The doors of the large church swung open as if trembling from the whispering words of God. Hitting the ground in front of him with his cane, a man stumbled forward causing even the priest to pause his homily to watch this intruder. As the cane met purchase, the man swung it violently back and forth between the pews.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. As he moved forward. One of the altar boys responded quickly rushing up to the man, careful not to be hit accidentally. Thwack. The man shrugged him off muttering he needed the priest.
The priest stared at the man’s face for only a second before deciding to abandon his homily. At least for now, he had only just started it anyway. The strain, the pain, and was that anger lurking there just below the surface? Thwack. He paused on the pulpit seeing the man’s hurried approach. A congregant in the front pew rose, but the priest waved him off. Slowly stepping down the red carpeted steps, passing thoughts of Moses descending Sinai blew past as he approached the blind man.
“Sir?”
“I need the priest.” The man’s voice gruff as he tried to move past him.
The priest thinking of his own homily about patience and love, felt the test was there before him. He gave a weak smile that only the congregants saw before admitting that the man could call off his search.
“I am a priest. How may I help?”
“Yes.” The man’s voice came out like a bark. “Help me. Heal me.”
The young priest’s mouth dropped. He wasn’t sure what to say. What was there to say? He believed miracles happened not just in Jesus’ time but today even. But in a downtown church filled with half broken and lost people, they didn’t happen here.
“Your savior went around healing people.” The man’s thick accent made the sentence feel like it was rolling. His words loud and echoing into the priest’s mic attached to his amice. When the priest looked at the congregation, he knew they heard it too.
----
“And what of it, Arthur? Are you still going down there?”
“Yes. What of it?” Arthur asked hearing the words in his head, He was aware of his accent when he spoke English. But in his head, his thoughts had no accent switching seamlessly from Russian to English even in mid-sentence. His Latvian heritage feeling like just another broken remanent of his past that provided proof of the weaknesses inherent in believing in anything so stupid as any kind of deity. “What of it? He took everything! That’s what of it! That’s what I’m doing. I’m taking some back.”
Julian paused not sure what to say to that as Arthur kept walking swinging his white cane back and forth on the sidewalk, tapping, on the verge of outright hitting it, as he walked. Julian tried to pick up his pace to chase after his friend but panted.
A younger man walked past them and gave a brief look. Youth is wasted. They don’t understand what happens in life and how much is gone, or how quickly everything can be lost.
“Can’t you move on Arthur?” Julian’s voice strained trying to shout over the cane.
The cane grew still. Arthur turned around. Julian took the moment to catch up to his friend.
“Can the tree forgive the sky for the drought? Can the sand forgive the hurricane for its new residence under the sea? No. I cannot move on. I will not move on.”
They grew silent as the singing from the church was just barely heard above lifting in the wind.
“After you do this,” Julian’s voice was soft, but Arthur stood still listening, “After you give the middle finger to God and everyone in this congregation, what next.”
---
“Lablabla.” Arthur said to his wife’s almost hysterical laughter.
“Arty, you’re too much.”
“Sometimes, you are.”
He walked over to her, seeing her hair no longer long and blonde, but with a spread of gray. He reached out and held her hand.
“Do I really sound like that?”
“What?” Arthur laughed, “Like this: Lablabla?”
“Yes.”
“When you get goin’, I’d say you do.”
She slapped him playfully on the arm. He had spent so much time making this little joke at her expense. She was in on the joke. They laughed about it together. She would get so wrapped up into something that he would tell her she sounded like that.
“Lablabla” had become his way of saying, snap out of it. It being whatever thousands of questions and concerns that were rushing so violently out of her mouth that they seemed to blend into one incoherent word.
“Lablabla.” She said back to him. It had become their secret word. As if it simply meant take perspective and slow down. But there was more to the word. More to it than they could express, or some outsider would see. It meant slow down, yes, but also, I love you. Slow down, take perspective, and know, I love you. “Lablabla.”
“Service starts soon, we should get going.”
---
When there was no response from the young priest, so Arthur tried again, “Heal me.”
