the village: church

rock of ages

Eleven years old. You say goodbye to church, for you have seen the light. The jug of Chablis, your golden savior.

Later—many years later—you return with your mother, if only for the annual summer rummage sale. On the card tables: a dusty VCR, puzzles, unwanted paperbacks. Rotary-dial wall phone, harvest gold, like the one your mother called you from after you left.

Sunbeams streaming through amber glass; a crucifix. Church bells chime each morning and afternoon. Here, time is unstructured: a blank page on the calendar, wavy ripples in old windowpanes.

A glimmer of the girl you were.

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Welcome to the village, a new mashup microseries.