Prayers And Dances

Quietly she prays, in the little wayside chapel.Lone, vigilant, wrinkles smoothened out in the morning breeze.She is once more a child: lethargic, excited by promises she doesn't understand, and with a smile for every ocassion.One, small, road down from the church there is the city: counting vices, extolling humanity- inhuman.

Women glided through cobblestone streets, without veils, no crosses around their neck, during the time of the Hail Mary's, and talk to every man that passes.Whenever they walk in groups - love beware - they are a Well of Knives; their tongues disecting the virtues and figures of the sleeveless men.

The men returning home from the Casinos, where they drink after each,fattening appetizers, burgeoning with glistening snails and dry horse meat; telling tales of last night's escapade in the square.Playing cards etched with torsos of weeping, Dionynsian women, scattered on wooden tables, skill is rewarded with blashpeming praises.

The spring at the little square, plays host to frolicking couples who know not who they are supposed to love; entwining in piles during the summer months, hands embracing foreign thighs, twinning nameless lips.

The loud games and hushed lust drown out the humble bells of the wayside chapel: the invitation mereley announces the next triviality.Only the old lady, with the rosary beads shaking in her hands, heeds the call.

On her way to the chapel, a dark-skinned, glowing angel descends from the August skies and greets her with a message.The angel looks like an adoloscent, dressed in fine purple velvet, melancholy brown eyes with as sword of golden hilt - unused - by his side.His voice is monotone, like a sea without waves, but the beauty of the bottom can be hazily glimpsed.

Having delivered his message, the old lady kept on her way to the chapel, assured, at last proud.The angel started on his way back to the beyond of the clouds.He stopped, mid-way, glowing like a full-moon, and looked down upon the damned city and the prestene chapel side by side.

Silently, he yearned for both.But even though they existed together he could not have both, he could not bring himself to choose; until his deliberation was ended by the Holy Ghost that came to take him to where he belonged - escaping the prayers and dances.

As soon as the old lady was in her pew, and the angel in his heaven: God destroyed the city, pumeling it all the way down to the hell below.But these people where so vile and despised not even Satan wanted them, so he flung them back hurtling towards the earth until the city fell upside down into the quiet sea.Now the city lingers invisible beneath the sea, all that can be seen, all that lives, is a giant rock; the earth that used to lie beneath the city.

Quietly, she prays;
Lone, vigilant,
In the little wayside chapel.