Old One Hundredth

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The light froze her this morning. It came in through the half-shuttered window like mustard gas, pooling around the floor, filling what little space wasn’t taken by the bed, the dresser and the end table, sparkling in the bath of itself like there was more to it than what could be seen. The carpet seemed to try to hide itself under the glare. It didn’t work; the overwhelming blue was only watered down by the pour of the light, casting it against the popcorn-textured, navy blue walls that closed in.

She did not remember leaving the blinds open. It was foolhardy in late January, a recipe for frozen feet. A half-hearted search in her memory for last night’s activities was how she spent the first twenty minutes of her morning, comfortable but not at ease under her covers. They were stark white, but only the northern edge hanging off the bed was touched by the light from the window, giving it an iridescent glow. The rest hung against the blue and brown in its place, an arts and crafts cloud that completed the picture of a stately room. It made her feel like a maggot eating through the decaying flesh of something that’d come long before her. She wished sleep would come back over her, but it smelled death and kept its distance.

The half-sleep state left her adrift, suddenly, and she unexpectedly felt the cold of her feet, poking out of the covers in the icy sun. She was laying in a shallow diagonal across the bed. It was an odd position to take while sleeping. She pulled the cold claws underneath the comforter in retreat and thought of a why. A snatch of a dream came to her: she was laying across a surgical table, being dissected by giants, who spoke so low and slow she couldn’t understand a word they were saying. She writhed under their blade; they laughed as she screamed. The recollection shook her awake and stayed, putting its hands in the small of her back. How it held her! and the chill brought her fully to consciousness. She rolled over and checked the nightstand clock.

8:20 AM. It was 10 minutes until Pastor K was due to join the world.

Ms. Young remembered herself and sat upright against the headboard. Her morning prayers bled through her mouth not quite as automatically as she’d like. They were whispered assurances of piety to the Lord and confirmation of His precepts and mission, some carefully selected from outside sources some her own. Every word had been considered ten years before, when she prepared her personal prayers for her first class in seminary. She’d used the prayers as a way to define her life’s mission. The words were a contract. Every tenant or virtue, in her mind, demanded a particular practice or attitude; Karen chose the ones she liked. She’d heard the prayers thousands of times, now, but their solutions were lost. Their demands were paradoxical, between each other and within themselves. Her own prayers were the worst; she had no idea what she’d wanted from herself in the first place anymore.

Her beak clattered and trembled like the lid of a boiling pot rolling around the rim. Generally, she didn’t notice, but the room made her hear it; it was so small and boxy that every bodily noise ricocheted and caught her in her flight from herself. Just as the click of her own beak began to break her down, her prayers were over. She looked up at the mirror across from her bed. A plain white nightshirt hung loosely over her body, and the creases of her skin mocked her. The answers must be stuffed somewhere in their gaps.

In her closet hung plain blouses. She pulled a red number, worn countless times but still thick enough to hold against the winter gales. The flimsy pine dresser under the mirror kept her intimates, undershirts and pants. A couple drawers opened and without thinking she’d had the rest of what she needed for now. She didn’t realize what she’d grabbed until she’d left the bedroom, crossed the living space and walked into the bathroom.

White pants. A bold statement, if nothing else; she kept them.

The hot shower did a lot for her mood. Blood came back to her limbs and doubt ran down her back under the rain. She double-checked her to-do list in her mind, while she started to rub in shampoo across her body. It was a Saturday; she’d already written the 5 PM sermon, but she wanted to give it a once-over, make it fresh in her mind. District Elder Sable was calling her at ten to talk over ways of promoting volunteering in the area. She stepped out from the jet to let the lather sink in. She needed milk. Snack Falcon would work for that.

The alarm clock went off. She scrunched her eyes shut. It’d been forgotten in her mental fog, and its wail sounded off like an unattended child at half-second intervals. She hurriedly wiped the shampoo off herself under the water. The extra dollop seemed to have burrowed to the skin, and her furious scrubbing only brought forth more suds to vanquish, a feathered hydra. The fan shut off (she’d expected to be done by now), quieting the soundscape and letting her attention settle on the pattering water and the piercing alarm. Eventually she gave up the fight to escape and just stood like a statue under the pour, eyes shut, the water’s temperature changing from a pleasant heat to a cloying lukewarm as the alarm tunneled through the tile to her bones.

