((
))
I
hear the sound of church bells. They call to me as I crawl out into the cold
winter rain. “Come, children,” they say, “come repent your sins.” My skin
begins to blossom with bumps against the wind. I can see the droplets pouring
from the sky scatter across the front of my vision, broken by the brim of my
hat, easily discernible against the backdrop of smoke curling from my lips.
Dead
leaves lie scattered on the stark white sidewalk. A few ghosts of their past
lives remain in sharp detail. Yellow lamplight shimmers along the pools built
along the gutters of the street. The cold continues to press in as footsteps
ricochet off the brick walls of the surrounding buildings.
Ding-a-dong-ding
The
bells ring again in full, harmonious tones, deep and round. “Come children,
come.”
Cars
whisk by intermittently, a fine mist following their wake. The sound of tires
on wet pavement breaks the slow pace of the footsteps and rain. The sound
brings a sense of urgency, of reckless desire to be past here and to be past
there. Such miserable weather, but such a miserable attitude to hold onto. The footsteps slow.
Smoke
pours out into the air. Raindrops pierce the cloud every which way it twists in
the stillness. It caresses the brim of my hat, whipping into an arc as I pass
ever forward towards the bells. I feel a slight breeze on the skin of my
thighs. I seize.
Ding,
ding-dong-ding-ding
“Come
children, come.”
I
toss the butt into the chalice of rock and rain. The weather extinguishes every
last ember with a slow sizzle. My foot lands on the first step leading to the
entrance of the cathedral. I feel the grit of the limestone through the rubber
soles. Such tightness, such texture. It holds me tight and never slips its
tight grip.
How
fortunate to be cradled so.
The
bells sound again, in a myriad of tones that are slowly swept up by the rising
wind and rain.
“Come,
come pay penance.”
I feel
the heft my load and open the double doors. Fluorescent light from the rafters
spills out the doors and down the steps. It filters through a small cloud of
chalk that is slowly being beaten away by the rain. The few remaining leaves
that have not been swept into the gutter glisten.
The
doors shut.
Hail
Mary, full of grace.