He let out a small breath. Almost self-congratulatory, shaking his head and allowing it to drop to the side. He heard movement around him. The congregants, whether forty or four, he wasn’t sure, fidgeted in discomfort.
He had always heard blind people had heightened senses. That was hogwash. Lies like everything else people believed. His whole life everything was full of lies from the years he had spent in a church to having heightened senses. Nothing really was true. Truth was a matter of perspective. Put your money on it. People are all the same. Lost. Selfish. Evil.
“Tell me, what is wrong?” Another voice, calmer spoke up to his side.
---
“Daddy, I can’t keep coming by here anymore.”
It wasn’t even his daughter’s voice. Not the one he heard inside his head. Not the one that he heard in his inner monologues since she was running around the house in princess costumes assaulting anyone nearby with a wand with a star at the tip. A star that reminded him too much of his family heritage.
“Excuse me.”
“I can’t come every week anymore. My job… its… well, you know its demanding and….”
“Don’t lie.”
There was a pause. He imagined seeing her puffed out bottom lip like she had when she was young. It was her angry face. Then in his mind’s eye, He saw her lip disappear and the little wrinkle on her forehead emerge.
“You’re too angry. I can’t keep seeing you like this. Ever since mom died and… well, and… you lost your sight. All you do is rave about the cruelties of the world.”
“Then go. You’re just like the rest of them.”
---
“It’s not that. I’m okay.” Arthur lifted his hand up to calm his friend who practically stood at the news.
“How long?” Julian moved his pawn forward.
Arthur leaned forward his hands clasped together looking at the pieces. “Soon. Everything is started to fade a little. One day, it’ll be lights out. I’ll be blind and alone.”
Julian looked over at some kids walking by. “We used to be like them.”
“I’m not falling for it, Jules. Even when I’m blind, I’ll still be able to checkmate you!”
---
Julian grabbed the wooden end of the last pew and leaned against it. Priests began to converge on Arthur. He felt himself pant and the woman in the pew moved over telling Julian to sit.
Julian waved her off. It was his friend. God knows Arthur chased everyone else away. But Artie was still his friend. He felt the briefest wave of sadness as the priests began to whisper and he couldn’t help the smile as Arthur barked, asking again to be healed. Artie smart enough to bark so loudly that it showed up on the intercom system.
Thunder clapped outside just briefly as if God had heard the challenge. One on one, God might be apt to ignore it. But with a room full of his congregants, maybe it was on.
It was Artie’s grand move. What had he said? Julian tried to think about the phrase although it was a lie, “I’ll die happy allowing them to see their own ineptitude.” Julian didn’t believe there was any way for his friend to die happy. Not since….
---
“I’ll be fine.” She smiled and Arthur held her hand. “Lablabla.”
Tears began to stream down his cheeks. “I need you.”
“You have me.”
“I need you.” He muttered out again and this time with tears rimming his eyes as if a great wall of water destined to come and flood down. He shuttered and tightened his grip on her hand. “Lablabla.”
“And you know, we’ll be together in the after. You know that.”
His daughter put her hand on his shoulder. He wanted to shrug it off. He wanted to run from the room. He felt everything ending. It wasn’t going to be long now.
---
“After you do this,” Julian’s voice was soft, but Arthur stood still listening, “After you give the middle finger to God and everyone in this congregation, what next.”
“Nothing.” Arthur said. “Then I’m done. What do I have to live for? My daughter is the only one I have, and she doesn’t want me around. I’m blind and….”
“Bitter.” Julian said.
“Sick, I’m still sick.”
“How sick?”
---
“Cancer has a way of taking out couples.” Julian whispered touching the cigarette tucked behind his ear. “How long do you have?”
“Until I’m dead or until I’m blind?” Arthur’s words came out like fists.
People gasped around him. Julian waved them away as he put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. The congregation seemed to settle when Arthur stood from his pew.
The priest was praying in front of the church. People stood. People sat. Genuflect then stand again, it was like that game of ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes’. Arthur crossed his arms. He shook his head back and forth before rising.
