Clara would have loved to tell people that she had a perfectly normal childhood. In some circles, she certainly would have, but those circles are so remote that they spend their lives being in the form of spirals and polyhedrons. You see, Clara did not begin life as a stained glass window, about four feet in diameter, emblazoned with a vibrantly colorful portrayal of the angelic host with a slight crack racing through Gabriel’s left foot, but if asked, she would probably tell you that all she could remember of her early years was St. Benedict’s Cathedral where her closest companions were an Anglicized portrayal of the Christ and a bronze statue of Joan of Arc.

Today, Clara walked up the cement stairs that led to the cathedral’s main doors. It was a sensation that she still could not get over, and wound up bouncing back down to the sidewalk only to ascend once more, a smile coursing over her youthful face.

Somehow, such things never became old.