When it was finally out she walked, dripping wet, to her room and flipped it off. It was hollow triumph. She’d been in the shower almost a half-hour.

By 9:30 her clothes and makeup were settled on her, and she set a pot of coffee to brew. Her phone was on its charger along the kitchenette counter, waiting. Most churches didn’t keep apartments onsite for pastors; it was mostly a Catholic arrangement. But when this church was built, it was still the norm, and Karen’s salary being what it was the prospect of free rent was greatly appealing. She fixed a bowl of Golden O’s, grabbed her coffee, and read a newsmagazine article on the extinction of a breed of rat in Manchuria until the phone summoned her.

“Good morning, Ms. Young!”

“Good morning, Elder Sable.”

“Well, before we talk about the main business, is everything going well with your congregation at large?”

Ms. Young hesitated. “Mr. Theuer hasn’t joined us in nearly two months. I haven’t seen him around town, either. He’s part of a pattern. I’m worried I’m failing to provide for them.”

“Honesty, Ms. Young, you’re pinning this too much on yourself. People come and go to where they feel they must. It is your faith that keeps you steadfast there. You’re doing a fine job. Keep the fire of spirit lit, and when they feel the cold, they’ll return.”

Karen took a breath to choke down the rebuke.

“Thank you for the kind words, Elder Sable.”

“It’s my duty.” She heard him shuffle in his seat, and to seem more casual while leveraging control, she spoke.

“So Possum Springs has a stewardship problem.”

“Well, Ms. Young, it’s not unsolvable, I don’t believe.” He paused. “Is it a question of spirit or a question of opportunity?”

“My parishioners have ample chances to give a hand to their neighbor, but they don’t take them. They look out for their friends, and ask me to help those they know when they struggle in life or in Christ, but they never think past their circle.”

Mr. Sable hummed dissent. “Well, for most, taking the first step in helping others can be intimidating. Even good Christians, without a guiding hand, can hesitate when they see someone in need. Making it a group effort, at a certain time and with Church direction, could make people more comfortable. It’d be a community effort, united in goal and assured they are not alone or in error.”

“For that, we’d need more staff.” Kate knew her coffee was cold by this point, but slugged back a quarter of the mug in one gulp anyway. In her mind, it bought her time. “With only Mrs. Borowski and Mr. Hutchinson on payroll, we’re stretched thin. All of our volunteers are working double shifts just for services. Ms. Lancaster is serving wine at every service. She is not the exception.”

“Well, it’s not as though your church is alone –“

“Acts of charity and assistance are what should define the Church in the Community.” Her wing tightened to a vise grip.

“Being a good Christian isn’t about looking a certain way to others, Ms. Young.”

“Yes, but if our church has parishioners that need help, it should. I don’t feel alright about how little we are doing in Possum Springs. One extra staff member, weekends only –“

“We don’t have much money to spare, Pastor Young.” He paused. He’d started this business, and only now he understood he couldn’t finish it. “I’m sorry.”

They continued to speak for half an hour, but the conversation had concluded there. Ms. Young agreed to seek a youth leader volunteer for litter cleanup. Mr. Sable inched closer to death. It made sense for them to talk, as they were going the same way, and when the road forked Ms. Young said her goodbyes, hung up and walked out to her car.

It hadn’t snowed last night. This was a relief, Mr. Solzhenitsyn didn’t plow on weekends. She fumbled to put the key in the ignition while she checked her makeup in the drop mirror. The engine turned over. It sounded like a train at a distance in winter. The low rumble and high screech coupled together, reverberated around under the hood and bled in through the air vents loud enough to make the radio a necessity. She flicked it on.

“...quiet disagreement between those for more public transport in Atlanta and those against has intensified with – “

NPR wasn’t gonna do it this morning. She turned the dial to 101.5. Christian pop-rock. This song was about the importance of trusting in God. She didn’t know why people hated Christian rock so much. For her, it was like a simple symphony. The drums were gentle. They pushed forward rather than thundering marching orders. The rest of the instruments came in to meet their call, like friends. The guitars hummed and resonated past their chords, playing in time but ringing through the space. The bass stayed with them, a carbon copy played down, going where the guitars could not. The vocalist was plainspoken and their notes rang clean. The lines were Scripture, quoted; this was from Jeremiah, 32, unadorned. The music was rich, full, everything bleeding into the others and synergizing, becoming something unapproachable, complete.

