If death my friend and me divide
Who: William Jesse and Open
What: praying for the clones
Where: Western District, The first Methodist Church of Nautilus
When: Monday night
Warnings: religion
So. The clones have been silent. Are they all gone?
Using a thin taper candle, William Jesse carefully lights a row of small off-white candles, letting the words drift through his thoughts, almost a prayer.
Some were killed. Murdered or killed while attempting to murder.
And the rest have vanished away, or so William Jesse gathers from the Network, perhaps returned from where they came.
He lights a candle, one of several he has gathered from around the city, desperately longing for flame and light in the house of the lord. He had gathered grass and wove a small cross out of it, and then practiced his bending to make it seem more real and solid. The flowers that decorated the alter came from the forest.
A few mourn. Like that small creature, with quiet weeping. Others seem to hardly care, taking enjoyment in death, such as that strange woman. That is not enough to identify, there seem to be quite a number of apparently violently minded women in this city.
He has never lead a funeral before, and, in a sad part of his heart, William Jesse does not quite think that this counts either, lacking body or congregation.
Perhaps, he should have made a post to the network, but he had not intended a funeral tonight. It merely.. felt like the right thing to do. Prayer leaking out like a sigh when he fails to pay enough attention.
He has memorized the words from the hymnal, and though he would not dare to impose his prayers in another’s name, neither is he easily willing to send a prayer from himself alone.
“Holy God, before you our hearts are open, and from you no secrets are hidden.” He begins in a soft almost-whisper, taking a seat before the main alter, not on his knees, but in a simple chair, his hands folded in his lap, his eyes closed and his head bent. “ We bring to you now our shame and sorrow for our sins.”
“We have not forgotten that out life is from you and unto you. We have neither sought nor done your will.” Perhaps, if he were braver, stronger, bolder, he would have tried harder and prevented some of the death in this place, and his voice gets a little louder, “We have not been truthful in our hearts, in our speech, in our lives. We have not loved as we ought to love.”
He finds his mind wandering, and the words wander as well, slow in recitation, and heavy and he opens his eyes to watch the flickering candles before of him, “God of us all, your love never ends. When all else fails, you are still God. I pray to you for another, for any in need, and for all, anywhere, who mourn this day.”