by Joseph Fink
“You’re supposed to fast before services,” he said. “That way, your hunger will remind you of the hunger of the Smiling God.”
“You don’t think it’s weird to follow a religious rule right before spying on your church?”
He sat across from her and bit his lip.
“I’m willing to help you prove that my church isn’t actually up to anything. But the practices of my religion aren’t a bunch of meaningless restrictions. Being hungry during the services as we talk about the Smiling God devouring our sins makes me feel connected to Its hunger. And that makes me feel connected to my fellow worshipers, and to the universe. The simple act of not eating for a few hours can make me feel close to the great, glowing coils of the universe. You know, Nilanjana, I still believe in this stuff, even if it turns out the people behind this organization are doing bad things. Which they aren’t. But still. I don’t expect you to understand.”
“No. I think I get it.” She didn’t get it at all. “Let’s go over the plan.”
During services, the Joyous Congregation kept tight security, something that seemed completely normal to Darryl and deeply suspicious to Nilanjana. As a result, she wouldn’t be able to walk through the front door that day without a lot of questions, and without being subjected to extra scrutiny that would make any snooping around impossible.
“You snooping around is impossible anyway,” he said. “I’ll be the one to go into the offices. I know what to look for. It’s the same kind of stuff I was trying to find the other day.”
“You were already investigating your church?” She was pleasantly surprised.
“I was being curious about a book or two. Anyway, I think you should see a service. It’s special, and usually only church members are allowed to be a part of it. And you’ll get to hear the pastor speak. She is an impressive and forceful person. I know how the offices are organized, so I’ll search them for anything suspicious. During the service is the one time they’re completely empty.”
“Absolutely not. I’m not having anyone else do this. Especially, and I’m sorry, but especially not a member of the church.”
She could have just said, “I don’t trust you.” It would have taken less time. He screwed up his face, and then relaxed his body, took a deep breath, and gentled his voice.
“Nilanjana, if you got caught back there, well, I don’t know what would happen. Because no one has ever tried to sneak in before. But it would be bad. They could have you arrested for trespassing or, worse, deal with it internally. Me, if I’m caught, I can find an excuse. Worst thing that will happen is I’ll get chewed out a bit. I’ve been chewed out before.”
“I don’t care about the risks. This is my research. I’m taking the risks.”
“I understand. But I’m asking you to trust me. If there is something wrong with my church, then I have more at stake in finding out what it is than you do.” He placed a hand on her cheek. It was condescending, but it was also soft and warm. His eyes were sincere and caring. She suppressed a deep urge to kiss his palm. She suppressed an equally deep urge to smack his hand away.
“Okay, I trust you,” she said, not certain if she meant it or not. “Now what’s this stuff?” indicating the bag he had gone home to get the night before.
“This is the robe and headpiece. It’s how you’ll take my place. Every part of us is covered during services, so no one will know you’re you. I’ll leave my seat, go let you in, and then you’ll go sit down as me.”
“We’re . . . different sizes. I think they’ll notice.”
“You’d be surprised how bulky these things are. We get people confused all the time. We actually have a committee to address the problem next month, so this is good timing.”
Looking at the bright yellow robe, Nilanjana thought of her lab table, with the petri dish of bacteria whose by-product was a pesticide with applications in industrial farming. That was the work she belonged to. This was so far from that. She missed her pesticide project, and the simplicity of wanting the bacteria to make symmetrical patterns.
“All right,” she said. “If this is the plan, then it’s the plan. Let’s go.”
She offered to carry the duffel on the way to the car, but he said it was no problem. His voice said that she was questioning his strength, and he needed to now prove it by carrying as much as possible. She rolled her eyes as he loaded himself up, looking ridiculous in order to prove a point that didn’t matter and that no one in the world cared about. As he waddled his masculinity out to the car, she saw him flicking his thumb around. He was texting with one hand, glancing down occasionally and typing quickly.
She tried to glimpse what he was writing and to whom, but he had angled his body, hiding the phone from her. She decided that it wasn’t her business, plus she didn’t want to derail her chance to get inside the church by openly debating her trust in him again. Either he was on her side or not, and this seemed as good an opportunity as any to find out. Instead, she thanked him for carrying the bag and got in the car.
The parking lot was jammed at the Joyous Congregation. More people went there than she realized. This gave Darryl a perfect excuse to park in a residential neighborhood a few blocks away, so no one would see her getting out of his car. They went separate ways to the church: his direct, saying hello to his friends and nodding to the security guard on the way in, hers roundabout, cutting across a pebble-and-cacti median and coming down a grass slope to the emergency exit in the back.
Then there was nothing for her to do but wait and trust.
She tapped her foot. The congregation robe, yellow and flowing, made her feel like a date stood up at a prom. She felt ridiculous. The hot breeze ruffled the grass, glistening with water stolen from wetter regions, and she tried to pretend that this was fine, that she was fine.