She turned onto Cox Street. Perhaps a youth music program? They couldn’t play during services, but perhaps at events? Concerts of their own? She’d make a flier for an info meeting and see what happens. Her age hit her. Who reads fliers anymore? Where do you put them? Would the church Facebook page be better? Do they have one?

She pulled into the city hall parking lot and jotted the idea down on a post-it.

They’d demolished a bank in the seventies to make room for the lot. It was the last branch of the state bank still running. Pennsylvania Federal didn’t offer the interest rates of the national branches, or the options, but there was an air of safety in its age that attracted people. It’d seemed healthy. Then the tellers came to work some Tuesday and were given a full day’s pay to clean out their desks and take the furniture away. The brick came down in a weekend. All the kids begged their parents to see it, and they stared from windows and street corners at the crash of the wrecking ball against the steeple roof. The first Saturday night, someone broke into the half-destroyed building and stole all the copper. Maybe it was a few people, who knows. A month later they put down asphalt and paint. The whole affair gave them ten spaces. Mr. Stevens had told her the story drunk before services in November, crying. She walked over the grave and stepped inside.

Once in the lobby she took short, rapid steps to the desk. The place had thirty-year-old floor tile and two-hundred year old walls which pretended they didn’t know each other. The lobby was the size of a decent living room. Her heels clicked into the linoleum like a flick knife telegraph, dampened but not deadened by the close brick walls. The pace kept her back straight. It was an exercise in confidence boosting: show yourself in your actions, believe in them, believe in yourself, double your efforts, show the world. The clerk turned to her when she was close enough to see his computer screen.

“Morning!”

“Good morning.”

“… Ms. Young, right?”

“Yes, this is her.”

“Excellent.”

“Here for the foster home meeting?”

“Yes, I am. Can you tell me which room it’s in?”

“Umm, the Coal room.” He made a strange attempt at pointing through the wall behind him. His face betrayed that he didn’t feel too great about it himself. “It’s the second door on the right.”

“Thank you, Amity.”

“Sure.”

The town had named the rooms after profitable ores in the twenties and nobody thought it worth changing now. Karen walked down a wide hallway past the glass-paned doors and turned the knob of hers. It was amber glass, the sort reinforced with little bits of metal inside. A little lump of coal hung above it. She walked in and sat at the table.

A little under two-thirds of the city council had bothered to show. It was better than what she had expected. Everyone said hello, then went back to their phones. Karen, as usual when she was distracted, thought about a young woman she had seen around town and wished to see again. The secretary arrived just as the clock struck eleven. The room was painted a brilliant eggshell white. Even with its age, it glowed. The ceiling had two lamps, far more than was necessary considering how small the space was. The table was cheap laminate wood on four black metal legs, and it glimmered white, reflecting the walls back at themselves. As the secretary readied his steno pad, everyone shuffled around their notes and papers. Karen hadn’t brought anything. Her wings felt perceptibly empty, and she folded them across the table to hold one another, grabbing herself if nothing else.

The secretary signaled he was ready, and the show began with pleasantries and short preliminary declarations of conflicts of interest. There were none. Somehow there never were any. After a silence, the circle began giving informal accounts of their experience with foster care. It quickly became clear that the need outstripped the number of willing families and that the families currently taking on children had few resources. Everyone agreed improvement was needed. Karen pulled her plan from memory: ten thousand dollars towards making the school gym an after-school daycare so foster families could wait until 5 PM to pick up their children. With the beach of the whale, the wind changed.

“Mr. Finnegan, I understand your concerns about employment, but I must ask: is there any reason to continue providing Snack Falcon a tax break for their location in Possum Springs?

“They experience more thefts to sales by percentage at this location than at any other in the state.”

“How do you know that?”

“Why is that relevant?”

“I simply want to know where you’re getting your facts from.”

“Karen, this isn’t a courtroom.”

Karen looked at everyone, who looked at anyone else.

“We have had this conversation before: trying to find volunteers doesn’t address the biggest concern of foster labor: the cost of raising a child. This program is a compromise. Why can’t we put forward that small amount of money?”

Mr. Finley spoke. “We don’t have the resources to fill that gap –“

“But we could gain them.”

