Cold Hands

Eyes

No matter where I was, I could always go into a church building and feel at home. The old-lady smell of the incense, the candles, the crosses, the stained glass, the organ music, they all reminded me of my mom. Church wasn't really the cool place to be for kids my age, but I didn't care. I thought that was stupid. I knew I could always wheel into a chapel and it would be quiet, and it would be warm, and it would be safe, and that was plenty cool for me.

I was kind of religious, I guess. Obviously my mom raised me that way. I knew all the prayers and the Bible stories. I figured there had to be some sort of God; I believed in evolution and science and stuff but it all seemed too complex and advanced to me to just be some great cosmic coincidence because of an explosion of space dust billions of years ago. There were some stories I was a little more skeptical about, like Noah and the ark or Jonah in the whale, but I supposed that all of that was thousands of years ago and whatever actually went down didn't really matter anymore anyway, it was more about the lessons the stories were trying to teach. I kept a pretty open mind about theology. If there was a God, I doubted he would care if you were Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or Wiccan or Atheist or whatever-I didn't know the names of all of them-as long as you were a decent human being and you did good for people.

I never talked to my mom about any of that; I wasn't sure what she would think of my ideas.

But more than anything, church was where I went to clear my mind. I could close my eyes and listen to the familiar hymns and prayers and scriptures and numb up my mind to everything that I was thinking and worrying about in my life. Sort of like meditating, for me.

Old yellow-teeth Jerry had been right about there being lots of people in wheelchairs, but adding me into the mix probably drove the average age down to sixty. My mom and I came early on Sunday so she could slip her white robes on and shake hands with everybody as the old people rolled in. I got lots of smiles and handshakes, too, and "good to see young people going to church" about ten times. I thought again of a countryside church in a movie. The guys were in suits, and the ladies wore big hats and carried fans to combat the sticky weather.

I was just settling down by one of the pews toward the back when I got this weird spasm in my neck. I can't explain the feeling that came next. It was like that cheesy thing where people say the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees, but it wasn't really a cold feeling, more electric. It was like that odd sensation you get sometimes when you're just about to fall asleep that you are actually falling backwards and you snap awake. I'd heard of people getting tunnel vision but I wasn't really sure what that meant; I wasn't sure if this was it, but it was like I looked over at the door and I was in a tunnel and the door was the end, but it was zooming up on me like the tunnel was closing like an accordion. An old lady walked in.

Yellow-teeth was escorting her in by the arm, hunched over and hobbling on her cane. At first glance, she looked like a harmless grandma, with a fluff of white hair, a ratty pink shawl and a baggy blue dress. But then she looked at me.

Well, I use "looked" in a very loose definition of the term. Her eyelids were shut, but they sucked back into empty sockets, leaving big hollows on her face, just empty flaps of flesh with nothing beneath.

I felt guilty that I was so horrified, but looking at her made my stomach churn. I knew it was mean to stare, but I couldn't peel my eyes off. At least she couldn't see me.

Or could she? She seemed to be looking right at me. Maybe it was my imagination, or just her droopy old skin, but she seemed to frown. Not a sad frown - a hateful one. I couldn't be imagining it. There was loathing on her face.

I looked away fast and shook my head at nobody in particular. That was ridiculous. She was blind.

I didn't stare anymore, but I couldn't help but glance out of the corner of my eye. Jerry was talking to my mom. My mom smiled, nodded, and patted the old woman on the back. She was being perfectly friendly. I was just being jumpy. I shuddered involuntarily and opened up a prayer book to divert my attention.