A somber mood pervaded through-out the congregation. The faces of the fellows mirrored the drizzly, clouded morning that hung outside. Those that were left that is. Who was left had barely slept the night before, unable to stand the restless angst of their beds. Some had walked the hallways nervously, others took to the bottle in a dimly lit kitchen, others to the streets in an angry stupor.

The new Reverend could sense the anxiety in the hall. A lump grew in his throat as he panned his eyes over theirs. As he stood at his pulpit he tried to calm his fearing mind. He damned himself, that his mind again was running wild across his unconscious, turning up demons and ghouls that the reverend would have preferred to have let be. But still he could not shake the sense of an angry mob. The angry mob of the night before. The angry mob of who was left. For the first time he reflected on the past week with a hint of regret.

The congregation did look upon the new Reverend with distaste, but it truly was no fault of his. For though he would castigate his deficiancies without mercy, there was nothing particularly wrong with him, save perhaps for his seemingly poor choice of opportunities. He was, by his own admission, quite a nothing of a man. He languished at his somewhat advanced age unmarried, though there were no laws that had prohibited him from taking a wife. He had looked, but there were no takers. Being not a particularly attractive man, nor a particularly rich man, nor for that matter a particularly interesting man, he offered little to lure a woman. At the pulpit he stood unassumingly, so in contrast to the man he had replaced as to be almost comical, commanding little in the way of respect from those to whom he spoke, sometimes even invoking a chuckle or a look to the sky among one of the young ushers at the rear of the hall. Whereas the old Reverend was strong, and had held in his voice an expectation to which the congregation would follow, the new Reverend's voice was meek, and though he tried to disguise its tendency by using a microphone, the effect was not the desired one, and instead it only emphasized the timidity.

He had spoken these words for such a time that they had now no meaning to him. He thought likely that there was an irony in that, but one that he had no appreciation of. Was it a sign of doubt? He wanted to believe that it was not. Wasn't his disinterest to be expected, as it would be for any man who has been involved in the same monotony for a long time. His love had grown tired and old, and it no longer carried the spark it once did. His was much like a marriage. More darkly conceived, it was as most everything as time passes, and limitations become more clearly discernible, and dreams become more blurred.

His thoughts distracted him from his sermon, he heard his own voice trail off. He found himself, for a moment, staring emptily at the open entrance opposite him, the morning sun shining in, illuminating the main aisle. The congregation began to shuffle and murmer, and he quickly tried to regain his composure. But the damage had been done. As he continued on with his monologue, he scolded himself for such an outburst. He sighed, and the congregation acquiesed, and all regretted softly that the former Reverend had passed.
- posted by Sigurd2/03/2004 03:56:00 PM