The air is cold, even once he walks in the chapel. Outside, the air is wet with flurries blowing in the wind, the snow and wind and frost coming in torrents. Despite his exhaustion at fighting against the wind, he manages to open the door, the heavy wood a barrier between storm and supposed sanctuary. As he shoves it closed, he struggles to shut out the storm. Suddenly, the world feels eerily quiet. No one else is in the chapel. He figured there must be somebody here somewhere, because why else would it be unlocked? The silence has him holding his breath, as if waiting to be intruded on, or maybe he’s the intruder. In some way or another, he knows he isn’t alone in that room. There must be ghosts there. Whether holy or haunting, he isn’t sure. Hardly breathing, he picks his way across the frozen stone floor. Slowly, carefully. Every step seems to echo through the quiet chapel. He continues his solitary funeral march until he reaches the mourner’s bench and sits down.
He stares ahead, unable to look directly at the crucifix presiding over the room. His hands fidget together like a child’s. Finally, his eyes slowly sink down to the floor until his elbows hit his knees, the rest of his posture dropping with it. He is too tired for this.
He closes his eyes, takes some deep breaths. He tries to slow down the world around him, but soon enough, he is crying.
The entire world is cold. The snow outside. The stone beneath his feet. The bench he sits on. The tears in his eyes start warm but leave nothing but cold tracks as they fall. His life is so cold. His heart is so hurt. So empty. He has suffered so much loss. He is utterly alone.
His face feels frozen covered in its teary glaze. He opens his eyes, quickly breathing in and out puffs of air. He just wants to be whole. He just doesn’t want to be alone anymore. But out of seemingly nowhere, he remembers the warm blood running under his skin, keeping the tears from freezing in the frigid air. He raises his broken eyes to the crucifix, where the holiest blood once ran to warm cold and broken hearts. He remembers that winter is just beginning, but the cold season highlights the beauty of life in spring. Things that once withered come back in full bloom with the sun.
He feels warmth surrounding him in that moment too. Perhaps it’s one of the ones that he’s lost. His wife. His father. His brother. His son. Maybe even the Lord Himself. No matter who it is, he knows he’s in the presence of an angel.
Elizabeth Day is an author, poet, blogger, and playwright from Las Vegas, Nevada. Her work has been featured in The Just Girl Project, Empyrean Literary Magazine, Contemporary Jo, Hey Young Writer, and Fterota Logia. She is a student at Southern Utah University studying English education with a creative writing emphasis and double minors in theater and film. You can find her on Instagram @itsanadventur.
Featured image by Pascal Debrunner on Unsplash.
