It didn't feel the same when she walked through the doors. Alone. It didn't feel the same when she sat down in the front row. The family was always in the front. She sat next to her, Janina, as always. It was like looking into an aged reflection of herself. The same brown hair, the same brown eyes. Inconspicuous. Only that Janina didn't feel inconspicuous that day. The room was like a cloche and the lid was opened. But it was not bright. The openness, even though equaling freedom, did not help her. It was dark, as always. Especially now that she was here. Yes, she came back. Why not? What's going to stop her? Like a divine - ha, one might still dream - joke, he came out like the answer to all of her (of their) questions. Silence. The walls were filled with an unmatched silence. Reverence.
Why? Reverence for a gray man in a black cowl, the book in his hand as if the content, the real content, meant something to him. The book on the stone as he stood behind it. The lips opened -
We are all children in a protective hand, a hand that does not let us fall.
- and lies came out. His truth was her curse. Her truth, his shame. And yet she was sitting here. Head up, but just as red. In the dark, red was the only color. The red of her cheeks. The looks they gave her. The feeling in her heart. But not that in his. His was gray. He was gray in every aspect. The lips moved in a constant flow -
Each of us is in his heart.
- and the words poured out. They drowned her now that she no longer swallowed them down. She had been doing that for too long. She had done it until it bubbled out of her. There was no stopping to it. But it was not the same thing that she once swallowed. It was more. It wasn't him. It was her. It was not gray water, it was a clear source. It was clear, pure, not spoiled. Contrary to his words.
But even though his love is endless, you can become undeserving of it.
The words boiled. She should do it too. She should dissolve into thin air and disappear quickly. Only an easily ignorable feeling would last in the air. Easy to forget, quickly gone. But she wouldn't allow that. It wouldn't go away. She wouldn't go away. That would let his boiling words become true. She would become cold. She would survive him. If only to show that he was lying and that his position was the biggest of his lies . He was nobody's voice.
Some things cannot be forgiven.
The only thing that ensured that he was listened to, that this flood was endured, were these ... believers. If only they knew they believed the wrong [[[worben]]]. You were blind. Their eyes had been exposed to the dark for so long that they shied away from the light.
He kept talking.
There are people not even he can love.
It was the opposite - no, she thought, it was an answer - to what she had told him.
I don't love men.
He hadn't swallowed and she would never do it again. Like a feather. A light touch on her trembling hand that said everything she ever wanted to hear. That touch, that other hand, had never said anything. But when she did -
Let's go.
- Janina knew that maybe it was sometimes better to give up. Sometimes you shouldn't go back into the dark when you already saw the light. The hand in hers said loudly -
It's OK.
- when they got up. And maybe it was. It was quiet again when she and her mother walked through the aisle, away from father and man, while the stained-glass windows lit their faces and enveloped them in the true colors of life.
