RUSH

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This is right when the house lights begin to fade, ten minutes after the hour, and a hush falls over the room.

Thing is, Cole hates crowds, mulling around looking for a friendly face. Not likely to find that here. Especially here. And without Rebecca this whole thing is pointless.

“She’s late.”

Now, in the absence of light our mind’s eye is left with the reverse image of a thirty foot stainless steel cross, wrapped in barbed-wire and backlit with cool blue neon. It follows our eyes in the blackness no matter where we turn.

Oh, the things we do for love.

In the absence of light, you can hear people getting to their feet, thousands of spring-loaded chairs flipping up. Little lights flicker around the room, ushers helping the latecomers find their seats.

Are you gonna tell her about me tonight?

“Not yet, Cole. It’s just-” A light flickers to my left.

“This seat taken?”

“Hi there. I was just talking to myself.”

“Oh, I do it all the time.” She nudges me. “Sorry I’m late, I’ve been feeling sort of nauseous all day.”

“I’m just glad you’re here now, I was getting-”

But the subs rumble to life, followed by a mile-wide synthesizer.

The thing about Rebecca is, she’s a means to an end. Met her a few weeks back at a coffee shop. We’re both studying Old Testament law, same class, different time slot, and a few espressos later she just has to confide in me that she’s started up this website called Digital Confessional.

She’s posted fliers all over downtown, hailing it as an ongoing social experiment, but Cole knew if this thing caught on, it could open up a whole new horizon for us.

* * *

A single spotlight at center stage comes up slowly. As it grows stronger it sweeps forward to silhouette a lone figure approaching the audience. He stops when the glint of a microphone blinks into existence from the void.

Dim blue lights come up all around.

Lucky we did a couple lines in the bathroom.

“Will you just shut up? I swear I’ll dump the rest down the sink.”

“What was that?”

“I…” my mind races, “…I can hardly hear myself think.”

The synth dies down in time for the people around us to hear my last words reach across the ever-expanding silence.

Smooth.

Rebecca leans in close, smiles.

“That was embarrassing.”

“It was cute.” Her hand brushes against mine, pauses for a moment, then it’s gone.

Four clicks, barely audible in the enormous space, are the only signal the crowd needs. Hands shoot into the air as the first downbeat resounds thick and heavy, the crowd suddenly awash in every spectral hue from a dozen angles. Lights sweep back and forth as the remaining stage lights come up, revealing the band.

The brass cymbals and silver edges of the drums, the glossy guitars and bass, the metal of the cross; they all start shooting flecks of light around the room.

Thing is, I’ve started to like having her around.

The pulsing music is our cue, and we all flood the center aisles and make our way to the wide open space in front of the altars. This is what mega-churches are made for.

Tell her David.

This is how I get alone time with Rebecca. Vacuum sealed into a faceless crowd, locked in with the smell of sweat and bad cologne, of skaters that don’t bathe and wannabe hippies doused in patchouli. Shoulder to shoulder with nameless minions of marginal believers.

But one of those shoulders is Rebecca’s, so it’s worth it.

No amount of noise ever drowns Cole out completely, but this makes him have to work harder to be heard. That way I can be less ‘us’ and more ‘me’. Because sometimes he makes it difficult to stay in the moment.

Tell her why you picked her.

Now all the lights sweep forward, drawing our eyes back to center stage. The worship leader steps forward with a commanding stride and in a single, fluid motion lets his guitar fall to the side and takes the microphone into his hand. With the other hand he brings the music down and all the lights fade except the spots behind the drums.

Tell her it’s not her eyes.

When the worship leader begins the cheerleader style call and response, the strobes kick in, pulsing with the backbeat and framing snapshots of the band as they work through the music.

“Can I get an Amen!” The crowd replies, somehow audible over the loudspeakers. “I said, can I get an A-men!” The crowd roars.

Tell her it’s the blow that makes the music tolerable.

Behind it all the cross is pulsing red and white, dripping with laser-light blood.

“Are you absolutely mad for God’s love?” The frenzy heightens. “For God’s grace and mercy?”

Tell her it’s that bleeding crucifix around her beck that gets you hard.

“We need to purify ourselves!”

I lean toward Rebecca and her arm slinks around the small of my back. Tears streaming down her face and mine. Cole can talk all he wants, in this moment, I am my beloved’s and she is mine.

Tell her if she’s not pure, you’ll stone her without remorse…

“We need to root out all evil from within our lives!” The amen’s and hallelujah’s resound.

…that you’d slit her throat if she ever wore a skirt above her knees.

The worship leader makes a quick hand-motion and the cacophony comes to a dramatic halt, reverberating into a vast silence.

A single, red spotlight follows him as he approaches our waving hands down front and, almost looking right at us, sings the first line of the first song.

“Everybody wants to go to heaven…”

The crowd responds emphatically, “…but nobody wants to die!”

You should tell her about me.

* * *

© Anthony David Jacques MMX