The Bible Lady
by Rachel
Carmody
When you think
of a church, what do you think of? At sixteen, I
thought of a playground. My two younger siblings,
being predisposed to my antics, were more than
happy to join me in exploring the building.
Everyone else, meanwhile, was outside along with
my very religious mother eating hotdogs and
hamburgers, chatting politely. We rogues, we
crossed the red duck taped hallways, whispering
loudly to one another with only the vague
impression that anyone could still hear us.
Upstairs, I
found the silent prayer room, the one with the
dark screen that we could always see from the
preaching hall, where parents should have taken
their screaming kids but never bothered because
God loves me trying to sing over screaming babies.
Now of course this was very exciting to see the
door half open, light off to assure us the room
was off air. I snuck in with my brother, took one
look out into the fully lit, empty hall and told
my sister, ever the pawn to our schemes, to go in
there to see if she could see us. Now, correct me
if I'm wrong, but when you're trying to play in a
church, God is supposed to let you have your
innocent fun, right? Even if you're nearly of age?
Well, God screwed with us, because apparently
dark screens don't work when there's light in the
room. My brother and I, we didn't close the door
behind us. So when my sister got to the entrance,
and we egged her on, moving our arms even though
we were assuming she couldn't see us, she looked
urgently to her left at a woman. This woman was
on the far end of the hall, all the way at the
back wall, and she came towards us, pointing one
arm at us, the other clutched to her chest. You
know of course it was a bible.
We couldn't
hear a word that woman said, but you never saw
kids run that fast the hell out of there.
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