Angie Kinghorn

Sanctuary

This is a fiction piece for my online writing group, The Red Dress Club.  This week’s prompt was to write piece about finding beauty in something ugly.  Oh, and to do so within a 600 word limit.

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The storm took her by surprise.  Rain slashed down the street in sheets, tearing through Juliet’s light windbreaker.  She swung her backpack off her shoulder and clutched it to her stomach, breaking into a run.  No way would she make it back to her dorm before her laptop and textbooks were drenched.  
There was only one place to go.  Tall and foreboding, the building cast a constant shadow over her daily scurry to and from class.  She made a habit of averting her eyes, but it was always there, on the periphery, waiting.  
The rough iron of the doorknob felt foreign in Juliet’s hand as she grasped it and pushed at the heavy door.  She shivered as she stepped into the silent stone narthex.  Rain slid down her legs in cold streaks and puddled on the floor.
She’d never been into St. Paul’s, but the faint scent of incense and the sound of the downpour thundering on the slate roof reminded her of hours spent on her knees in their little stone church back home.  Before she gave up.  
The sanctuary was empty, but for the lines of flickering votives to the left.  Unconsciously, she drifted over to the flames, casting her eyes over all the prayers represented in their flickering light.  One wick was low in its little glass, and as she watched, it grew dimmer, then, with no fanfare, went out.
Answered or unanswered, she wondered.  A life saved here, or called back home?  
The wet backpack was cold, and she forced her numb fingers to let it slip gently to the floor.  She knelt and thought of the crucifix back in her dorm room, hidden under the bed with a bottle of cheap vodka and a battered stuffed bear she’d had since babyhood.  
Suddenly she heard slow footsteps behind her.  The wood kneeler creaked, and with a heavy groan and crackling knees, a presence settled in beside her.  Glass clinked and she smelled sulfur from a match.  
And something else.  Dear God, what was that smell?  Cat piss and mildew?  A sigh turned into a rattling, chesty cough.  My God, she thought.  This is what I get for coming back.  A slow death by tuberculosis.
Another hacking cough, and Juliet couldn’t help but open her eyes.
She stared.
The figure next to her was wearing dark rags.   He had a thick wool blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and as he coughed again, she smelled wet dog.  She felt nauseated.
His fingers were thick and lined with dirt.  The callused skin gave way to ragged nails edged with black, and his hands shook as he placed the candle on the altar.
Another cough and he turned his head in her direction.
Juliet knew that face.  She saw it every day outside the diner just off campus, as she walked home.  He sat on the sidewalk with his guitar, and she’d passed him so many times she’d learned to ignore him, to not feel the pang at the open guitar case holding only loose change.
His eyes were closed in prayer, and as she watched in amazement, the big, dirty hands produced a delicate rosary and began weaving a practiced path along the worn beads.  
He was far away, close to his God, and now Juliet was the invisible one.  She couldn’t stop looking at his face, his hands, his lips as they whispered the same prayers she’d been taught and all but forgotten.
And then, tears began to slide down his face, streaking clean tracks through the grime.  She felt guilty for bearing witness to this, for being here when she only needed to get out of the rain.
Slowly, she pushed herself up and gathered her wet bag from the floor.  
At the door, she looked back.
The kneeler was empty. 


Comments

  1. wow. how beautiful. you knocked this one out of the park, seeing beauty and bringing such humanness to the man and humility to the woman. Awesome :)

  2. oh this was wonderful! who was he? where did he go?

    i am not usually one to read much of the online fiction stuff…but i really liked the pacing of this. it kept me going right to the end.

    lovely!

  3. @Katie, I think the answer to that is different to anybody who reads it. But to me, he's “the least of these.” He's who Jesus is talking about when he says, “Whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me.”

    @Jenna, thank you!

  8. Beautifully done.

    I am curious as to why you wanted him not to be there when he turned around. Did you mean him as a metaphor?

  10. I swear up and down that I already left a comment on this! Maybe I've read so many that I don't know what I've done now! Doy!

    Anyway…

    I felt like I was sitting next to her in that church. Incredible. Unbelievably powerful. I totally loved this!

  12. Angie, this is really well executed and conceived. I understood it as speaking to those of us who find solace in lofty symbols but are uncomfortable with slammed up against those Jesus told us to serve. Is that it? I have some writing thoughts that I'll email you but I'd give this an A if I were your writing teacher–oh to have that privilege. Great job. Sorry I couldn't turn it around before date night. We took the kids down to Ben's grandma's farm this morning so I just had time to sit back down.