art by Haoning Wu
LITURGY
by David Simmons
Reverend Colethia says, “You’re here because you’re all tangled up. You don’t know why your spirit’s in the wilderness. You don’t know why your spirit’s in the valley.”
She walks across the pulpit less than an inch over five feet but here she is a giant. Her brown piano hands are arthritic yet strong, bumpy knuckles cracked and wrinkled. Like Jimmy Dean sausages. If I were to make this comparison out loud to another member of our congregation, they would suck their teeth, shake their head from side to side, sigh, and regard me with abhorrence like a house centipede.
Reverend Colethia walks back and forth. She is like a white tail deer. “Divine reality is compassion, it’s love,” she says. “This worldly reality is chaos. Disorder. In this era of technology and social media we find ourselves influenced. Influenced by these worldly societal norms. But that’s not God. That’s not Good.”
Someone says, “Mmhmm.”
A voice from the back pews shouts, “I know that’s right!”
Reverend Colethia smiles and nods. “Yes. Some folks even make money off this social media. Influencers.”
When she says influencers she lathers up the word with disgust and holds it in the air, wringing it out, letting her distaste drip off the S at the end of the word.
“And they influencing us, alright. Feeding us images. How we supposed to look. Our nails our hair our weight and on and on. We get so caught up on the external that we lose sight of our authentic self!”
She holds her right hand up, palm facing us, her head turned to the side. Eyes closed. Mouth closed. Brow furrowed.
“Let’s reflect,” she continues. Pacing. “How did we get here?”
Someone says, “How’s that?”
“How indeed. Well, you see, we are spiritual beings and we have forgotten that the one true influencer is God the Omnipotent, God the Good. We have forgotten that the primary cause of suffering is forgetfulness. That’s right. Forgetfulness. Say it with me. We’ve given others power and dominion over our lives and affairs. This is what we do when we allow others to influence us. When external forces out here try to pull us astray, that’s when we got to retreat to the secret sanctuary, the secret sanctuary of the true influencer, the Godself. But it takes work. Lord, do it take work.”
Brother Ezekiel’s deep voice booms, “It works if you work it!”
Reverend Colethia smiles bright white veneers. “It works when you work it. Ain’t no ifs about it, people.”
Brothers and sisters all around me clap. Behind Reverend Colethia, an armoire of sorts, a cabinet built into the wall stands tall and imposing. The cabinet is made of red oak and engraved with intricate patterns, some that I understand, more that I do not. This cabinet is and always has been our Ark.
“That’s why we have to honor tradition. The customs. The steps. That’s why we have to make sacrifices. To keep us in His house. To keep us in that secret sanctuary.”
The Ark must be fifteen feet or more. The doors are slabs of solid oak. Like an armoire containing the wardrobe of a giant. If I stare at it, letting the muscles in my eyes relax, it begins to appear as if it is vibrating, but I know that this is just a trick of the light.
The Reverend returns to her station behind the lectern and interlocks her fingers. “People have such different notions of order. And then you have these axioms, these phrases, see. First things first. You ever heard that?”
We all say oh yes and verily.
“You hear that all the time. Aphorisms. Keep the main thing, the main thing. That’s one of my, that’s one of mine. Stay focused on the main thing and everything else will follow. Otherwise you’re gonna have an inharmonious time.”
The sound of a push bar door slamming open cracks the room in half. Reverend Colethia looks up, squinting. A corpulent child, seven or eight years old, comes running down the aisle, wheezing and wiping his forehead. He comes to a stop and pulls up his pants, scooping up his stomach and inserting it into the front of the pants first. He pulls his shirt down over this, smoothing it out with his moist palms.
Reverend Colethia says, “This young man is in a hurry to get the spirit, ain’t he now?”
We laugh at this. Grandma Grace comes barreling down the aisle, also wheezing. “Get back here, boy.”
“No!” the boy shrieks. “I don’t wanna! I don’t wanna do it.”
The Reverend smiles at us, then turns to us. “And now, children, stay with Him. Live deeply in Him. Then we'll be ready for him when he appears, ready to receive him with open arms, with no cause for red-faced guilt or lame excuses when he arrives.”
She leans down and plucks a blossom of lint out of the boy's curls. Grandma Grace has made it to the pulpit where the Reverend and the boy are standing. The front of the boy’s trousers go damp. Urine flows freely from the cuff of his pants, pooling in front of the first pew.
The congregation gasps sharply.
Reverend Colethia says, “Now people, please. Have grace. Have patience. Have compassion.”
Grandma Grace scoops up the sodden boy and carries him down the aisle, tucked under her beefy arm like a rolled-up carpet. Brother Ezekiel walks behind them with a mop, swabbing the hardwood left to right, right to left.
“Let’s have a moment for song,” the Reverend says, always composed.
Three large women who I know to be sisters take the stage. All finished mopping, Brother Ezekiel provides the women with cordless microphones.
The women sway and sing for us.
We sway and sing along with them.
When the song is over, Reverend Colethia clears her throat. “Please rise,” she says.
And we do.
“I want you to repeat after me,” she tells us. “I am crossing my symbolic River of Jordan.”
I am crossing my symbolic River of Jordan.
“I’m leaving behind old beliefs and negative thoughts.”
I’m leaving behind old beliefs and negative thoughts.
“With arms this long there’s nothing that is not within my reach.”
With arms this long there’s nothing that is not within my reach.
