Last night Solid Rock met in the First Presbyterian building in Downtown Portland. It’s been months since I’ve been in there, and I had forgotten how beautiful it is. It reminded me of a writing exercise I did for a fiction writing class a few months ago that was inspired by the gloomy beauty of First Pres, so I thought I’d share it.
* * *
She sat there, alone in the abandoned space, still bright with the event. The glitter of it mocked her at every angle. The stately symmetry of the room; the smooth lines and straight backs of the chairs; the long, narrow path down the middle: all the geometry of the room acted as a skeleton for the chaotic joy draped about it. From the chairs were still draped the soft folds of silk tied with ribbon. The dark red carpet of the aisle was covered in small, bright white spots, like sunlight filtered through a leafy canopy. Light bounced to and fro from a thousand surfaces. The brass candlesticks gleamed, the crystal overhead shone, the windows threw their jewel-toned confetti on everything; even the wicks of the candles still glowed faintly orange as the wisps of smoke danced their way up past the gilded pipes to the throne of God, the last offerings of a pleasing sacrifice. She stared at the pipes until the heavy, layered pattern and the ornamental etchings on the cylinders blurred and swam together in a jumble of gold and pink, and the dark mouths at the top of each seemed to gape wider and wider; and then they were alive, a hundred bronze serpents writhing on their stakes, curving their headless mouths towards her to swallow her up, and she wondered why to the wandering Israelites such an image brought healing rather than terror.
Through the heavy doors she could hear the muffled sounds of talking and laughing. The warmth of the red polished wood all around her left her feeling cold inside; the empty seats around and above her stifled her. She dreaded going through those doors into a sea of shining, happy faces; but neither could she stand the shining, faceless sea surrounding her. Casting her eyes about for an escape she noticed a door beside the stage, half hidden with a heavy velvet drapery behind the grand piano. She half ran around the stage toward it, cursing her echoing footsteps for trying to reveal her escape, and giving wide berth to the cloth-covered altar as if it were booby trapped. She turned the handle, holding her breath in fear that it was locked, and she wondered if Mary Lennox’s robin would appear and show her the key to the secret behind it. It turned and gave way, however, and rather than a garden she discovered a small library, though its musky smell of old books and shadowy corners were more welcome to her senses than all the colors and fragrance of Mistress Mary’s silver bells and cockle shells and marigolds all in a row. She passed quickly through to a door on the opposite side and found herself on the sidewalk on the back side of the church. She laughed quietly as she reveled in her escape, and once again breathed air that was free from the sickly incense of happy-ever-after.
Moses and the Brass Serpent, oil on oakwood, 63.5 x 96 cm. 17th century. Anonymous Flemish painter.
