February 12th – Folded Word
February 12, 2011 § 1 Comment
Recount a religious ceremony of a population on another planet.
Tara’s story can be found here.
“And once…” said the pulpit’s voice.
Peach mists rolled in, fogging up in rivers about the pulpit. They passed along the narrow walks of every pew, issuing from vents and golden faucets accompanied by deep bells.
The pulpit itself was an octagonal thing, crossed by metal braces and centered squarely in the hall. The assorted faces, antiq-human and caloric both, stared intently towards a glowing shard.
“A Word begat…”
Their eyes angled up for the Word.
In the ceiling it compounded, fracturing light from the shardcarry pulpit and sucking in the mists into an omni-chromic mass. The antiq-made memorials and murals atop the chapel’s dome were lit , and lit through. Transparency became their color, opaque existence sundered in the memory of birth.
Bataan’s red sky above glittered and soon faded into a white with the Word. Skeletons and organs glamered through the skin of every parish member as they let out an ecstatic sigh of self-relief. Sins dropped away, tattered paper symbols dropped and ripped to the ground in rejection of them.
Below the pulpit were eight Syllables, dressing themselves in robes of brilliant color and black. The robes were made as white again; invisible in each step. The Syllables were ghosts, became ghosts and like spirits.
They whirled, dervishes in a brilliance. In the first brilliance.
In unison they approached, stepping jerkily to an unestablished beat. The hearts of the parish beat in time, the world was jarring. Set to coalesce again.
Eight palms set upon each side of the pulpit, a carryshard stuttered and the Word disappeared – fading from the tips of tongues.
Last memories spoke from the Syllables.
“The world and every other,”
“The stars and space between,
“The dark and light,”
“Life and its beyond,”
“Morality and Wisdom,”
“Order and its Opposite,”
“Duality,”
“Myself.”
Tagged: ceremony, extra terrestrial, February Fiction Fight to the Death, fiction, fun, religion, rose, show, solemn, story, Tara Barnett, word, worlds, writing
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