After several minutes she realized that Darryl wasn’t going to open the door for her, that the whole thing was a cruel joke, that probably this robe wasn’t even part of the Joyous Congregation but a silly outfit he had a bet to see if she would wear, that he and his friends were probably watching her on a closed-circuit camera and laughing, that she should cast the robe off, put on her lab coat, and walk right through the front door, tell them she wanted to know what the hell they were doing, interrupt the service if she had to, because if they were putting Night Vale in danger then she wasn’t about to stand on niceties, how dare they think they could make a fool of her, and then Darryl opened the door and she exhaled.
He was wearing the same robe as hers, and had his headpiece under his arm. His face was sweaty.
“It’s time,” he said.
She put on the headpiece. It was muggy and hot. She was looking at the world through yellow mesh, and so everything was cast in sepia tones.
“Lead the way,” she said.
This was the first time she had ever been to any kind of religious service. But a person doesn’t need experience or knowledge of something to have opinions about it. It turns out all they need for that are opinions.
Her feeling toward religion had always been one of tolerant disapproval. She didn’t think that the people who believed this kind of stuff were doing anything wrong—wrong as in bad—and she certainly felt like they should have the right to believe it if they wanted. But she also thought they were thinking something wrong, wrong as in incorrect.
She had a simple and rational view of the world. It is what it is, she thought. There are the stars and the moon and soil and dogs and hands and love and UFOs and secret government agencies and mole people, and there is nothing magical about that. Reality is what’s real and nothing more. She had faith in the utility of an absence of faith. Her faith in this was powerful. So she entered the service with a combination of apprehension and pity.
The room was as she remembered it: simple, save for the eleven stained-glass columns, each beautiful on its own, but garish when inserted into plain, beige drywall paneling. People in robes filled the chairs, the spectrum of their gender and race and even body shape hidden b
y the unity of the robes and headpieces, and she could kind of see the beauty of that. Of coming together as a community while leaving aside all that makes a person different. Because all that makes a person different is all that person can and will be judged on. Removing those differences, even for a brief period, meant removing any foothold for judgment, forcing them to interact with each other on new terms.
Nilanjana stepped hesitantly into the room, her difference hidden but still sharply felt. It was a heightened sensation of the feeling she had lived with since moving to Night Vale: being the outsider.
Darryl, from behind the doorframe, urged her forward with a light squeeze on her arm and then was gone. Now she was him, as far as everyone in the room knew, and so she did her best to walk forward with unhurried confidence toward the empty chair he had indicated to her. No one seemed to give her much notice, although it was hard to tell with the headpieces. They were in the middle of a hymn, an upbeat song led by a robed figure playing an acoustic guitar. It was a simple, catchy melody, written in a modern, pop style. More early Beatles than Gregorian chanting.
What will It do
in the final hour?
It will take us in.
It will devour.
This refrain repeated several times, the congregation singing and clapping along. Then there was a key change upward and the guitar sped up a bit. Nilanjana found her seat and sat down.
“About time,” said the voice of Stephanie from the headpiece of the person sitting next to her. Of course, Darryl had been sitting with his friends. “We’re almost to the sermon. You feeling okay?”
Without seeing the speaker’s face, she couldn’t determine the tone of voice. It sounded sarcastic, knowing. Had Darryl alerted his friends to her presence? It reminded her of the documentary film Carrie, about a girl who was tricked into thinking she was popular (even being named prom queen, in a bully-rigged election), only to have pig’s blood dumped on her head at the dance. Carrie responded by successfully suing the school and having the students responsible for the blood pouring arrested for assault.
Unable to answer the question with her voice, Nilanjana settled on shrugging, and then trying to clap along with an enthusiasm that wouldn’t invite further conversation. Darryl had offered the night before to teach her some of the songs and basic choreography involved in the service, but they ended up doing other things instead. She didn’t regret the other things, but she wished she had rehearsed.
Sunlight stuttered across her face, broken by the plastic blinds along the sliding glass door on one side of the room, hanging from cheap metal chains. The blinds clattered liquidly against each other, the sound of a rainstorm against a view of an arid sky.
And what will I do,
when It eats me whole?
I will feel cleansed,
right down to my soul.
The song came to an end and the rhythmic clapping scattered out into applause.
“Thank you, Gordon,” said a woman without a headpiece over her face. Instead she wore a huge yellow hat. With three words she brought the congregation to a hushed focus. There was adoration in the air, but also fear. The absolute power she radiated was balanced by the cheerful lightness of her tone. “What a beautiful song of praise you’ve offered to us all this morning. Some of you might not know, but that song is an original composition by Gordon. I think it’s just wonderful. I think it honors the Smiling God quite completely.”
“I am only doing the work It demands,” said Gordon. “All praise is due to It.”
“Of course,” said the pastor. “But take a compliment. Okay. Today I’d like to preach to you all on the subject of Purity. It is a great goal, Purity, but it is not one we can achieve ourselves. Only by allowing the Smiling God to devour us do we achieve the Purity that It demands from us.”
She clicked a remote and the projector bulb flipped on, shining a blank square of light against the screen.
“Oh, dang it, hold on,” she said. “It always takes a moment to warm up. You would think one of these days I would figure that out!”
The congregation laughed just long enough to acknowledge the joke, but not so long that the laughter became about her troubles with the projector. It was a finely tuned laugh, based on years of respect and awe.
