Distorted Chambers In The Realm Of Dreams - Chapter 12

Crumbling Churches

I stood in what seemed like the concession stand at a movie theater. I went through the doors, and it was dark with very little light, with the usual row of chairs and draped walls that a theater would have. In front of all the seats, there was a stage, not a screen. I thought I was alone. I turned around to look at the place, but I wasn't alone and there were people all about the place. Half the seats were empty, while the other half, scattered here and there, people sat as if awaiting a movie to start. On the stage were long, silken drapes of gold, yellow, and white. There was a choir on stage and they were humming while someone was talking to the people in the audience. The talker seemed to be sly, covert, and full of cunning. All the walls changed and were decorated with bright, glaring images of crosses. Of people from a long time ago and statues of angels with trumpets and harps. The choir was singing now. I had taken notice, and they were singing apparently like they were before I had come in, and I stopped at a chair and looked on.

I was trying to be unnoticed. As I watched them singing, it seemed they weren't singing any 'words' and they were, I could almost swear, 'chanting' and their faces and chants were empty. There was nothing there. Their smiles were like grins of menace. I slinked down the aisle towards the exit sign. Like all movie theaters, this church had an exit door that was located somewhere near the side of the stage. A door that one had to make their way past all the seats to get to. I walked purposefully in a 'I'm supposed to be going this way, don't pay any attention to me' attitude. I reached the exit doors.

As I tried to open them they seemed to be locked, but then the knob budged a little and I knew it wasn't bolted. I sensed that a strong wind outside was blowing up against the sides of the building. That was what must have been making the door resist. The situation was now that it was a simple storm that gave me the impression that I may have been locked inside. I pushed the door very hard and found myself in a small little foyer that had a flapping canvas covering the passage to the outside. I felt a tremendous gust of wind and bolted through the covering.

At any costs, no matter what it was like outside, I wasn't going to be in that church or building. I ran towards anywhere I could and I turned after about twenty yards to look back. What I saw was a flimsy, dark tent, ready to be blown away with the next strong wind. The tent itself was faint, weather-worn, and it seemed totally abandoned. I looked and thought to myself; I hate that tent! It's just a tent but it was much different on the inside. How could it be?

The tent was being held up by hollow aluminum poles that were bending and coming loose from their stakes in the ground. The flaps were beating up against the tent. From all the wind the poles were buckling under the pressure and the church, the people inside, their song, was about to be blown away into oblivion.

The entire outdoor area was brown and grey with a storm brewing and very ominous. Very Armageddon. The whole area was abandoned. "This sucks." I said calmly. After all, I had believed I was going to see a movie. I wasn't going to hang around to find out what the words they chanted meant. And I didn't have the words in my mouth so I could never recall what they were.

If the wind were an omen rushing swiftly as part of the unfolding scenes, this was a sustained warning and not an all-out alarming scream of danger. The scream was hidden in their words. The danger was inside. The elements were now free and outside. Then I saw a land ahead, depressing, discouraging, and despairing. These lands I know, I thought. No illusions here.

A row of old 12th century churches rose up on the horizon and crumbled before my eyes. Like sandcastles being washed away with the tide. The crumbling caused massive dust clouds that were guided by the storm to pelt the tent church. There was wrath being drawn upon it. Then the dust settled on the tent church moments away from being swept up by a foul event. I stood afar and waited.