The Law of Rome and Athens

A Personal Fantasy

It is December, and the pace of the first year of law school is picking up. Glannon sits numbly in Civil Procedure class. The professor is droning on, quite learnedly. Subject: the Erie doctrine. Glannon cowers as unobtrusively as possible in the middle of the class. All around him, students listen intently, with apparent comprehension. Glannon understands nothing.

Suddenly, the Archangel Gabriel appears, hovering resplendent above the class. No one else takes notice; the discussion moves on obliviously. Pointing a star-studded scepter at the object of his visit, Gabriel speaks. “Glannon,” he declaims, “listen well, for you, you shall be called upon to explain the Erie doctrine to a future generation of students.”

Astonished by the apparition and appalled at his message, Glannon streaks from the room. After a long convalescence and many setbacks, he takes a job watering flowers in a nursery.