Good morning. I hope everyone is having a fabulous one today. For me it is cloudy and rainy. But it is warm rain so at least I am not fearing for my plants. Our recent snow crushed the spring daffodils but we now have a few tulips that are now beginning to flower. With luck they will enjoy the rain and not be traumatized by it. But it is time we are off to the morning prompt. Everyone ready? Good then let’s go.
Okay I liked this one. Just flat out liked it. I am really going to have to do something with it. Not sure what but something.
Wednesday, March 23rd: “Sinners repent,” He commanded from his place behind the lectern.
“Sinners repent,” he commanded from his place behind the lectern. Spittle flew from his mouth in frothy white flecks. Hectic spots of red color stained his cheeks. His tirade against the evils of the world was just beginning. His congregation sat in nearly stunned silence, hardly daring to breathe. No one wanted to draw down his direct intention.
Allister sat statue still in his front row pew. It had been his spot since he was old enough to sit on his own instead of on his mother’s lap. The empty seat next to him felt like a gaping hole, a void punched straight through the world into the nothingness beyond. He could feel it, as though the emptiness held weight and was pulling light and warmth into its depths.
His father had always been an excitable speaker. He had always had character and charisma. It drew people to him and to the church. Since is mother left that intensity of character had become a raging firestorm of condemnation. Each week’s sermon seemed to stoke the fires fueling the following week’s sermon .
Allister always knew there would be a limit, that one day the fire would grow too hot and burn out of control. His father’s eyes bulged as he ranted and Allister couldn’t remember the last night either of them had slept. He heard his father pacing in his attic study, his boots, usually a measured cadence that sent him off to sleep like a second heartbeat, now thudded across the floor as his father wrestled demons.
The steps were ceaseless in the night and only slowed near dawn when his father dropped down in his chair to pen his final thoughts on the pages he would take to the lectern. Then Allister would finally drop into a few hours of sleep before he was summoned to begin his day.
Allister was too scared to complain, to scared to have that rage turned upon him. He could feel that fear now flowing from t the mass of the congregation. There was a strange comfort in that. The unity of it. The sermon went on longer than before, each sentence more vitriolic than the last. The time for the service to be complete came and went. His father didn’t stop and no one in the church moved. There was nary a twitch in the building.
Then suddenly Allister saw his father go gray. All but the hectic spots of color drained from his face. His eyes bulged a little wider and then his voice choked off as though someone put their hands around his neck and squeezed. There was silence for a moment and then they all watched as Reverend Goodfellow pitched forward, knocking the lectern over and tumbling down the three wide stairs leading to the main floor. He hit the wooden floor and slid. He came to a stop at Allister’s feet. There was nothing that could be done. His father was dead.
Ten til Midnight 