The prayer ending, the priest turned to the table when Arthur cleared his throat. He stared at the front of the church thinking about his wife laying in a coffin at the front of the room. That’s what it was though, just a room. Empty. No God. No hope. Nothing.
“I’ve gone to this church for a long time.” His voice shook coming out with the gravity of the situation. “I’ve come here every Sunday. I’ve come here holidays. I had my daughter christened here. My wife’s funeral was here. There is no god. You’re all fools.”
Arthur pushed past Julian who made to move toward him but stayed in his pew. Arthur paused in the aisle looking up at the cross. He held back the spit before shaking his head and walking away. God wasn’t even worth his saliva. He pushed open the door and heard the large door close behind him as if God himself had lent his angels to close it from him.
Maybe it was God’s final message to him. You know it. I know it too. This isn’t working out. Maybe we should see other people.
---
“I don’t have the faith.” The younger priest whose homily was interrupted said.
“You don’t?” Arthur said.
“No.”
“Does anyone?” Arthur’s voice rose.
“I don’t.” Another priest said.
“No.” Another, this one lower.
Arthur suspected there was a whole gaggle of them around him. He imagined them wobbling around him looking like penguins. Each one weaker than the next.
---
“Come on, let’s pray.” The young kids said on the train.
Arthur eyed them as they crouched down in the middle of the train car and began to pray. As he looked at them, his eyes began to dim just a little and he waited wondering if this wasn’t it. It wasn’t. The kids prayed.
“Father God, we pray for the orphanage, and we pray that you would be with those kids, and they would know that you love them.”
“Ha.” Arthur said rising. His stop was coming anyway.
The kids turned to him. He grabbed the rail of the train to keep himself upright.
“I stood in my church and told them there is no God and I’ve never been happier. You’re all fools.”
“Maybe, you’re…” One of the kids said but another rose. He wasn’t with the group praying but sitting near them.
“I’m John.”
Arthur scowled at him looking him up and down, “I don’t talk to brainwashed people!”
---
“I will.”
Arthur turned his head. Staring into the darkness, he wondered who he had spoken up.
“Artie, let’s leave.” Julian said appearing behind him.
“I will pray for him.” A voice that came out stronger than expected spoke.
“Who said that?” Arthur asked.
“Some old priest. Come on.” Julian said tugging at Arthur’s arms.
“We’re….” Arthur began wanting to admonish his friend. They weren’t young men anymore. It wasn’t like they were in the spring of their lives. They were in their winter. Enough was enough.
“Here.” The priest said his soft warm hand grabbing the side of Arthur’s face.
The priest laughed as Arthur pulled himself away.
“Come now.” The priest grabbed Arthur’s face and pulled it back. “You need to sit still.”
A chair appeared and Arthur was helped back into it. The priest said nothing but even blind, Arthur could feel the priest’s penetrating gaze.
“Do you believe you will be healed?” The priest asked.
Arthur grunted angrily. The priest cocked his head to the side as if seeing more into Arthur than he had expected.
“Perhaps, you even asking to be healed will be enough for the heavens.” The priest cleared his throat, “Give me some space.” The other priests made a half circle pushing Julian and anyone else who had wandered up back.
---
“And if you could see, what would you do?”
“Mikayla lives on the other side of the country now. I would go to her.”
“For what?”
Arthur felt himself soften, “I don’t know. When she lived here, she told me dozens of times she wasn’t coming anymore, and she still came back. She calls me regularly and she doesn’t know I know, but she puts me on speaker and lets me rant. Probably doing dishes or whatever because sitting and listening to me… I imagine it’s a lot.”
“So, what, you’d go bother her where she lives? Interrupt her life on the other side of the country?” Julian asked laughing before in a quieter voice, “Leave me alone.”
“She took the job. She should’ve. I wouldn’t need help if I could see. I suppose….” Arthur’s voice trailed off.
“What?”
“I suppose, I would have a reason to be grateful. Maybe even a reason to be better for her. She’s engaged, you know. I met her husband to be, and he seems fine.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“No.”
“If I remember correctly, you made her cry last time she was here.”
