Monica invites you to her church while you’re jumping rope. You’ve never been, and she tells you they mostly eat donuts and play, and talk about the bible sometimes, but just a little. Since donuts are delicious, you ask your parents if you can go, but they say you’ve got ten years before you turn 18, old enough to decide whether you’re gullible and want your brain washed. You decline Monica’s offer and lament the loss, of donuts.
After 25 years of observing televangelists, scammers, and zealots, you agree with your parents. You fend off friends, strangers, and dentists’ even when they go in for the hard sell, donuts and rock music. One day you slip, when your best friend from college reminds you of the time you convinced her to try acid. The bad trip that sent her running through the dorm hallway in her underwear. It’s indefensible, so here you are, ass numb in a pew.
You scan for this promised bastion of donuts, but nada. You hum along to a song that slaps. “C’mon in, you are loved.” How? They don’t even know you. Then a familiar ditty: “This little light of mine.” You sing along this time. You think you had a light at some point.
The pastor is a baddie, paces in a pixie cut with fire engine lipstick, she’s good at her job. Convincing. Her eyes are blue lasers boring through you. Your skin is ablaze; your pits itch and sweat. You resist the urge to scratch them like an orangutan. Snot surges from your nose like you’ve eaten a Carolina Reaper. Holy shit, is this some kind of awakening? You’re falling for it. You’re one of the gullibles. You’ve been seen—exposed to some ‘God is love’ shit—naked in a hallway of pews. You tell your friend you’ll see her next week as your Jeep’s wheels spin gravel in the lot. At the moment, you want to mean it.
On Sunday when she calls, you flip your pillow to the cool side. The following Sunday, you silence the alarm clock, iPhone, iPad. Like: who wants to wake up at the butt-crack, wash their hair, and drive due east into direct UV light? So overwhelming. Besides, you have two cats.
Instead of going to church, you heave your bulky comforter in the machine for its biennial washing, Light seeps through the window, and you’re afraid you’ll get eye strain. You fold the shutters down while the washer whooshes. You Door Dash donuts because they’re a delicious comfort and you deserve them.
