Churches

Two churches stare at each other, Cyclops-like with their giant round main windows of glass stained by centuries of believer’s battlefields. They stare at each other across a river of blood. They’re perched on the banks like living statues of belief built by generations of human hands and worn by futile prayer.

They are golems given life by human trust. They are a promise we made to ourselves about a reward for good behavior. They are the living embodiment of a yearning for a better place. They are the need for a father. They are guilt that won’t wash off.

We will kill to give this gift to others. We will kill to keep it.

They sit like giant, grey, sharp-edged animals made of stone and glass. There are two of them.

The bloodriver separates them, flowing by like time.

The rooted gargoyles poking out from their bodies writhe and yelp beneath the dark sky.

They are all churches and the duality that keeps them going. They change shape with the percentage of dominant faith as the river flows between them.

Lately they’ve been shrinking but it is of no consequence to them. They’re shrunk before to smaller than this. They are eternal.

They stare each other down, creating infinite hallways in their eye’s reflections. The hum of millions of people begging favours roars softly like an engine inside them.

The river flows.



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