Church

“Let’s rip it up! Go-go have a go-go time on a go-go Saturday night, baby! I’m going to rock it up! I’m going to rip it up! I’m going to shake it up!”

 The shadow hovered above Richard. He felt his freezing cold  sweats turned to warmth, and the shadow whispered, “Be not afraid, child, I will lead you to the promised land.”

Richard bowed his head and said, “Thank you, sweet Jesus!”

Reverend Snow screeched:

“Go-go have a go-go time on a go-go Saturday night, baby! I’m going to rock it up! I’m going to rip it up! I’m going to shake it up!”

A chorus of amens sounded off, and the ghostly flock rose from the pews.

Quietly, Snow said, “God knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men, and yes, men lures women, children, and the sick to their tyranny,” he lifted a finger and pointed it straight at Little Richard. He held up his left hand, palm out to reveal a large blinking Eye.

“He is a part of this tyranny! He is misleading our youth! He is taking them straight to Hell!”

The Eye cackled.

She had been walking ceaselessly on the Camino Real, the day stretching past the road under her feet. The sky was a clear, bright, blue that promised to cover her for as long as she walked. Sounds came and went as she focused on different groups of scrub brush and rocks. She was tired but in a distracted sort of way. Her chest, right above her left breast ached. She stared at her Doc Martins as she walked down the cobblestones connecting the Spanish Missions of California. Rhythmically the cobblestones asked her who she was, and where she was going. She didn’t know.

“Where does this road lead?” she asked, matching the rhythm. “What cities lie ahead?”

“None,” answered the stones. “Only the Missions lie on this road.”

She rubbed at the pain in her chest. It felt like there was something inside of her, something hard and hot. A small sob escaped her lips but she looked down at her feet, and kept walking.

When she next looked up, she saw a Mission in the closing distance. The sounds of the wilderness stopped as she stepped through the gate of the outer wall. The sun shone down upon the courtyard from an interminable mid-day point. The shadows were small and weak, barely daring to step beyond their roots. She turned to the left and entered the main building.

I had always found the organ-playing at St. Barnabé highly interesting. Learned and scientific it was, too much so for my small knowledge, but expressing a vivid if cold intelligence. Moreover, it possessed the French quality of taste; taste reigned supreme, self-controlled, dignified and reticent.

To-day, however, from the first chord I had felt a change for the worse, a sinister change. During vespers it had been chiefly the chancel organ which supported the beautiful choir, but now and again, quite wantonly as it seemed, from the west gallery where the great organ stands, a heavy hand had struck across the church, at the serene peace of those clear voices. It was something more than harsh and dissonant, and it betrayed no lack of skill. As it recurred again and again, it set me thinking of what my architect’s books say about the custom in early times to consecrate the choir as soon as it was built, and that the nave, being finished sometimes half a century later, often did not get any blessing at all: I wondered idly if that had been the case at St. Barnabé, and whether something not usually supposed to be at home in a Christian church, might have entered undetected, and taken possession of the west gallery. I had read of such things happening too, but not in works on architecture.