The Wake

A Story by jake

A man attends his wake.

I sat next to the pulpit where the preacher spoke over me and for me. Everyone knows when it is time to be spoken over. God whispers it to us, and all of the sudden the world seems less real, or rather God is always whispering in us but we can only hear it when were are being called on. I could hear the call sounding as a single note from the center of a being, every person with a singular tone and all sounding at once, not in any tune, but not a clamorous din. The song of God in our souls lingered like chimes in the summer, or a gentle stream. Not as a single song, but a melodious all the same. Just as soon as I heard the call of our hearts, they had stopped and I knew it was time to hold a wake.
     The heat in the small chapel the next day was enough to make a person gasp upon entering. Our breath left the congregation, left the lips of the body and fled into the thick air. Moisture collected on the stained glass windows so that there was sweat on our Lord’s face as he hung from his cross and tears in his mother’s eyes as she watched him. It seems that our breath created a cloud of a heavenly essence that hung above out heads and threatened to break in rain and thunder, but the thunder would not come just yet.
     The pastor’s voice shook as he gave us wisdom that had been learned from being in the Word. As he spoke I stopped hearing his words and heard something bigger. For a moment I understood more than I ever could before. Revelation came to me and I had a brief look at knowledge one could never receive from any book. The breath of God flowed through us all in the church that day, the water of life that adorned the saviors brow came from the breath of the people, and I knew that we too are the children of God, and that we are all God in some small facet.
    Organ music started and as I had the day before, again I heard the sound of the hearts of the people, but not as individual notes, this time all voices sang as one in holy accompaniment. The heat, the knowledge, the song, and the voices of Gods inside my head became a thunderous symphony of perfect understanding, and when I could no longer contain it in myself I felt it flow from my tongue in a language no longer spoken on our earth, and when my vessel was poured out into the others a white vail covered my eyes and my spirit did not leave the chapel in my body. My spirit left in the body of the congregation as they walked out of the church as breath leaves the lungs, as water over flows from a glass. A more perfect body carried a shell out to a grave yard to go back to the earth where it always belonged.

© 2015 jake

Author's Note

I'm interested in hearing about anything that needs improvement in my writing.

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Marie

A but surrealistic, but that's all right. You developed your theme well. The first sentence is awkward. WHy don't you just say "I sat next to the pulpit..."