A great rumbling comes from the Ark
Grandma Grace returns with the boy tucked under her arm. He’s unconscious. He wears different clothing now; a white gown that brushes the floor around his feet. She sits him down in front of the Ark where he remains there sleeping, fluttering eyelids revealing thin strips of white.
Reverend Colethia wipes her forehead with the back of her fist. “I dismantle these bricks that make up my Jericho Wall. These bricks of self-doubt and limitation. These bricks of fear. For I am an heir of God!”
Reverend Colethia opens the Ark and immediately we are greeted by the Very Long Arms. The wiry, muscular appendages burst forth. Splinters of wood chip off the edge of the cabinet doors. After today’s service is over, Brother Ezekiel will need to sand the Ark down and patch it with epoxy. The Very Long Arms embrace the boy, each finger on each hand long enough to wrap around the boy’s chubby torso. The right hand palms the boy’s bottom, the glorious, spindly fingers wrapping around his hips and abdomen. The left hand holds the boy’s shoulders; the fingers fold over his chest, ensconcing him in all the Good and Omnipotent glory. The boy is awake now. He starts to cry because he knows no better.
“Base every thought and feeling on The Truth!” Reverend Colethia roars. “Say it with me: Base every thought and feeling on The Truth!”
We say it with her.
Base every thought and feeling on The Truth!
All of us, with the exception of the boy’s mother. The Mother of the Offering stands before the pulpit in the first pew to bear witness. Her hands are clasped in front of her and they shake.
“Base every thought and feeling on the truth that there is only one power!” Reverend Colethia’s eyes rage like wildfires. “One thought! One presence! And what’s that? Who’s that?”
The Good One! The Omnipotent One!
We are chanting. All as one. All of us but the Mother of the Offering who massages one hand with the other hand, wringing both hands, holding back tears, for she is so honorable and pious. The rest of us throb like an organ. The air inside the temple has become hot and thick. The taste of it on our tongues is acrid like burning plastic. And, verily, it is good.
The Good One! The Omnipotent One!
The Very Long Arms hold the boy lovingly. The right hand uncoils from the boy’s bottom and strokes his face with the Immaculate Forefinger. The Immaculate Forefinger is the length of the boy’s skull. Although I have never personally felt the touch of the Immaculate Forefinger, I imagine it to be similar to the skin of a puff adder. Something that looks shiny, glossy, wet, but in reality, is dry to the touch. I imagine this is how the gray skin of the Very Long Arms feel. Smooth. Rough, even.
“Let go and let God!” screams Reverend Colethia, and with her encouragement, the Immaculate Forefinger on the right hand of the Very Long Arms slides from the boys forehead and down the bridge of his nose, resting for a spell, until the Holy Extensor Indicis swells, and the wrist snaps back, then snaps forward, plunging the fingertip into the boy’s right eye, twisting it down to the second knuckle.
The Mother of the Offering plugs a sob with a fist to her open mouth. Her eyes water. It appears as if she is trying to eat her hand.
The right hand of the Very Long Arms retracts, freeing the Immaculate Forefinger from the boy’s right orbit. Corded muscles wrap around the Very Long Arms like marine rope. Stretching taut. Swelling. The Holy Extensor Indicis swells once more and the Immaculate Forefinger dives–scaly coniferous fingertip-first–into the boy’s left eye. The Immaculate Forefinger twists then withdraws with a wet suck.
The Mother of the Offering chews her fist harder. The boy is clean now, ready for the world of God the Good, God the Omnipotent. He is renewed. His light is so brilliant. The right hand and the left hand of the Very Long Arms clutch the Renewed Offering, embracing it.
Reverend Colethia kneels before the Renewed Offering, before the Very Long Arms that embrace it so lovingly. She faces the Ark and shields her eyes. “What is a door?” she asks.
It always happens so fast. The Very Long Arms pull back into the Ark, taking the Renewed Offering with them. It’s almost instantaneous. One moment the Very Long Arms are embracing the Renewed Offering, and the next they are gone, the doors of the Ark closed and sealed. The Mother of the Offering is crying and you can hear this if you listen carefully. They are tiny sniffle sounds that punctuate the thick air of the temple.
I am inspired. I stand up and shout, “Base every thought and feeling on The Truth!”
Reverend Colethia nods her head as she rises to her feet. “That’s right, that’s right,” she says. She massages her toned calves. “My toes will be alright tomorrow, let us pray.” She gestures to her pointy high heels.
We, the congregation, let out genuine belly laughter at this.
Later that day, when the sun sits pink and fat until it sinks behind the highrises and anaerobic digesters, I remain behind to help Brother Ezekial patch the edges of the Ark doors with epoxy while the rest of our congregation goes home.
DAVID SIMMONS lives in Baltimore with his wife and daughters. Simmons is the author of the fantastically bizarre Ghosts of Baltimore Duology, where the supernatural and strange grapple with the ever-present past of East and West Baltimore. His work has appeared in Strange Horizons, the Washington Post, Brooklyn Vol. 1, Another Chicago Magazine, Hobart, Snarl, 3 Moon Magazine, Apocalypse Confidential, Tahoma Literary Review, Bridge Eight, Across the Margin, the Washington City Paper, and numerous anthologies. He is a regular contributor to Books to Prisoners, a Seattle-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to foster a love of reading behind bars, encourage the pursuit of knowledge and self-empowerment, and break the cycle of recidivism.
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