Green linoleum.
Two school age children run across the dusty floor as adults make casual conversation among the isles. You don’t see green floors in churches where I’m from but to say this hole in the wall was a normal church would be an understatement. Cobwebs cover the rusted sconces that light the dim interior of this decrepit building.
There’s a slight smell of mold filling the busy nave but it’s drowned out by the night air that protrudes the front church doors and windows perched open for the breeze. Despite the odor and ugly floors it’s surprisingly well-kept for being practically in the middle of nowhere. I was surprised I managed to find it after mindlessly driving two hours through the plains with little to no reception. I checked my cell one last time. No texts from mom, anyone. Not even one of the numerous therapists called back to inform me of their waitlist.
That didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did.
So I’m really going through with this?
I think this to myself as the wandering eyes of the congregation members glance back at me occasionally. I had been here ten minutes and no one had said a word to me.
Normally being the only black person in a thirty-mile radius would frighten me, however today I have no qualms about being a fish out of water.
In the front of the church men talk amongst themselves. A tall, skinny man in a big brim hat holds their attention in the middle of the group. Meanwhile wives chat and kids play amongst the pews in front of me. I take in the scene and wardrobes. Plaid coats and colonial gowns are the vibe for the adults while their children sport tacky vests and sundresses. I am the only one in regular clothes, that is besides a curly-haired blonde woman with a in a blue mink sitting near the very front. She doesn’t mingle with the congregation, she just sits looking straight ahead, back to me.
Above the men hangs a draping, black flag with a beaming yellow insignia on the front. I had only seen the insignia once before. It was the day I stumbled across this organization. The day I also made a decision that would free me from this feeling that plagued most of my entire life.
***
When I was in the 3rd grade I watched as Roy Thurman handed everyone in class an invite to his 9th birthday party. Everyone got an embroidered black and yellow Hot Wheels invitation, each handmade by his mom. Everyone got one, but me that is. As I looked around the room at classmates gushing to each other over getting to go to a theme park, I was introduced to that feeling.
Emptiness.
The feeling was if anger and jealousy had a fist fight, but it went on for hours and they both were left with nothing. Just emptiness.
This all came after I had just moved to this new school, in a new town and without warning, lost my dad early in the school year. It was due to a heart attack and since then, things spiraled for child me. In addition to my mom struggling to take on another full time job I began to also struggle that year.
With mom suddenly absent so she could support us I began regressing into video games, dwelling in that empty feeling. From then, every conversation with classmates ended with them being completely turned off. I not only was depressing to talk to, I was, as Jamal Wittman put it before denouncing our friendship: sad.
Cut to that day of the invitations, and there I was, a child of grief and loss, now excommunicated from my class and one friend I had. My mom tried on her salary but she could never get me the therapy I needed. And like that, the seed of emptiness that was planted, festered and grew.
High school was a mix of forced smiles and stolen personality traits that I threw together to survive. College was a blur of me delving into heavy drug use and becoming more resistant to my trauma.
Now I have a dead-end corporate job that unfortunately doesn’t afford the therapy I desperately need. And despite my best efforts, I don’t fit in in my career either. So many failed attempts at joining gyms, creative art classes and sports groups ended with me making others uncomfortable with the few social skills I could manage.
I’m just so tired.
Well, I was so tired, until the morning I found this congregation.
I had made coffee, successfully finished updating my life insurance policy, and set up to have my remaining funds auto-drafted to my mom’s account. I had made this decision and for the first time something felt right. The remaining task was finding a successful way to pass my death off as a mere accident. With my cat by my side I had found myself somehow on a dark web thread called “su*cide insurance tips for dummies” scouring through my options. Then I saw the flier. Well, more so an ad on the forum. Weird, but I guess even the dark web has to keep their lights on.
JOIN US!
THE PEOPLE’S DISCIPLES OF NOON DAY
DECEMBER 4TH
FOR OUR FINAL CHAPTER MEETING
FOR OUR ANNUAL RESIGNATION CEREMONY
I almost kept scrolling until I saw the bold lettering.
ARE YOU ALONE?
ARE YOU TIRED?
HAVE YOU LIVED A GOOD LIFE?
