"We need to get groceries."
I agreed.
"Let's just go to Applewood Safeway."
I agreed.
Somehow we decided to not take our own car but to ask to travel with Them.
We climbed inside the deep blue minivan and the driver, a Church Elder, began to turn the wheel. And the sun turned with it and shone in the quiet compartment.
As he drove he told us a story meant to calm us, a pleasant story not about God but about horses, his grandparents, a lost child who was found.
We looked across at each other as the car turned onto a major road that ran a direction at an acute angle to Applewood Safeway. It seemed the wrong road to take.
The story continued and the car was pleasant and quiet.
We passed the last exit that would have made any sense if we were headed to Applewood Safeway and continued into the far burbs. The child was found, and had been hiding in a barn, and kept warm by the animals, unharmed but dirty, and, this seemed to be the crux of the story, completely unafraid.
The car continued infinitely into the burbs. It seemed like cities passed us, streaming by in pale colours, all the same, and finally the beige pavement, which looked like it had been laid only yesterday, curved, we hit an exit, and passed into a community of large homes, bugaloes with simple slanted roofs, pristine lawns, mature tended trees. Everywhere perfect pavement.
The car pulled in front of a large house, and the house had an enormous patio with sliding doors that could open to reveal the entire interior. And inside we could see it went far back, a layered picture of finished wood, elegant furniture, and large prints of japanese letters, white on black.
"I just need to stop to talk to a friend for a moment. You can get out if you like or stay inside."
The Church Elder awkwardly tipped from the car and waved at a thinner man exiting the house.
At that point I looked more carefully at the house, and noticed that it wasn't a patio or sliding doors, but the house itself was simply open at the front, so everything inside was on display. And I noticed rooms beyond, (and the house was a bungalo unusually wide) and beyond those rooms, more rooms, all filed with fine things, all dark finished wood, all placed in symmetry-asymmetry, unscratched.
The thin man walked to the threshold of his stage but did not step beyond it. He looked in his fifties, graying hair, but a healthy build. His smile was magnanimous and we welcomed the Church Elder who had driven us here, who now walked up and shook the man's hand. I couldn't hear them, since I was still inside the car, but I could see the Church Elder turn and gesture towards us, and the thin man looked our way and his eyes were.
I decided to step out of the car and leave my partner in it, she was disturbed but didn't protest my getting out, though I felt it left her on uncertain ground.
I said my helloes and tried to return their smiles, but I was equal parts curious and repulsed, but repulsed by something I didn't know what, because there was no malice or danger here.
"I wanted you to see this. S--- has really been blessed by God, and his home he has chosen to open up to the world, so everyone can see."
"It's nice to meet you. Welcome to my home."
As I was now beside the Church Elder, right at the threhsold of the house, which was raised up a bit from us, but with no visible steps (and no clear place to put them, since there was no front door), I could see further inside, and there were many layers to his home. It was like translucent glass in front of translucent glass in front of translucent glass, and further back I could see only bits and pieces, but everything looked clean and nice and in its place. Only it felt too deep, as like a mirror reflecting into a mirror.
Both the Church Elder and the man simply smiled at me and watched, and something pulled me and so I walked across his perfect lawn, and as I did his house parallaxed and I could see more of the back layers, and from all angles it still gave me the same impression.
"God has blessed me. I don't want for anything, as you can see. In fact, at my age, I rarely if ever leave my house. It was nice of E--- to visit me, and bring new visitors."
I nodded continued walking, and I knew their gaze and their smiles were on me, and that this was to them a demonstration of God's favour, and an invitation, but I didn't know to what, since I was already saved.
I thought I was already saved.
The sense of repulsion grew, but I didn't know why.
Then, at the far right side of his home, and I didn't have any sense which compass direction this was, the drive having disoriented me, I could see a concrete structure embedded in it. It was a little lower than my chest height and about the size of a microwave, but it had four pillars. Pillars not like bars, but curved like an hourglass, like a concrete ornamental railing on a bridge. Beyond those four pillars was some space, perhaps a few feet, and I could see another set of pillars, and beyond those, another set, and the space inside it was dark, I mean dark and I could tell it was wet, and the echoing of it seemed too large, too loud, and it felt like it was all around me.
I turned at the man and I said, "Is this your mausoleum?"
At this, he visibly shook a little, and his face became a harsh flat blade, a horizon that didn't end, and his tone changed, and I knew I was on the outside, and always had been, but was somehow no longer welcome to come in, in to this repulsive place.
"No. What do you mean?"
The Church Elder was also visibly unhappy, but his face was not flat, instead he wore a frown of disappointment, his checks drooping into a jowl at me, one corner of his mouth a little upturned.
"Well, as you should know, we don't need to store our body in this way, we will be given new physical bodies at the resurrection. S--- will be resurrected with God."
I felt suddenly alone. The concrete space was far too small for a body to fit in, and it seemed moldy and wet and descending into darkness, and I felt there was no back to it, just endless bars to pass through into darker and darker space. And I knew one day I was going to go there, and I knew I would go alone and as ash, and the loneliness terrified me and my sense of revulsion was overpowering and so I turned suddenly, and walked back across the lawn to where the van was parked, and felt their gaze on my neck, their not-hate not-pity but simply their gaze, and I didn't know whether to try to get into the car and explain to my partner that we should walk back, but that it was too far too walk, that we had no way back from this place, or if I should just run on and on.