An Act of God [EN]

We are all standing behind the altar in our white gowns. The church is in an oppressive silence on this cloudy Sunday morning. Today is a special mass lead by the Bishop. His name is Bernard Blunt. Father Richard has been talking about him coming to our Church for the past three months, always with the most cynical smile on his face. During the mass Father Richard sits pompously at the back of the altar in his fancily adorned black steel chair, watching attentively over all the faithfuls. Every now and then he looks back at us and smiles widely with all his yellow teeth. It is almost the end of the mass, and he gives Anna one repugnant look. Anna immediately deviates her gaze from him, holding her own hands nervously. I feel like smashing his head with one of the genuflectors. But I contained myself, only with the comforting thought that little he knew about our plans for later on this day. Five years from now I know I won't be forced by my mom to be in the choir anymore, but I think that's just too long, like a third of my life, it's just too much...

Last week my mom dragged me shopping with her for a dress for the fair that would succeed the mass on Sunday.

Mom, I'm tired of singing in the choir every Sunday. Suzy and Nichole don't even have to go to the church anymore, why-

Don't be ridiculous Theresa, I know you have friends there, Barbara, Anna, and Kate are always there with you. Ms. Booker always complains to me that you chat with them during rehearsals, you can't complain.

No Mom, Barbara doesn't go anymore either, it's only me, Kate, and Anna every Sunday, and we're all sick of it.

How dare you say that, Theresa?!

The last few nights I had a recurring nightmare about leather caped people dragging me, Kate and Anna by our feet around old ruined fields. We were hurt and screaming as we were dragged, but they would never look back to reveal their faces. Everything was dark, and the sky was a blood red. People were screaming in horrid pain in the distance. There was fire everywhere and a strange smell of meat in the air. The smell of meat brought me back home; I always woke up with the smell of bacon my mom fried in the morning for breakfast.

The Wednesday after our shopping trip, we rehearsed our repertoire with Ms. Booker. We were singling Alma Redemptoris when Father Richard came in quietly and sat in the back of the room.

Alma Redemptoris Mater, quae pervia caeli

Porta manes, et stella maris, succurre cadenti,

Surgere qui curat, populo: tu quae genuisti,

Natura mirante, tuum sanctum Genitorem

Virgo prius ac posterius, Gabrielis ab ore

Sumens illud Ave, peccatorum miserere

Ms. Booker watched him behind her thick wooden-framed glasses. After the chant, Father Richard walked to the front of the room and whispered something to Ms. Booker. I had a feeling something bad was about to happen. Ms. Booker gave him an odd look, and paused for a moment before making the announcement:

Anna, Father Richard wants to have a word with you.

We were all quiet. Anna moved from the first line – she was one of the shortest in the choir. She had her brown hair carefully brushed, grown halfway down her back, moving gently as she walked toward the back door of the room, where Father Richard was waiting for her. Ms. Booker also followed Anna with her eyes, looking worried. We all were.

My mother always warned me I should mind my own business, but it wasn't the first time Father Richard wanted to have a word with Anna. The last time Anna went, after she came back, she never spoke to us again. Truth be told, Anna had never been very talkative. She used to be friends with Barbara and Kate, and as they were also my friends, I would talk to Anna every once in a while too, but only up until that incident, when she simply shut down. Barbara told us Anna told her some bad things, Barbara then told her parents, and her mom made her promise she would never talk about it to anyone else ever again. From that day on, Barbara never came back to choir.

Ms. Booker lead us to sing Ave Regina as we waited on Anna.

Gaude, Virgo gloriosa,

Super omnes speciosa,

Vale, o valde decora,

Et pro nobis Christum exora.

V. Dignare me laudare te, Virgo sacrata.

R. Da mihi virtutem contra hostes tuos.

All of a sudden Ms. Booker stopped playing and the girls stopped singing. Anna was coming into the room alone, lead by a hand from the darkness behind her, pushing her into the room. Her eyes were swollen, she was clasping her hands, looking down and bitting her lower lip. Kate ran out of the line and hugged Anna tightly. Anna screeched and began to cry on Kate's shoulder. All the other girls were staring at them, including me. Ms. Booker began to play a song we never heard before. She sang with a voice we never heard before either:

Sibyllinis versibus
haec praedicta.

Infelix, propera,
crede vel vetera:
cur damnaberis,
gens misera?3

Quem docet littera,
natum considera:
ipsum genuit puerpera.

Ms. Booker had tears in her eyes. All the girls were as quiet as we could be. Ms. Booker walked across the room and took Anna in her arms, caressing her hair, which wasn't as impeccable as before. Ms. Booker looked nervous, spying around the doors and windows with her huge eyes, hissing through her teeth:

I can't take this anymore, girls. It's always the same story, they're all the same! My life has been the Church because music is my life and that's the only thing I can do for a living now, but what are YOU ALL doing here? Can't you see what's going on? Poor Anna, my dear.

The one thing Ms. Booker couldn't say was that we didn't know what was going on. Ms. Booker took a loud deep breath and assumed a grim persona. She started to murmur in a lower tone, it was the third alien voice she debuted that day:

This place... this place is doomed! Our Anna was a victim. She isn't the first I've seen and if we don't do something about it, she won't be the last in the claws of these evil priests. None of this can go any further. I won't allow any of this to happen ever again. I'll blow this church up and you girls will help me.

She kneeled down and kept combing Anna's hair with her fingers. Her eyes were fixed on the window across the room, her look furious. My heart started pounding in my chest, I've never seen someone looking so angry. Ms. Booker used to be fun and cheerful in class, we have never seen her in a such a mood; I felt like she was going to hurt someone. Back to her hissing voice:

This Sunday, after the morning mass, we'll arrange the whole thing. It will be the end of all this.

