Village

Village Part 8

Darvey walked through the colonnade that led to the Guds Hus (House of God). Those stone arches at the top of the Doric columns had been here since Darvey could remember. He had never really paid much attention to them but for some reason, today, he noticed the rustic texture and mottled earth tones of the hand chiseled stones. Pastel swathes of Earth, tiny stippled concavities, as if sea sponges had petrified over time and left an aerated building block for the villagers to heap, one upon the other, to construct the church. Here and there were randomly spotted, irregular patches of whitewashed rock, bleached and washed by some villager or deacon tired of looking at the lichens seeping into the cracks. Nostalgia washed over him. Childhood memories swirled in his mind.

His father and himself, hand in hand, walking through these doors, year after year. He heading off to bible study at a dead run and his father admonishing him for sprinting in church. But it wasn't a church to him at that point. It was just his other home. A place where his father spent all his time, and so a place where he spent all his. It was his second home. He had even slept here, in the church's office, on occasion when his father was up late with villagers or during lock-ins for the older teens. Darvey liked the unexpected vastness of it all. 

There were other churches in the village. Five to be exact. Two older than this one. And three built since. But as Darvey walked through the inner vestibule, he couldn't help but take a certain prideful recognition of his church. It seemed to exude more character than the others. And what a silly thing for a preacher to do; boast that his church was cooler than the rest. He smiled to himself and Walle as he passed into the nave. Some preachers would enter through the Sacristy, or back of the church, but Darvey preferred to enter through the foyer, walking the length of the pews and giving a few smiles and good mornings to the congregation before preaching. It was more personal.

As Darvey made his way down the aisle towards the pulpit, he noticed the empty pews, very few people spread haphazardly here and there. Mainly the older crowd. No children. To be expected, Darvey guessed. With only about eight hours until sunset and no one chosen as of yet, he was surprised to find anyone still in town. The decree was, of course, that everyone stay inside the gate until the one was selected. But like most of the village's rules as of late, they were being ignored. He wondered just how long the elders would let that continue. Give and inch, and they'll take a mile.

The choir had whittled down from thirty to five. As he ascended the stairs, he leaned in and recommended they take their seats. That he would make this a quick one and they could be on their way today. He didn't want everyone tense. No one would be paying him mind today. They would be whispering questions about the chosen one and the elders to each other while his words bounced off of anxious faces.

As the choir took their seats, Darvey surveyed the village's leftovers. On a good day, there would be close to four hundred parishioners packed into the lower and upper levels. Today, there were maybe forty. And somehow out of just these forty people, expectation became a physical substance that filled the nave with a syrupy silence. Any other day, he would have been ready to lead them down the streets of Samaria and Bethlehem, but today was not like every other day. Today the stares were like needles, penetrating him with uncertainty and questions; questions that if the villagers were asked to articulate, they would have not been able to.

Focus Darvey. Suffering. Talk about suffering. That's fear on their faces, not anxiety. And you can take it away with twenty or so minutes of comforting words.

"I need everyone to quieten down." A pause for laughter that, thank God, did follow. "I must be early." Another round of laughter. And then sincerely, to his brethren, "I'm truly glad to have you here this morning in these uncertain times. Good morning to all."