Content Warning: religion
We all flocked into churches when the rain finally came. It had been imminent for months, they said, but I didn’t believe them until the drops didn’t stop on the morning of that second day. By then the churches had all filled up, wet bodies clustered around their pews breathing misty breath and sweating dewdrops from the humidity of proximity. I walked to three separate congregations on my way to St. Anthony’s, and each had reached such a capacity that I couldn’t even squeeze a foot in.
The stained glass had fogged since I’d gotten in, the room became uncomfortable and it was like my presence sent the rest of the congregants beyond the limit of their brotherhood. A wave splashed against the side of the building, a signal that sea-level had risen beyond the building’s elevation. People began to file out in search of a higher place of worship and that’s when I managed to step in more comfortably.
There was a man at a pedestal at the front of the church, he wore thin-framed circular glasses and he spoke with such conviction that his cheeks wobbled like the jowls of a basset hound. He pointed at his doting audience, and the collective hushed murmur was enough to drown his actual speech away from my ears. The speech didn’t matter, with all that power this must have been the man I was looking for.
I pushed my way up through the crowd, I apologized but nobody noticed enough to forgive me when I bumped them. I passed at their elbows and their hips, the whole room smelled like sweat and the preaching man fell from my view until all of a sudden the damp crowd parted. He was pointing at me. “Oh, the curious mind is young.” He said. “And doesn’t it deserve our best attempt to make sense of a time like this?” He’d lowered his finger and turned it into a beckoning wave, he asked his question to the audience but his nonverbal request was as clear as the rains ticking on the roof. I climbed on stage to join him.
He held my hand and turned me to face the audience, they cheered and the doors behind them opened with a wave of water that had been standing and gathering at its base since I walked in. He moved his grasp from my hand onto my wrist, and once the cheers died down he spun me back around to face him. He kneeled down to my level, his breath tasted like cigarettes and his wet hair began to fall from its neat comb away from the middle. “Why don’t you tell us your name, little one?” He said, and he spoke in the raised voice of an actor playing to the back rows. Our proximity didn’t phase him.
“Siggy.” I said. His hand moved from my wrist up to my shoulder then, and he straightened up to address his crowd more fully.
“Siggy!” He repeated. “A child of the Germans, a child of Freud. A child of this, the last great stand of St. Anthony’s cathedral!” The crowd cheered again, I yanked on the end of the preaching man’s cassock but he was set on looking up until the time came to continue his speech. “Protection through victory, did you know that’s what your name means, Sigmund?” The man knelt back to my level and replaced his hand on my shoulder. His eyes grew wide with the impatience of excitement. More water rushed in through the cracks in the walls and more stragglers left in search of higher ground. It didn’t matter, the core audience packed in when the weaker ones lost their stomachs. Another wave clapped against the outside of the cathedral’s wall.
I tried to speak, but the preaching man cut in before I could answer. “And our protection through victory comes forward while the faithless retreat!” He stood up with a jolt, and I went back to tugging on his cassock. “They cling to their life and their baseless love for this world, they run and scream and fear death in their scramble to the hills, they run right by without knowing that protection through victory has walked in to save them.” He smiled at me, it was a tender smile and I was feeling important so I smiled back. Still tugging on his cassock.
He paused. “Does the little one have a question?” He asked, facing me but still loud enough for all to hear. He bent in closer to my mouth.
“What’s your name?” My voice was hesitant, and I replaced my many more urgent questions with one that seemed less explosive. Some of the audience laughed, the preaching man even chuckled for a moment. He laughed before becoming dramatically silent, and his eyes closed before opening as if he was astounded that I even had to ask.
“Don’t you know?” He leaned in further, and his questioning eyes gave way for a celebratory smile. “I’m the spirit of St. Anthony!” He looked to what remained of the crowd, and they roared.
They roared so loud that it almost silenced the rain, and they strung their cheers out so long that the real St. Anthony had time to roll over in his grave. But he wasn’t there, the power was out and the outside water began to spout through higher points in the walls. People clamored, stragglers lost their faith and moaned about death in the background, but St. Anthony—the one that stood smiling into my eyes—paid them no mind.
“Where are your parents, Sigmund?” St. Anthony knelt back down to the level of my height. His voice became soft, and this time he didn’t look to the crowd for a reaction. He’d locked in, and I began to cry.
I wept into my hands, and I turned away from the audience that had frozen mid-clamor. St. Anthony pressed a concerned hand on my shoulder, and I’d only just started to shake away when he started to push. He turned to the crowd. “We’ll reconvene in one hour!” He yelled. “Get to know your brothers in this long haul, become powerful in the strength of the Lord!” The whole time he’d been pushing, he nudged me off stage and behind the red curtain that separated the stage from what appeared to be the clergy house. Wine and wafers scattered everywhere, they were dots of white and red in a room that turned black when the power was cut. He led me into a mildewed couch in the corner of the room, it formed a puddle around the pattern of my seat.
“Where are your parents, Sigmund?” St. Anthony took a step back, his hands came to his hips and he tilted his head as if he were warming up for some kind of interrogation.
