The Ghost of Yesterdays

For several years a diverse group of retired friends-academics, artists, physicians-have gathered to share Christmas dinner at Betty's. Table talk in previous years centered around toy party favors, family, and travel. This year the trite conversation of past Christmases turned without prompting into spontaneous discussions and sometimes explosive arguments about yesterdays: religion, art, history, mathematics, philosophy, politics, the environment, disease, war, unconventional ideas, revelations of secret lives, and beneath it all unspoken fear of what lay ahead.