Testimony

fiction

(This is a piece I did for my exchange with Dana a few months ago. It's not part of the Futures series, it's a stand alone, but I thought it was a good Sunday story.)

She applied another layer of lipstick and contemplated one more round of backcombing in her hair. The higher the hair the closer to God, right?

She wasn’t exactly sure why she bothered. By the time they left the revival everyone in there would have their own take on how she looked. Everything from reserved and modest to a raging Jezebel with her blouse unbuttoned to her belt buckle. It was interesting to say the least.

But she still went through the motions. Lots of stage makeup. She had always thought it was funny to watch her grandfather putting on eyeliner and powder before taking the stage for a revival meeting. He would stand there preaching about masculinity hoping his waterproof blush didn’t run.

She had never intended to take over the family business. She had other plans. She had stopped appearing on stage once she hit puberty and realized she could make them regret forcing her to appear. There was a difference between a smiling 6-year-old singing “This Little Light Of Mine” and a sullen teen scowling through “Amazing Grace.”

She remembered the argument with her grandfather as she left for college. He told her she’d be back. She’d be leading the congregation at some point, and she should just accept it, “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.” She had snapped back that HE could do whatever HE wanted but SHE was an atheist.

He had just smiled. “You will be back.” He would write her letters while she was in school and while she was establishing herself outside of the church. Using her mother’s maiden name so people would stop asking if she was part of all of that. He would tell her, you’ll find God again. You’ll be back. And she would throw the letters away.

And yet here she was.

Her father had been a failure at leading. He had the personality of a child raised by a narcissist. Quiet, reserved, never wanted to cause a fuss. Always making sure everything was smooth for everyone else. Even when he was shoved on stage with the spotlight on him after her grandfather had passed it didn’t work. Attendance dropped off. The revival meetings became smaller and smaller.  Where they used to sell out arenas they were back to booking the fellowship halls of small churches. He had not blossomed in the light. He had shrunk. And eventually, though she couldn’t prove it, the light had burned him up.

After he passed everything came to her. The church. The industry around it all. Even as small as it was there were still things to wrap up. She would sell to one of the board members. She would wash her hands of all of it once and for all. Let one of them see if they could revive the revivals, so to speak. She doubted it. Nobody she had ever met had the stage presence of her grandfather. He held them in his hand as he talked about finding God. About using that light in his life. About how they too could experience that joy. And people did leave the tent meetings feeling uplifted. Buoyed. Given a boost when they needed one. She had to admit that.

And now here she was. About to do the same. After swearing she would never. She sometimes thought she could hear him laughing. He knew.

Of course he knew.

When she had been going through the warehouse after her father’s death and she found the box she realized why he knew.

He had found God.

He kept It in a box in storage. Used for his own benefit.

She didn’t. She brought that box out on stage and at the end of her testimony she gave the altar call, “Do you accept what I am telling you? Do you want to partake of the rest?” And those that came? She let them look in the box. To look upon the glowing face of the being in the box.

What they saw varied as much as how they saw her.  Terror, awe, sometimes both.

“Do you want to go on stage tonight?”

“Always.”

“Do you want me to let you free?”

“I am free. Do you think you could contain me in a box if I didn’t choose to be here?”

“Do you believe you are God?”

“Do you?”

And she would pick up the box and give her testimony one more time.

She had come back, and she had found God.

Her fucking grandfather has been right.