“And risk losing one of our few remaining businesses?”

Mr. Finnegan followed through. “Or maybe we could tax a different business and lose that one instead.”

“Patrick.”

Ruby Sparks glared up from behind her glasses at Mr. Finnegan, her pen to her pad, a close watch on his next words that his pallor showed he could feel.

“Ms. Sparks, I’m trying to make the point clear to Pastor Young.”

“It has been.”

Karen took a breath. “Thank you, Ms. Sparks. So, does anyone believe this or any other funding option to be viable?”

She looked around, but no one spoke. Ms. Sparks jotted something on her notepad, looking at Karen, and circled it before closing it shut.

Mr. Fitzgerald cleared his throat. “I’m with Mr. Finnegan, Karen. I’m sorry, but the price of cutting another program or pressuring what remains….”

Karen sipped her mug of cheap black tea and stared at Mr. Fitzgerald’s cheap business-casual longsleeve as it rose and fell. When that got old, she turned to the painting behind him, raising her hand idly to vote yes on the resolution. She was alone. The painting was a lithograph of a Saturday Evening Post cover from a century ago. A grandmother was handing freshly baked cookies to her wards tugging at her skirt in the kitchen. One was in the corner, praying with her eyes fixed on Grandmother’s face. The girl was blocked, suddenly, by Fitzgerald’s hand, and Karen started buttoning her coat to leave.

Mr. Fitzgerald noticed. “This isn’t the end of this conversation, Karen; we just need more time for Possum Springs to build itself up again.”

“Okay. Thank you, Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you all for your time.” Generally at these meetings they would chit-chat with one another afterward, and she’d quietly escort herself out, but when the secretary closed his book everyone was quiet, looking at her and at each other, choosing the moment to strike. She had no idea what she wanted to say and she left as quickly as possible before anything else could dribble out of anyone.

She started her car as she called Ms. Peterson. She answered right before it went to voicemail.

“Hello, Pastor K.” The line was noisy – she was over something on the stove.

“Hello, Ms. Peterson!” She cranked the heat and left the car cab so she could hear herself over the engine. “Would you be ready to go in fifteen minutes?”

“Sure. I’m making lunch, so if Alexander’s not done before you get here you’re welcome to a bowl of mac n’ cheese.”

“I don’t want to interrupt –“

“Nah, it’s fine. Alex and I can spend some time together before work tonight.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, it’s fine.” The wording was weak but the tone was sincere.

“Okay. I’ll see you soon.” Karen slid in driver’s seat and turned the radio on.

The car rumbled its way across town. Every song bled into the next; Karen wasn’t sure it had changed until the chorus played. She liked that. Thick grey clouds had descended over the town. Their weight was obvious even at a glance, and their curves and divots and trailing pieces gave the impression the whole town was on fire. Karen knew better.

She pulled into Ms. Peterson’s apartment block and parked below her tower. It had three floors, with four apartments on each floor; Ms. Peterson’s was the top right apartment facing the parking lot. After half a minute, she came out the door clutching a bundle of canvas bags.

Karen got out and gave her a shout.

“Hiya, Pastor K!” Alexander had his head through the bars of the balcony staircase and waved his paws at Karen before running down to meet her. He was in second grade, wasn’t he?

A red jacket streaked past Karen’s eyes, and he was in the booster in the backseat, drumming on himself. Karen waited by the car for Ms. Peterson to come down.

Soon enough, she was hobbling down the bottom steps with her bags and apologies. She was a cat with unusually circular eyes and bleached white fur. Karen didn’t ask, but she had to be under thirty.

“It’s nothing, Samantha.”

“Thank you again for taking us to Ham Panther. It’s so much harder to live without a car nowadays, but hey, it’s a way to save the Earth, right?” She had been reaching for a joke but couldn’t find one. Karen elected to pretend she hadn’t tried.

“I have a car, and I need to go. Why not take you?”

Samantha smiled and got in shotgun. Karen followed. As soon as they bother were inside, Alexander spoke.

“How’re you, Pastor K?”

“I’m doing alright, Alex. You know that plan I had about the foster kids?” She pulled out of the lot.

“Uh, yeah, I think.”

“Well, the gist is, it didn’t make it through city council.”

“What a bunch of jerks!”

