Sheltered Places
They were paper people going through the motions of life, every shift, and conversation threatening to rip them in two. Violet knew this about her family and about herself, so she trodded lightly at all times. She made sure she fell in step with them as they marched toward the church doors with their almost militaristic purity on display. Sunday mornings always made her feel sick to her stomach; that cruelly sunny morning was no exception.
“What a blessed day it is,” the greeter at the front doors exclaimed, taking a moment to make eye contact with each member of of Violet's family. She held the door open for them.
A blast of cold air pressed against Violet’s skin as she followed her family through the foyer. Walking through the foyer from the entrance made Violet feel like was a character in a video game. Her quest was journeying through the treacherous forest of fake pleasantries to her destination, the sanctuary, while encountering as few obstacles as possible. Violet could have been a champion player had it not been for her parents’ insistence on stopping to say hello to anyone they vaguely recognized.
They weren’t necessarily friends with anyone at the church, although their paths had collided every week for almost a decade. Violet’s parents didn’t even seem to like the people they worshipped with and simply interacted with them out of necessity, putting on wide grins and forcing themselves to laugh too loudly at unfunny jokes.
Violet pushed through the discomfort within those awkwardly distant conversations by trailing behind her parents, doing what they had always taught her: only speaking when spoken to. Soon enough, she’d beaten the game. Yet she wouldn’t necessarily consider herself a winner.
The swelling of soft rock music filled every corner of the sanctuary.
The lead singers composed of white guys in white t-shirts and a bleach blonde PTA-mom type were spearheading the charge, each verse finding a vaguely different adjective to describe the goodness of their God. Awesome, amazing, great, magnificent.The background singers—one of every race, for diversity purposes—were harmonizing with oohs and ahs.
The entire congregation was singing and clapping along. Something in all of their faces looked almost too jubilant like they were putting on a show. Maybe they were performing for the people around them. Or for God. Or perhaps for themselves, but they committed to their roles like Oscar-winning actors.
A woman in the front row was swaying offbeat with her eyes closed.
A man in a three-piece suit was jumping up and down. He had both of his arms in the air like he was waiting for God himself to extend a helping hand.
The ushers were pacing the aisles in their blood-red blazers. Some of them were gently singing along while others were silent; completely stoic.
The pastor was sitting in an armchair on the side of the stage. He looked like a king on a throne looking over his dominion of people. His expression didn’t necessarily read of pride, but rather of satisfaction. He simply bobbed his head and tapped his foot to the music.
Only a couple of rows from the front was the Johnson family. They all seemed overdressed for the casualty of a nondenominational megachurch. Violet and her mother both in dresses, and her brother and father wearing full suits.
Her brother, no older than sixteen, was clapping and nodding along.
Her father had one arm in the air like he was trying to scrape the heavens with his fingertips. With both of his eyes shut he looked relaxed. He swayed like he was lying in a hammock or floating in the ocean, totally at peace.
Her mother was a much more dramatic display. She had both of her arms outstretched like she was being crucified. She was muttering to herself furiously, switching between singing the lyrics to the song and speaking in tongues. There were tears streaming down her face that she didn’t even bother to wipe away.
Violet stood unmoved, eyes glazed over, mesmerized by a daydream. Her wrist was draped delicately across the back of the chair in front of her. Her refusal to participate was not rebellious, in fact, it seemed natural to her, that reserved indelible stance, but her surroundings rendered her strange. The sameness of everything around her didn’t seem suitable.
The resolved look on her face did not have the same peacefulness as her father’s, rather it was riddled with desperation for something; for movement.
Something swept her from her daydream and thrust her back into reality. She glanced around taking stock of the strangers she was surrounded by as well as her family. She looked guilty of something like a toddler when they know they have done something wrong. She bowed her head, either in prayer or in shame.
Deanna Whitlow is a second-year fiction writing major at Columbia College Chicago. Her work has been published in Affinity Magazine and is soon to be seen in Columbia College's Hair Trigger. She is also the founder and editor of Same Faces Collective: a digital and print literary/art magazine.