Effervescence

Short story.

The TV exploded. Thick pieces of glass started their flight across the pulpit, and ended abruptly on the floor in a few seconds. Those few seconds were barely enough to get the preacher to one of the side doors- From the pulpit. He continued his run outside heels over head. My concentration was broken by a piece of glass that missed my right eye. I didn’t stir. The windows had shattered too. All this while, I could only see, I couldn’t hear. There was a certain sound. Barely instrumental with astounding pitch, deafening reverberations. Piercing.

The deacons. They were gone, I noticed. All of them. How fast? The congregation was in disarray. People trampled on people, like the biblical serpents, and some heads had become stepping stones. People screamed, children shrieked. I didn’t hear them. I saw them. A mother was searching for her baby. It was obvious. The way she clutched her breasts, wailing with her entire body. The sun swirled. That was my only excuse for the bright light that flashed through the open windows, and then an angelic gust of wind swept past the building, and folded clothes started coming down in a magical descent, without the magic. I recognised the ankara of the pastor’s wife.

I wailed.