Samantha turned to him with a stern glare. “Now, Alexander, you have no idea why they said they didn’t want it, do you?”

“Well, why wouldn’t they want it?”

“There’s just not enough money.” Karen sighed as she turned right onto the main boulevard.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, Alex.”

It was half past one when they pulled into the parking lot. Samantha grabbed Alexander’s hand, and they walked ahead of Karen, wobbling slightly to balance their weight on the snow beneath them. The size of the Ham Panther’s parking lot was astounding to Karen, considering how dense the forest was around it. It was like a grey carpet entryway giving you a good twenty seconds to marvel at the store’s exterior design as you approached. No windows.

They went through the sliding automatic doors and a greeter said something that none of them heard. Samantha pulled out a cart, and rolled it to Karen.

“I’ll meet you back here in twenty minutes, okay?”

“It’s fine, take your time. I’ll wait here.”

“…Thank you, Karen.”

Karen rolled her cart behind Samantha, taking the first left and piloting to the other end of the store, past every aisle, until she reached the dairy. Gallons of milk stretched before her in a long row. A little further right were the eggs. She tried not to consider them as she picked out two handles of 2% and turned her cart back to the frozens.

From a line of empty color she picked out a couple of appealing photographs and well-designed boxes. With a loaf of bread snagged from the “in-house bakery”, she made her way through checkout behind a man in a Penn State sweater buying exactly 17 cans of pork and beans and a pound of butter. She showed her receipt to the greeter, walked through the entryway, then stopped and loitered by a pillar just outside the door. She would have smoked here five years ago. The smoke would have misted out the empty asphalt, cleaned its empty space, and the feeling buoyed her mind above its darker depths. Total occupation of every faculty. No thinking out-of-control considerations on people she barely knew. Karen was just being nostalgic, but the idea was nice, and she let the conjuring feeling sit while she stared at the spinning wheels of the cars, gliding from the grey lot to the white connecting road.

Then Samantha was there.

“Why did you wait out here? It’s a cold day to take the air.”

“I didn’t want to feel the clerk staring me down.”

“Fair enough.” Samantha jerked up the bags in her arms, adjusting them to a better position. “I don’t know who trains those people, but they don’t do a very good job at it. They stare.”

Back in the car, Alexander raised his hand. Karen took her left.

“Yes, Alex?”

“Can we put on the rock station, Pastor K?”

“Alex –“

“Sure, Alex.” Karen turned her head slightly right, a gesture of looking toward Samantha that, with her poor eyesight, didn’t actually give her the latitude to see her. “It’s fine, Samantha, really.”

“Tell me if it ever ain’t.”

Karen laughed. It was genuine; she didn’t know what she found funny, but something about it tickled her. “That’ll be the day!”

The buildings ran past them quickly enough to forget them. At a stoplight, Karen looked straight ahead, down the length of the street, then left, then right. Every direction managed to slope either up or down, skirting out of view before its time, leaving only the clouds which seemed even closer now, threatening to break their strings and crush them all. Karen, more agitated over this fantasy than she’d any right, realized in this moment she was wearing glasses. The light turned green, and shortly Samantha was home.

Karen finished her point. “There is no sin in raising your child alone, Samantha. None.”

She didn’t believe her. Karen helped take her groceries in, then plodded back down to her car and raced back to the church. It was three by the time she pulled back into the church parking lot, and she rummaged through her purse for the keys when she got a call on her telephone.

It was Mr. Tarkovsky. He was very sick. Hmmm.

She put the milk in the fridge, thinking over who could cover his duties. She spread peanut butter over a rough-cut slice of “bread” and realized she’d unthinkingly wrote in Victoria Anselm as a server for this service. With her they had three. With Mr. Tarkovsky they would have had too many. His words saved her. Thank God for small mercies.

The sandwich was still miserable, but it gave her enough energy to slip out of her dress and into the white shirt, blue jacket and blue skirt that made up her public image. Dressed for the role, Pastor K walked out of her bedroom and flicked on her coffeepot before sitting at her armchair for the second time today. Her sermon laid in front of her, on the coffee table, by the notes Elder Sable had dictated to her. She switched her glasses for a pair better suited for reading, and went over her lines with a red pen. The lamp wasn’t on, for whatever reason, so Pastor K made her corrections through squinted eyes in the fading evening light. A cup of coffee passed her lips; when it was finished, she made her final edit and went into service hall.

