The soft carpet rolls underneath our feet as we slink down, one step after another. At the bottom, in this enclave locked out the back of the church, we try to recall by which door we entered.
“Was it this one?” asks the Duke standing beside a plain white door.
“Who knows,” I reply, looking around another corner, sighting stairs to the basement, where stands a table flanked by potted plants. “We might as well try it.”
Opening the door brings us once again into the main space. Random people in red t-shirts are wandering around, picking up documents from one desk and moving them to side panels inked in sparkling maxims. Even more copies of Dianetics are housed here. The book slumbers in stacks on the mantle, English editions ruffle up against Greek and Russian editions, with French and Italian loaded onto a lower shelf. The Duke and I squint to see the covers. Stickers announce that two million copies have been sold up to now. A girl with a distracted gait comes up to the stockpile, floats her hand over the books for a second, then slides one out, ambling back to the front of the church.
“This truly is the idol,” observes the Duke.
“The girl?”
“The book.”
“Ah yes…I feel blasphemous just by looking at the thing!”
“It’ll eat your very soul that will,” warns the Duke.
Just then a chap in a red t-shirt approaches us, his American twang already revealed through his eyes.
“Like the film?” he quizzes.
“Oh aye,” we answer.
“Which one did you watch?”
“Uh…American football, legs – dirty ol’ psychoanalysis huckster bastards!” spits the Duke.
“Yes…” The word oozes from his lips, they upturning into a smile, his bench-pressed chest heaving with poorly-concealed merriment.
“You lads want the test?” he throws at us.
“I’ve already had it…didn’t go too well,” I say, suppressing the tears. “This guy, however…”
We both look at the Duke.
At this, the prophet hurries off to get someone, a free body able to execute the test.
A video screen on the wall runs what looks like an infomercial, soft focus and blocky graphics the order of the day. More posters grace the wall, small icons dwell in the spaces between them. Glossy leaflets look up from tables. Cheap DVDs and CD-ROMs garnish an empty chair set against the wall. Had Paul been pushing his Christian wares these days this is surely the sort of tactics he would have got up to. Gaudy merchandise lining every corner of the holy place – holy places lining every corner of the high-street.
Article comments
1 - Bennett
Great. Can't find the words to say more, as reading you two messes up my ability to form sentences. But just fucking great.
Thanks.
2 - Phillip Winn
Part two building on part one forthwith, eager anticipation is relieved. Some day perhaps we shall chat further on your keen and almost-unique take on world religions, Aarons, but until then I shall content myself with reading your tinkering in English.
Cheers!
3 - DukeDeMondo
Sir Bennett, thank you very much. I'm very glad you dug our ponderings.
Sir Winn - Thank you also, and that is a conversation i would very much enjoy of an evening.