A strange illustration appeared on the screen, along with the caption “Skin is a necessary evil.”
“There we go,” said the pastor. “Now, Purity.”
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“Amen,” the pastor finished, recontextualizing everything she had said before this as a prayer.
“Amen,” the Congregation responded, accepting this recontextualization.
“Now, Gordon, please lead us in another joyous song.”
Gordon did, with an accordion this time.
Sing, sing, sing; give a joyous shout
For the ground below us is about to give out
And from deep underground comes a hungry mouth
Sing, sing, sing; give a joyous shout.
Hypothesis: The church plans to summon something from the otherworld.
Evidence: They basically said so in the sermon with the insinuation that there would be a ceremony of devouring. What Nilanjana didn’t know was how they would achieve it, or even if a summoning was a real thing that could be carried out.
Stephanie nudged her, and she realized that she was the only one in the room not singing. No headpiece would hide a lack of participation. She did her best to hum along, but then decided that was bringing more attention to herself. And what would she do when the service started to wrap up? Surely there was small talk? Most situations that don’t involve scripted actions involve small talk. She wasn’t great at small talk in the best of situations, and pretending to be a man she barely knew was, if not the worst of situations, close to it.
SWALLOW SWALLOW SWALLOW SWALLOW
SWALLOW SWALLOW SWALLOW SWALLOW
GULP GULP GULP GULP GULP GULP GULP GULP
YEAH! SWALLOW SWALLOW SWALLOW. YEAH!
Gordon finished with an unnecessary flourish of the accordion, and the pastor forgave it with a beatific smile.
“And now,” she said, “let’s have some testimonials. Who will go first?”
This seemed to involve individual audience participation, and while there were a lot of people in the room, there weren’t so many that Nilanjana could feel safely lost in the crowd.
“Let’s hear from Martin first,” the pastor said.
One of the interchangeable robed and headpieced figures hopped up enthusiastically and jogged to the podium.
“Hey, gang,” he said. “I’m Martin McCaffry. As most of you know, I used to run TSA out at the Night Vale Airport. I wasn’t happy with my career. The hours were long. The pay was unrewarding. I continuously made drawings of an elongated dark figure and I had no memory of making them. One day I had had enough, and I set traps all over my house to catch whatever demon or evil force was haunting my life. Sacrificed mice at tiny altars in order to gain protection. Built a complex machine that predicted the future by murdering wasps. The whole deal. I guess you could call it a midlife crisis.
“But was I happy? I was not. I only thought I was happy because of how many animal sacrifices I had made. It wasn’t until I ran into May over there (hi, May!) and she told me about the devouring mercy of the Smiling God that I saw the truth. I couldn’t fight the demon on my own. I needed an even larger, more terrifying force on my side.
“It has been amazing getting to know all of you over the past couple years, and my new job overseeing the summer camp counselors is rewarding in a way that the airport thing never was. It pays way less though. Way less. Would love to talk about the compensation plan with someone. But other than that, it’s perfect.
“Thanks to all of you, for being a community who supports each other. Thank you to Pastor Munn, for all that you give us. Thank you to May again. Wouldn’t have gotten here without May. She’s a real pal. And thank you to the Smiling God, fo
r devouring our sins with Its great and holy Maw. Oh boy. Just love that Smiling God.”
“Amen,” said the pastor, now using the word as a signal that it was time for Martin to stop talking. He twirled his fist in the air, nodded at the pastor, and went back to his seat.
“What a wonderful testimony Martin gave us,” the pastor said. “Thank you for giving us the gift of your experiences. Now, who would like to go next? Who can speak on the power of the Smiling God?”
Many hands went up. It seemed that all of them could speak on the power of the Smiling God. Nilanjana didn’t know whether it would be better to put her hand up or stay as she was and risk being singled out as the only nonparticipant.
She settled on nodding enthusiastically, as though she totally agreed with how much everyone wanted to get up there and talk. Great job, everyone, her bouncing head said.
But it didn’t matter. The pastor glanced at the room briefly before settling her eyes on Nilanjana. It felt as though she could see through the headpiece.
“Darryl,” she said. “Or should I say the Wordsmith? Always so eloquent about the joy you find in this community. Please, share one or two of those wonderful words with all of us.”
Nilanjana swore there was something mocking in the pastor’s tone of voice, although no one else in the room seemed to notice. There was an enthusiastic cheer. Darryl was well liked here. Would that make it better or worse when they caught her? Her mouth was dry, and her stomach was making moves.
The figure on the other side of Stephanie stood up. “I would like to share a testimony.” It was Jamillah. Nilanjana could see the tip of a power drill hanging down from one of the long sleeves of her robe.
“Sit down, Jamillah,” the pastor snapped, and Jamillah immediately did. “Get up here, Darryl. Don’t turn shy now. Speak from the teeth.”
Pastor Munn knew. Everyone in the room was looking at what they thought was Darryl. Where was he? Even if he was watching, was there anything he could do to help her? Maybe she shouldn’t have trusted him at all. Her stomach lurched, the back of her neck dripped sweat.