It was 4:30. The last light flitted in from the grand windows above them, and the rightmost pews threw their shadows long against the rest, making a creeping black that hid the seats and climbed the walls. Mr. Simmons was already there, in his usual corner. Likely he’d came in before Karen had even come home. The lector loitered by the prayer candles, pushing them back into place, and Ms. Fitzgerald, ever the first arrival, was readying the wine in the deep shadow of the eastern corner. The banners expressing the cardinal virtues were illegible. The fabric was, to an extent, still apparent, a ripple in the dark above their heads. The pianist hadn’t come, yet, and in his absence the coughs of the lector, who it seemed was always ill, lasted ages, ringing out as they reverberated in the glass and stone, a great machine exhausting its fuel and any hope of its utility but failing to destroy itself, hollowing out.

Pastor K picked up the stack of bulletins that Ms. Borowski had printed and laid them along the pall that dimmed the benches. At the end of the rows, by the door, were the light switches, and with some satisfaction she flicked a couple on, casting the parishioners taking their places in the orange incandescence of cheap chandeliers. She greeted those who approached her as she walked to the platform, took her seat, and waited.

All who would come were there at five after, and the greeting ceremonies ended. Pastor K stared from her dim corner over the pews. There were between twenty and thirty people, the size of the hall making them matchstick thin in their distance from one another. A couple sang, but not enough. The five-o-clock service, facing declining attendance, branded itself the traditional service and clung to the older songs and rituals. There was supposed to be a children’s prayer after the greeting, but since no children ever came, it had been quietly dropped. The pianist stopped abruptly and Pastor Karen stood for the prayer for forgiveness. It changed every time; the parishioners read their responses for today from the bulletin with their heads low. Quiet fell for the individual confession of sins with God. The believers showed their discomfort was from guilt by going rigid and staring at the ground. The doubtful showed their discomfort was from uncertainty by shuffling and wringing their hands. For the other services, Pastor K would look to see who had flopped one way or the other, but nothing ever changed here but the amount of light that came through the window.

That was wrong tonight. She was here. Mae Borowski was here. Pastor K, in fear and trembling, moved to the lecturn to lead the prayer of forgiveness:

“Almighty God, who does freely pardon all who repent and turn to Him, now fulfill in every contrite heart the promise of redeeming grace…”

Once it was finished, Pastor K returned to her seat to hear her indictment. The lector read an excerpt from Ezekiel 13:

“Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, “Because you have spoken falsehood and seen a lie, therefore behold, I am against you,” declares the Lord GOD.”

“So My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations…”

He paused and adjusted his tie. How had he noticed it was loose? Maybe someone had signaled to him.

“And when anyone builds a wall, behold, they plaster it over with whitewash;”

“…so tell those who plaster it over with whitewash, that it will fall. A flooding rain will come...”

“…its foundation is laid bare; and when it falls, you will be consumed in its midst. And you will know that I am the LORD.”

He left the lectern, and there was another song and the collection of tithes. This service time frequently collected more money than any other. No idea why.

A brief hymn, and Pastor K glanced down at her notes as she began. This speech was short.

“For most of this chapter, Ezekiel talks of heresies, but I find something else here.” She shifted slightly without noticing it herself. A glint came in Mae’s eyes. Pastor K realized she was staring at her, and looked back at her notes, cutting through the now overlong silence.

“In the light of our failures, we may find it difficult to trust that God has a plan for the well-being of our body and soul. Cruelties inflicted on ourselves and others demand account. Most often, there’s none. When these injuries strengthen our character, demand a change in our lives that turns out beneficial, it is easier to consider them the works of God. But we’ve all known someone who was burdened so heavily they couldn’t take it.”

She stopped. A few of the older parishioners’ pious faces melted to veiled sneers. Her loose reading was not going unnoticed. Mae continued to stare through her glasses to her eyes, with her face bobbing slightly like she was looking for something she’d misplaced. Pastor K silently asked the Lord to forgive her hypocrisy, then willed her beak to continue.

