Something Missing - ONC 2024 (EDITING)

Chapter 4 - Abundant Blessings

At 6am in the morning, Pastor Ezekiel Abrahams stood in the hall of the Abundant Blessing Church of Christ. Ezekiel was not his real name. His real name was Colin Fletcher, but none of his followers ever spoke it. To do so, or to refer to the Pastor's former life as a boring, nerdy IT consultant, was a sin. He stood at a pulpit at the front of the church, near the ceiling, gazing at his followers from its lofty heights. The pulpit was only accessible from a staircase which was embedded in the wall. Only Pastor Ezekiel had access to the key so it seemed like his ascension to the pulpit was a miracle.

'Brothers and sisters,' Pastor Ezekiel said, his soft voice amplified by the powerful microphone sewn into his robes, which he used for his sermons. He looked directly into the eyes of the rows of worshippers who were staring at him reverently. 'I stand before you today to bear witness to the power of our Lord. Yesterday marked the start of the Days of Deliverance.'

'Amen, Pastor!' the congregation chanted in reply, rapturous with spiritual fervour. 'Amen!'

'The prophecy is fulfilled. And those who do God's work shall be rewarded,' Pastor Ezekiel said, as his gaze fell on the figure at the back of the church. If the congregation showed any sign of dissent or discomfort at the newcomer to the fold, they did not show it. Pastor Ezekiel opened an app on his phone, making sure nobody saw, and used it to draw a purple curtain around the pulpit. He unlocked the door and disappeared into the hidden passage in the wall.

Once inside, he walked down the staircase, which wound all the way round the church until it came to the back entrance. He stood before two locked metal doors with biblical verses engraved on them. He entered a code in another app on his phone and a trumpet automatically blared. The doors opened.

All the members of the congregation turned towards him and made the sign of the cross. He was dressed in the robes and intricately decorated hat of a bishop and carried a bishop's mitre. Some of the congregants reached out and touched his robes. Some of them bowed and some of them touched the bible he was carrying. He loved how they all gazed at him with such adoration on their faces.

He looked at the woman who stood a few seats away from him, a fatherly glance in his eyes.

'My child,' he said. 'Are you ready for the anointment? To be received into the family of the Lord?'

'Yes, I am.'

He beckoned her and she edged past the other smiling congregants towards him. Together they walked down the aisle, but this was more of a baptism than a wedding. The floor they walked on was covered with a mosaic depicting the fires of Hell, devils and demons, so that with the very act of walking in the church, Pastor Ezekiel's followers were crushing the legions of Satan underfoot.

After they had walked to the front of the church, he leant the mitre by the altar. On the altar was a huge bible with pages one metre long. He placed his own, smaller bible on a stand in front of it, then bowed before the two bibles. Ezekiel had never been much of a writer. But recently the success of ChatGPT had got him thinking. Maybe he could use AI to write a testament of his own?

As he clasped his hands and pondered this, not facing the worshippers, he opened another app on his phone, which he kept hidden in a pocket on his long, ecclesiastical sleeve. He scrolled through a menu and made a selection. Some floorboards slid open by the altar, revealing a small rectangular pool.

The lights switched off, several claps of thunder sounded, and a voice boomed from hidden speakers in the rafters. 'I am the Lord your God! Behold, a great and wondrous miracle!'

'Who is this man?' The pre recorded voice permeated throughout the church hall. 'Who is he that performs such wonders? Who is he that can summon the spirit of the Lord?'