The door opened again, and Father Richard was back in the room.

What's the matter, Ms. Booker? I heard something from my office.

How could you, Father?

Ms. Booker rushed through the room and grabbed her purse in one hand and her scores in the other and fled the room. Father Richard looked grave and he was speechless. A second after we heard a muffled humph echoing from the corridor, and she came back.

Come with me girls. Now! You didn't think I'd leave them with you, did you? You dirty pig.

Ms. Booker, I... Wha–

Come on girls, let's go! Right now, I won't stand here anymore.

Who would expect Ms. Booker to act like that? We were all scared, and we grabbed our books in silence. Kate helped Anna, who wouldn't move without someone guiding her along. We left with Ms. Booker out to the front gate. We stood still there, no one would talk, we were all in shock with what had just happened. So we waited for our moms to pick us up. Father Richard came to the front gate shortly after and called Ms. Booker to a conversation on the side of the Church. All we could hear was Ms. Booker with another grimy voice going shame, shame on you and all of... the church, all these years... Me and the girls were taking care of Anna. She had bruises on her lower back, and she was quiet as before. She wouldn't talk to any of us, her eyes always fixed on the ground. When her mom came to pick her up, Anna was still quiet, and her mom didn't noticed. In fact, just at that moment I realized her mom looked exactly like Anna at that time, curved posture, downward look, depressed semblance. Made me think of how could a child suffer from the same stagnated state her mom did. I figured something was terribly wrong right there.

Sunday morning we were at the church at seven o'clock for a warm up. Ms. Booker came in wearing a long black dress and a tight necklace with a thick silver Greek cross hanging from it. The last time she had worn that dress was last year, at the funeral of our previous priest, Father Johnson. She also wore a pair of black bobbin-laced gloves and her hair was tied back with a thick black satin ribbon. She had a wide bright smile stamped on her face the moment she entered the room.

Good morning girls, how are you all today?

Good Morning Ms. Booker.

We all answered in chorus. From water to wine, her smile transformed into a serious face, her hissing voice spoke for her:

I have everything thought through; it will be easy and quick, but I will need help from all of you.

Ms. Booker explained her plans carefully. She made it sound like fun: gas, flour powder, fire, explosion. This is really what it was all about: we were going to blow up the church. I felt my stomach turn a somersault. It was for real. Excitement and fear jumped in my heart, throwing a party with heavy drums pounding. I felt like I was in tune with all girls, I saw smiles on their faces. Anna was looking at Ms. Booker, not the floor, for the first time since last week. Ms. Booker explained everything and we did a quick warm up and run through of our songs before going to the altar where things were being set up for the mass.

After the mass, everyone left the nave for the fair that would go until the evening. We went back to our rehearsal room on the back of the altar, supposedly to get ready for our performance at the end of the day. But instead, we planned everything for the end of the days of our church. Ms. Booker would turn on the furnaces and let the gas leak out for about half an hour. Me and the girls would close all doors and windows we could, then fill the atrium with flour powder from the kitchen. The flour would make a giant explosion.

It took four of us to carry each of the flour sacks from the kitchen to the main atrium. We carried them up to the altar and emptied them under the table with the impeccable white table cloth. The golden cross, the Bible and the other reliquary were locked up on the cabinet under Jesus on the wall. I secretly collected a really cool wooden rosary someone left on the altar. Kate said:

Girls, walk to the front gate now, I'll finish spreading these and we will be ready.

Are you sure?

I said.

Of course. Keep those matches safe, we can't light them before we're all out of here. Actually, hand them to me, this is really dangerous.

Anna stepped up to the altar. She looked at Kate and puffed her chest. Anna now used an alien low, yet strong voice. I wonder if that voice business was contagious...

I wanna do it.

We all looked at Anna.

This is really dangerous Anna, are you sure you want to do it?

Yes. I want to do it.

So we let her do it. We finished locking the doors and windows. We helped to clean the flour powder on each other's clothes and walked to the the patio in front of the church. Our parents and everyone were eating and chatting. The fair was celebrating the Bishop being in town. The sun was about to set, and some folk music was playing in the back when a loud BOOM was heard. All the stained glass windows bloomed their shattered glass into the air. We saw all the atrium with the white pillars and marble entails reflecting the golden lights from the fire expanding like a giant orange mushroom growing all the way to the skies. Everyone looked at the ex-church in awe as it was suspended in the air for a moment before it collapsed to the ground. A large cloud of smoke and dust lifted from the ground and covered the surroundings with a thin layer of white. Everyone looked like they were covered in flour, like fish ready to be fried.

On my way back home, my parents were listening to the radio:

At 7:25 p.m., with a roar heard in almost every corner of Beatrice, the West Side Baptist Church blew up. The walls fell outward, the heavy wooden roof crashed straight down like a weight in a deadfall. Firemen thought the explosion had been caused by natural gas, which may have leaked into the church from a broken pipe outside and been ignited by the fire in the furnace. The Beatrice priest, Father Richard, had no particular theory about the fire's cause, but he began to reflect on the heretofore inconsequential details of his life, wondering at exactly what point it is that one can say, "This was an act of God."

As a child, I learned there are always ways we can express our frustrations without letting everyone know about it. Ms. Booker made each one of us swear we wouldn't tell anyone about this. As for God, I think he was happy about our act indeed. Now there was no church to hide the abominable acts of Father Richard.