“Thinking of them makes us doubt our own successes. Such a doubt hurts, and we search for something to relieve our pain. For some, the answer is drink, television, distractions. Others can simply ignore it. But many, especially among the faithful, find comfort in designing their own calculus of guilt. They assign the afflicted evil thoughts and shadowy pasts – even if they believe that such can be forgiven in God. They suspect them of hiding something, something damming, all the time, and that God has it ferreted out. It is a cancer that eats through their lives, making everything into a cloak, a shell. Even their virtues are tainted. Honesty become arrogance, a selfish need to force their views on others. Integrity becomes pride, a show of their perceived superiority in their firm allegiance to themselves. Charity becomes vanity, their kindness done only to cultivate an image.”

Pastor K had to close her eyes and put her head down to let the words come to her mouth. When she looked up she saw Mae looking out the window and the rest of the parishioners staring looking at her with varied degrees of interest and disgust. Under the arc-light chandeliers the walls glowed orange in splotches, the false light of a great fire in the center of the hall, dancing.

“The result seems to be a simple way of understanding by making a web of reasoning that explains everything. But it is not just a web; it soon gets too dense to be that. It becomes a wall. It becomes a division of the tenants of your faith and the world you live in. It is a boundary that you put up between yourself and others; soon it is a boundary between yourself and Jesus. It is demonizing other people for your own comfort. You paint over the world so it can all stay one shade, something you can see.”

She gave two seconds of silence. Karen had been told in seminary that single greatest burden on the preacher is their understanding that they must sometimes advocate the timid shouldering of a burden that they have personally found intolerable, or the abandonment of a practice they themselves cannot shake. But at this moment she found the feeling that sank through her now a hell unlike any she’d ever known in, like a chain of lead falling through her trunk and limbs. It was the cold self-accusation that she was covering her own ass with her sermons, spinning one long yarn rationalizing her own failures as a woman of God and as a neighbour, and that in this and all else she was alone.

“God will make cracks in it. If you see ‘em, pull at the weak points; it will tear at you, but it will open you to others, and the reward for that is salvation. There is so much love you can give. If you choose to limit it to the condition of understanding, it will fill you, and like stagnant water rot away at your joints, your heart, leech down to your soul. God loves you. God understands if you do not understand. God understands if you hate. And God loves if you love. Leave the bookkeeping to him, Jesus said in Luke 12:7, he has counted every hair on your head, and has found you worth more than words could express. Love without reason.”

She left the lectern, and held in her tears. A hymn, then communion, and as watched the bread go around the circle she suddenly smelled the vinegar notes of communion wine and the lector’s aftershave. It stayed with her until the last notes of the piano faded away, as she paced down the aisle to try and catch Mae before she left.

Karen reached the end, flung the door open and threw herself into the lobby, head snapping back and forth. But she’d already gone. The piano lid snapped shut and the sound cracked across the people’s murmured conversation. Karen pulled her beak shut and slackened her body, then turned to meet the people filing out the door.

“Thank you for coming, Ms. Sparks.”

“Thank you for the wonderful sermon.”

“I just hoped it helped you in your faith in some way. Thank you for coming, Mr. Cook.”

The pianist was the last in line, but they just walked past Karen with a nod. She looked around and saw the lector at the candles again. Mrs. Fitzgerald was sweeping the stage. Mr. Adams was picking up the extra bulletins.

As if to answer her brewing question, Ms. Anselm walked up to her carrying a long green cloak. She was twenty-five, and pretty, and Pastor K prayed to god she might find a Coalescence church in a decent town somewhere else.

“Mr. Chick forgot his coat,” she explained.

“Oh, dear. Erm, put it on the Front Desk and it can wait for him there until tomorrow morning.”

“Alright.” She started to walk past her, but Pastor K followed her with her head.

“After that, you can go home.” The words showed their edge, and Ms. Anselm looked slightly taken aback.

“...Pastor K?”

She wanted to melt into the stone, but jellied herself for one last gesture to the audience. “I’m sorry, Ms. Anselm, I didn’t mean to sound rude. I greatly appreciate your help with our services. I mean that. I just don’t want anyone around here when the snow really starts to come down.” It was already falling, the movement of the flakes just discernible as they tumbled past the windows. “Did everyone hear that?”

Ms. Fitzgerald nodded, but the two men turned to her looking baffled and comically unkempt.

“You are all free to go home now. I would prefer if you did, because it’s hard to get off this hill in the snow. I can take care of the housekeeping for tonight.”