“It’s all pointless anyway, right? It’s not like I’m going to get healed. Things like that don’t happen anymore that is if they ever did.”
---
“Do you want to be healed?” The old priest asked.
“What?” Arthur felt his arm rise as if waving off the priest before catching it, “Of course I want to be healed.”
The priest laughed and Arthur felt himself tense again. Arthur could feel the priest lean in closer. The heat emanated off his body as he grabbed Arthur’s hand and whispered into his ear.
“I can hear your lack of faith. You need to believe.”
Arthur didn’t say anything. The priest looked at Julian. Julian’s eyes were watering. The priest gave a little nod seeing Arthur’s friend, his last friend, if the priest had to guess.
“I see it there. Your faith will do at least for now.”
Julian nodded. Arthur asked what was happening when the priest spoke again. His voice deep taking on an authority.
“Dim the lights.”
Arthur felt the tears come and at first, they were milky like blood and clotted and dribbled down his cheeks. He saw the darkness and the movements that he had always seen since the cancer had pushed through. The priest prayed and the words he either couldn’t hear or just didn’t. He felt the priest’s hand on his forehead and then blocking his eyes.
“Dim the lights, his eyes are starting to reform.” The priest said.
“Ah?” Arthur said feeling the soft burst of fire coming through.
The priest laughed before whispering, “You’re worse off than just blind, dear chap.”
Arthur opened his mouth to say something.
“No, keep your tongue. You’ll negate your healing. You’re already angry enough. God will work. You shut your mouth for a change. Your friend, he is the reason you will see. You may have left God, but God has not left you just like your friend there.”
The priest cleared his throat and placed his hand on Arthur’s forehead again. Arthur trembled as the red turned to yellow and then white.
He saw a man standing in front of him. Not the priest, he knew that. A man standing in silhouette staring at him. The man leaned in closer to what Arthur now saw was the priest. It looked as if the man whispered to the priest and as the priest prayed, he paused. Listening to the man, the priest nodded his head up and down.
Then, he started to see colors. The colors rushed in starting with red then with green and then blue. The priest’s hand held his head up and he peered up to the wooden cross. The first thing he saw in detail.
The priest kept praying and like dead layers of skin falling off, his eyes focused and then relaxed, vision came and then sharpened. He wanted to ask about his cancer, and he wanted to ask about everything else and the priest, the old priest who he could see the mop of white hair on his head chuckled as if he was hearing Arthur’s thoughts. Even wanting to know if he’d need glasses like he had.
“What?” Arthur said finally.
“The cancer should be gone. At least for now.” The priest whispered.
“For now? Why?”
Arthur felt the tears streaming down his cheek. He looked back and saw Julian who let out a shout of shock and that seemed to erupt and bristle through the whole congregation. He looked back at the priest who seemed to be laughing at something.
“You’re healed.” The priest said.
“Does…” the questions that wanted to come and wanted to flood out seemed to form a dam in his mind.
“You’re healed and you still have questions.”
Arthur lowered his head. The desire flooded him not wanting to lose a moment. He wanted to see his daughter. He wanted to see his grandson and the thought came with a small laugh, hold his grandson. The pain of not being with his wife surged again.
“Does God have nothing to say to me?”
“He healed you, is that not enough?”
“No message then?” Arthur fought the tears as they threatened to come. Then in a quieter voice, “I saw him speak to you.”
“There’s something. It means nothing to me. I thought it nothing, but it keeps coming to my heart.”
“What?”
“Lablabla.”
“Huh?” Arthur felt the tears coming.
“Lablabla. It feels like a joke huh? As I incline my ear toward the Spirit of God, all I hear is him telling me to tell you, ‘Lablabla’.”
Tears began to well in Arthur’s face as he peered into the old priest’s smiling, saturnine face. The priest looked tired. The priest placed his hand on Arthur’s shoulder, asking a younger priest to help him up.
“What do I do now?” Arthur blurted out, embarrassed by his own voice breaking.
“Live.” The priest said. “Just because you renounced God doesn’t mean he has renounced you.”