Chapel Nights | choir stories
I am freed! I am freed!
The incense rising, rising, rising into that ribcage of interwoven oak and stone: funnelling and tumbling, thick and rich and engulfing. Feeling through the nooks and crannies of the stones, drawing the dust and the spiderwebs from the crevices into a wild dance of midnight purple laced with tendrils of silver. Each clear ring of the thurible was a twirl of the dress, like an inviting partner, so eager to issue her beauty forth into the crowd, all the while crying in her joyous clamour: I am freed! I am freed! And the smell! It was heavy and grand just as the chapel bedrock was heavy and grand. The scent was an old lady’s cautious step, which rung clear against the uneven cobbles of passing time. The bent old matron reached the end of the aisle, and burst into a flock of birds, screeching and whirring, dizzying. One at a time they made flight swooping up the nostrils of the guests until they felt all earthliness drained from their lungs.
Now tired of her dancing, the maiden of the incense gathered her dress and came to a halt. She stood dead-still, and she loosened her hair. A cascade of pale puffs of smoke traced the steps of her zealous waltz across the dark oak of the high, high ceiling, so that all of her secrets were laid clear for the attendance far below.
But no heads looked up at the suspended wonders: they were tucked close to buttoned chests, engrossed in prayer. Then chorister rose as the crowd sat: and soon the voices of the choirboys rebounded off the arches and glass-windows and shattered the smoky veil. And as the Reverend began his reading, the spiders finally fell asleep on the rim of the old chapel bells.