The lector looked at the candles the way a child looks at a birthday gift for a friend they wanted themselves.

“Are you sure?”

Pastor K really didn’t want to talk any more. “There’s not much, James. It’s no trouble.”

“….alright.”

They each took their coats, said goodbye, and left. Mr. Adams looked like he wanted to say something, but on leaving he shook her wing silently and charged headlong out the door. Karen wondered, then felt guilty, then flicked off every switch but one and locked the doors. The wind was blowing now, too, and she heard it hum through the stone walls around her then bleed into the piano strings, making them sing difficult, quiet songs.

Soon only the prayer candles were left. She had to put them out for the evening. Karen walked to the small stand and scratched on a slip of paper which ones were burning, a little map of x’s in empty space. She put it on the edge of the stand, so it could be read in the morning, and with a cupped rod began to choke out the candles, one by one, until she reached the last. A tiny ant was circling the flame, weaving closer than further away to the heat. She watched it for a short while, then brushed it off gently with her wind and snuffed the light. In the dim light she saw a pale circle of starlight reflected in the chitin skeleton. At first it lay still. Then it slowly wandered between the smoldering wicks, following the smoke, at times making haste to a corner, at others coming to a halt by a piece of glass that, she supposed, was still warm. Karen suddenly felt a desperate need and asked the Lord to forgive her for feeling as she did and for having the arrogance to pray for another’s guidance and assistance unasked. She feel to her feet, absolved, and prayed for Mae’s safety and happiness.

She got on her feet, flicked off the last light, and went into her apartment.

By eight the fish was poached. Karen’d gotten off her makeup and changed into her nightwear as the perch had sizzled. The fork carried her sustenance as she sat on a couch a few decades older than she was, watching program about crooked cops on television. When the meal was over she was in bed. She wasn’t particularly tired, but wanted to sleep.

Once the alarm was reset to 7:00 AM and the light was out, her mind was inflamed. She felt like a prisoner awaiting execution, knowing their guilt and trying to understand the nature of what was going to befall them and, in certain moments, succeeding, gaining a vision of a world which thrived on their absence. She saw white. A vast, limitless white without her. It was beautiful. Then she remembered herself, the self apart from her station, Karen Young. The feeling was like seeing someone at a party you hadn’t talked to in years. How had they changed…

Her thoughts fell to Mae Borowski. She gave in and slid her right wing over her breast. The thoughts were empty. She hadn’t been with anyone for such a long time that the physical fantasy was made up entirely. She though about running her feathers down Mae’s chest; the closest sensation in her mind was the feeling of felt. She thought of bright red sheets of felt, turned over in her wings at a craft store, then saw it as Mae’s eyes, red and deep and alive, looking at her. She cooed as her left wing pulled down her drawers and started running across her weeping lips. She thought of what Mae would ask her when she kissed her. Why? Why me? Why didn’t you tell me before? Karen felt her throat choke up and she couldn’t answer. Mae would lean her head in, and give a kiss again before pulling her head alongside hers and throwing her arms around her. Karen pushed her wing inside her snatch to dampen it, then brought it dripping to her clitoris and let the liquid drip down over the top before running along it in circles. Mae’s breath would likely be terrible. Fine. But she had fantastic little breasts, slightly pointed, eager, and a brilliant pudgy stomach. And the twitch of her ears. She thought of how they’d move if she was in bed with her now. Karen’s nipple ached and she rubbed it harder.

But her smile. And the ache became longing, and Karen moved furiously to outstrip her coming despair.

She had seen Mae smile with teeth only once, when she was arguing with her mother in the foyer. She shook as she imagined begging her to do it again for her. Mae would make her say it over and over again, day after day, until Karen had lost hope that her words were any good at all; then, in a brief aside, she would turn to Karen and bare the teeth before pulling her to herself and purring her satisfaction.

In that moment, she came, and after the feeling had passed she felt like she had pissed herself during an illness. She walked in shame from the bed to the bathroom to wash herself, staring at her wings in the sink and the flow of the water, consciously avoiding the mirror. She stumbled away from the sink to door, drying herself on a towel left on the floor this morning. She opened the door and looked into her living room at her towering shadow. It covered it all, a ghost among the half-lit shit close by and the black artifacts stuffed in the corners, unknowable. She turned off the light and plodded back to her bed.