churches

I have lassoed my hopes onto distant spires and hauled my soul-heavy sorry self up to padlocked wooden doors and sealed black iron fence-work. Laminated signs promise service on a Sunday, but this is a Tuesday.
All the churches are shut.
The search has drained my last reserves, I am left more despondent at the thought of no physical sanctuary in this town and I am too weak to build my own. Spots of rain ram this point home.
Defeated and resigned I avert my eyes from the skyline, and any chance of further glimpses of spires and cross-topped towers, to look to the pavement one step in front; I slope off into nowhere to walk this black cloud off my shoulders.
But like some half-remembered parable, my giving up the search brings about the miracle: I fetch up unplanned by a redbrick arched front, a lanky cross put down outside, and through the open doors I spy rows of empty wooden pews.
Give that Pope a gold star; the Catholics are open for business.

No sign of priest or punters.
Sanctuary. A place to sit. A place of quiet and emptiness in the midst of the shout and hoot.

I hate the sound of ticking clocks.
Is this place for show, I wonder? Sham silence that a cursory look would not reveal as fake? But there's no-one to show, no-one to impress, no tourists to point at the plaster-cast saints caught mid-gesticulation, staring out each other. This is a dead space infested with the tick tock tick of a plastic clock bedecked with trumpeting baby angels.
Is there no such thing as sacred silence, then? Is it an idea I concocted, and then projected onto the purveyors of our local religion?
All I want is peace and quiet. Serenity, at a push.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Now I want that priest.
I have a suggestion.
I scowl at the begging box on my way back into the shout and hoot.