God and each other!"

    His uncle smacked him hard on the head. "You are not my uncle anymore," the boy said, shocked. "I disown you."

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    The last years of High School skittered by like leaves before a blustery wind. Finally it was time for the last senior school assembly. The principal reminded them they each had individual giftings, they each had a future and a hope. He blessed them, being a godly man and they left the school for the last time, pretending joy, but mostly deeply anxious. It was an uncertain world riven by strife, gender confusion, lost liberties. Dylan and Ariella were both going to different colleges in the same city.

    At first, Ariella drifted to local coffee shops, gathering with new friends to discuss everything, but soon realised she needed to study to succeed to be a teacher.

    Dylan fell gradually into an alien lifestyle. For lack of a clear goal, he had decided to be a lawyer as his uncle had been. But he found fun in the form of excessive drinking, drugs and cheap relationships. And he felt empty.