WELL, REJOICE!
And my throat swelled as I read,
YOU DON’T HAVE
TO LEAVE ALONE.
TRANSCEND WITH US
DECEMBER 4TH
Below the ominous comics sans font was the yellow insignia, next to a number to text. I sat, pondering.
- Just my mom left who I’m now estranged with.
- No friends, save one or two acquaintances from college who check in.
- And no purpose.
- Nothing but emptiness; the only friend I had up until this moment.
I don’t have to leave alone.
I texted the number.
**
As I peer up now at the same yellow insignia on the flag I wonder what it stands for. A turtle perched on its back shell with a ribbon across the stomach in Latin writing. Before I can pull out my phone I hear-
“Idle mind, idle body…”
I look up, the blonde woman in mink from the front is now sitting to my left staring at me. Her face is not what I imagine as her piercing blue eyes graze me, then back to the flag. “Idle soul. Thought I would save you a google search. Besides this is practically a cell dead zone.” She finishes the sentence with a coy giggle.
For the first time today I cleared my throat. Not only am I caught off-guard but also very, very stoned from my session from the drive here. Was not immediately expecting to be perceived by anyone here.
“Er- I..uh, thanks,” I manage to say. “I didn’t know the turtle was considered… lazy.”
She smiles at me as I try to place her age in the moment. She appears to be no older than my mom but her presence has a youthful aura and a pleasant pound of makeup with scarlet red lipstick that gives me an indication she’s definitely not poor.
“Oh, but it’s not. A turtle on its back is struggling, suffering, alone as it tries to reach out for anyone. But because it is helpless, or idle, it can be perceived as lazy.” Her faces animates with each word she speaks.
The woman then extends out a frail hand covered in gold rings from the blue mink. “Also my sincerest apologies. You’re new, and here I am rambling. What is your name, young man?”
Though somehow transfixed by her I am still very aware she is a complete stranger. I lie that my name is Javier and shake her hand.
“I’m Cedia; such a lovely name, Javier. It means bright home. I trust your home is bright Javier, full of light?”
I dissociate as I immediately remember the task at hand. My home was left barely clean with just enough food for my cat to eat before my mom eventually came by cleanup my stuff. There isn’t time to accept this gut punch before she says “You don’t have to answer that. I know why you’re here.”
My response is stopped by a frog in my throat.
“You’re probably wondering who posted that little flier. And surprise. Yes, it was me. You see, I try to attract people. People who really need this. Those broken souls who plan on exiting stage left. The ones who have been abandoned-” this chokes her.
“…and left to walk that line alone. Is that, you, Javier?”
Without saying a word I nod. Apparently even strangers can see my misery. How pathetic I am.
“And so, you pushed your remaining loved ones away, left your cat to fend for herself, and made your way, miles from home to join… this?”
She asks me this and gazes to the men in the front. As the tall, skinny one exits to the back, the other men begin to hum a strange tune, all in unison, as they begin setting up tables. A black clothed box is then brought out by the tall man.
“You see their reverend, Richard - I believe his name is Richard - he has tricked his small, secluded Amish community into believing this “final communion” will bring forth the second coming.”
Cedia plays with her gold rings as just then two women bring out large, glass bowls from the back. They began a hymn that parallels the humming. The children now join in, clapping in unison. The humming, singing and clapping now make a haunting melody that leaves me extremely uneasy.
“Little do they know the Church of Noon Day is nothing like what Richard has prophesized and now he has poisoned the communion wine and plans to lock the doors and seal everyone in, to suffer together.”
She says all of these terrible things so softly, yet her voice is still heard over the singing, the smiles and laughter.
“He will only have seconds before the poison tears apart his stomach, to light a single match. A match that will fall, igniting the oil drums he’s hiding underneath the church.”
The children hold hands and skip together in a circle; their parents clap with glee as the melody continues.
“And one more thing sweetheart,” she then pulls out a KYLIE SKIN compact mirror. “They are not going to acknowledge you. They will have their ceremony, pour and pass glasses, only to leave you one to grab yourself.” She then pulls out the scarlet shade from a sleeve pocket and applies it delicately before me. “And the cup won’t be clean.”