“I don’t know.” I said, and my voice came out clearer than I’d expected.
“Did you come to find them?”
“I don’t want to find them.” Once again, clearer than I’d expected. I stood up and scanned the room. Needing something to look at, something other than St. Anthony, I stared at the wine that rippled whenever a new wave hit the nearest wall. “Is this your ark?” I asked, still looking at the wine and choking on the ends of my words. St. Anthony laughed, the reaction took my eyes back to him no matter how hard I tried to keep looking away. All of a sudden he seemed bright, it felt like I was staring at the sun. I squinted.
“I’ll leave the Ark building to Noah, young one.” St. Anthony said. He was blurry in my squint but the sound confirmed that he was uncorking a bottle of wine that sat on his desk. My parents loved wine. “Think of me as more of a captain, beholden to his ship until it has fully submerged.” He said, pouring a glass. I didn’t understand him at the time, but I unsquinted my eyes all the same.
“Wine for our protection through victory?” St. Anthony held a glass in my direction. I hesitated and he shrugged. “Who knows when you’ll get this chance again.” The red liquid swirled in the glass, and I accepted.
“Why do you call me that?” I asked, sipped, and knocked my head back to swallow as fast as I could. It was smooth and it tasted like the earth, somehow more solid than any other liquid I’d tried to that point. It stuck in my throat and coated my stomach. Somehow, it felt as if the liquid had taken my stomach and evaporated it into nothingness. I winced and St. Anthony laughed again.
“That’s your name, isn’t it?” He was loud and his voice echoed like the two of us were inside of a submarine. For a moment I wondered if we might’ve been submerged, but another wave hit the wall near the wine, and I bowed my head.
“But how could you call me that when there’s nothing but water? What protection could I possibly provide?” I found myself yelling, trying to match St. Anthony’s volume without breaking or crying or straining the strength I’d chosen to exude.
“The kind through victory!” St. Anthony drank and poured another glass.
I sipped too. “But we’ll drown.” I looked at the wall that barricaded us against the waves. St. Anthony drank again, he got up and I noticed that his gulps dwarfed mine so I tried to take a bigger one, it stung like flem in the border between my mouth and my throat.
“There is no drowning, just submergence and a crossing over to the other side.” St. Anthony said. “I’m a guide today, a harbinger of calm as the storm rolls and the nonbelievers panic.” He looked to the side, he laughed as if these ‘nonbelievers’ showed up in the wooden grooves of the walls.
“So you really believe?” I hesitated before asking my question. “I mean, when you’re not with—them?” I turned back towards the stage, and St. Anthony’s laugh became more confident.
“I’m always with them.” His laugh faded and he leaned back in his seat, he drank more wine. “In this cathedral, and on our passage into eternity.” He waited. “And there is an eternity, young one.”
It was then that a crack splintered in the back of the room. The loud crunching sound was just about the only thing that could’ve taken my attention from St. Anthony at that moment. I snapped in that direction, and St. Anthony stood up behind me. “Panic is for nonbelievers.” He said, and he turned away from me. For a moment, I thought he was disappointed. But I backed around him and found that the look in his eyes had distanced.
“It’s time.” He said, though he wouldn’t have spoken if he hadn’t seen me moving. His feet danced in place, and he smiled before snapping into an intense focus in the direction of the main room and the audience. “It’s time.” He raised his voice and he began walking in that direction. There seemed to be a kind of spirit that he was following, something so obvious that I was embarrassed to admit that I couldn’t see.
The cracks became spouts from the walls, and now there was a thin layer of water that splashed under every step I took. I followed St. Anthony back onto the stage, I held onto the sleeve of his cassock and allowed his momentum to carry me back into view of the crowd. They didn’t roar like they had been, in fact, only three people remained from the entire original crowd. I reached up and took St. Anthony’s hand into mine, I looked up to watch while his face turned red. His breath shortened, he held a smile on his face but it faded around the edges. I was too afraid to speak.
“Fuck-ing pho-nies.” St. Anthony said, and it startled me to hear a priest swear. He stared at the few congregants that remained in disbelief, and I stared beyond them to the cathedral’s front door. It bubbled, thudding against the restraints of its frame. “Is this all the faith we have when the going gets tough?” St. Anthony yelled and extended his arms in rage. The waves were coming faster this time, the bubbling thuds became rapid. “Is this all we have?” He asked. “The rare scraps of a religion that once dictated the world?” I pulled at his cassock, I pointed at the door but he didn’t notice. The thudding became louder and soon it was as if the water were something living, a giant beast clawing at our doors.
And although my tugging didn’t gain his attention, that next thud did. It echoed throughout the cathedral and took even those most dedicated church-going eyes from the sermon. They looked back to see a tidal wave.
St. Anthony scooped me into his arms when that happened, he held me close to his side as if he were going to act as a raft for me to sail through our new water-world on. He pressed my face near to his ear as he stared at the tidal wave. He didn’t speak but I was close enough to hear the fear that mixed with wine on his exhale. I turned to look at his eyes in the moment before the water came, they were wide with alarm and a tear—not of joy—trembled out from their ducts and down to his nose.