I look at the crowd singing and dancing cheerfully before me. The eyes that glance back are now being read as unwelcome. The empty feeling, now back again.
As if accepting my fate, I turn to face her now. “Who are you?”
Tears swell up as I ask this. I made a conscious choice to die with complete strangers and here I was being chastised by some elitist in Balenciaga.
“Or let me rephrase,” I add as I then struggle to ask,
“…what are you?”
The blonde woman applies a second coat to her lips, never looking away. “Sheep fear the wolf because it slaughters them. Sheep honor the farmer, even though he does the same. Poetic? not really. Tragic? Desperately so.”
“I am confused.” I say, a mixed of stoned, scared and genuinely intrigued. “Are you…. The wolf, ma’am?”
“Oh sweetheart, no.”
She closes the compact mirror and shoots those piercing blue eyes at me before putting the lipstick back into her pocket. As she does I catch a glimpse of a broach clip attached under her sleeve. A turtle. Golden, Latin writing.
“I’m the farmer.”
And with that, I merely ask her one last question, “So what happens now Cedia?”
A smile creeps back to her face.
“Are you familiar with Dante? Not very good looking? He wrote of the rings of hell, fancying adventure and whatnot. Well, according to him, nestled in those rings were sins not so common: those sins were mourning, sadness. Traits, out of our control in my opinion. I never liked him for including that. He had no right.”
I say nothing, hoping there is a point somewhere here.
“I say all of that because well, a lot of my friends in my inner circle don’t care him for Dante but I always liked him, for one reason at least. Just his name really. Perseverance.”
I say nothing.
“You know, I try to attract these lost souls, the depressed and the suicidal to these little parties, so they can spend at least one moment, just one moment of their lives feeling like they belong.”
She then takes both my hands in hers. The rings are cold against my fingers.
“However Javier, you’re not a lost soul. Just a soul whose lost his way. I know this, because I too know that emptiness inside. You could say I’m the mother of emptiness.”
Mom. I never got to talk to my mom. I am now no longer stopping the tears as they slowly fall from my face.
“You have wanted nothing but to belong, to be accepted. So I need you to hear me when I say you don’t belong here.”
This hurts me. Like the sharp pain from losing my dad, like the sharp pain of being shunned by Jamal, like the sharp pain of not being invited to Roy’s birthday. There it was again, only now I was being pushed away by a fucking demonic cult.
Can’t win for losing.
“You need.. No. You have, to persevere Javier. This mourning and sadness won’t last. You have to believe in something better for yourself. For your mother, your cat, your life.”
I choke as I say, “But I don’t know how to.”
Cedia meets my gaze, shedding a single tear onto her blue mink. “Sweetheart, no one does. But trying is a part of the fight.”
For a moment she peers behind me, out through the open church doors. “And who knows, maybe something. Something, so small, can make the difference that changes everything.”
This breaks me and I have to close my eyes and sit with this. I was ready to finish this all today. To end the pain and suffering and now here I was being enlightened by a strange woman. A woman, who was now gone. I was now alone in the pew.
I stand to my feet and find my car keys in my pocket. I exit across the green linoleum and out the open door.
I didn’t care that the congregation had started their final communion service without even giving me a welcoming embrace. I didn’t care about the poor families there were minutes away from the resignation. All I cared about, in that moment, was getting out of there. I had no plan, no goal, no idea what I stood for, just a new feeling that was planted.
Perseverance.
As I walked out on the singing mass of men, women and children, I didn’t look back at all. Not even after the singing stopped. Not even after a choir of coughs and children’s screams echoed into the night sky. Not even when the smell of smoke and burning debris filled my lungs as I drove off.
Nope.
I didn’t look back, I didn’t think twice. I just started to drive home. The smoking building was out of view when I got a text message:
Hello! Dr. Mercer’s Office here reaching out to inform
you have been expedited to the top of our waitlist.
We will see you Monday Dec 8 for your intake and first therapy appointment.
All your copay and deductibles are covered!
Wow. Just wow. I continue to cry as I drive home. A new lease on life in my pocket, just as I get one more text message:
We look forward to helping you heal, Dante!