This church is born of the end times. Every book in this bible is Revelations. No need for apocalyptic prophecies. Here we are. We breathe the plastic dust of old cell phones and rotten government buildings. We drive to work in machines that destroy Eden, to collect worthless bills printed on the skin of enslaved children. We drink each others blood and shed crocodile tears for the loneliness of crowds we feel lost in. And so I say unto you, the time is now, to change. Or never.
And lo, I am cursed with a vision. A desert, an endless sandstorm, a wind-beaten preacher. His parish is the horizon and scattered stones and dust. Demonic dreams surround him, laughing at his sermon. Mocking his words as useless and fantastic. But still he pounds the pulpit at them, managing to rasp these words from a mouth filled with sand...
The freedom we once fought for has become nihilism. The magic that is our birthright is scoffed at. The holiness we once knew is a pyramid scheme of the greedy and the undeserving. The king rules over nothing, with an iron fist. Who dares join our congregation, to fight this tide?
The gurus are all cheats, and we believe nothing of them. Our lovers are in chains forged by our own hands. We drive broken roads and toss garbage from gilded windows. The scales break under the weight of our hearts. Might we together find hope before night falls forever?
Alone we face the shadows, and haunted faces are illuminated by lantern light. Fortune turns to emptiness under a neon skyline. Lust consumes our homes and laughs in our lying faces. We dangle from gallows we designed ourselves, so clever, so stylish. Can we carry each other to the light at tunnels end?
Death mocks the minutes we waste. Where we might moderate the pain, we are drunk on escape and fantasy. Shackled to the great horned beast, still we can only pretend to feel its flame. The foundation is crumbling as we watch helplessly. Would you entertain the idea that brotherhood is worth more than gold in shielding us from this nightmare?
Another flickering transmission is lost to cloudy skies. Months go by without a teardrop’s worth of rain hitting the ground. Daylight is a myth, yet we sweat under a harsh light. The signs of a new dawn are everywhere but direction is never clear. We have grown twisted in this aeon of pain and disconnection. We cry for the world! We cry with the world! We cry like babies and the broken hearted and the hopelessly infirm! Is there anything we would not try, to heal these wounds? Or would we prefer to try nothing, too afraid to be wrong, or seem absurd, or put our weaknesses on display?
And as the preacher drops to his knees, the demons fall upon him, gorging themselves on his flesh, and tearing at his eyes and his heart. Endlessly, they assail him, but he does not fall. And after all, they stand around him in confusion and curiosity, for one last verse.
I cannot be slain by you, for I am you. I too am a demon, of course, starving and parched in this endless waste. I am just like you. I am you. I am you. And I carry a message from the harsh sun. We must build here a chapel of light. To make one last stand against the dust. And the dusk. Align thy souls not with the nightmare that surrounds, but with each other and with me and with whatever faith you have left. Let us make magick with our last days in this strange dream, as armageddon plays out around us. Let us join hands and become an oasis, and if in truth it turns out we are only a mirage, let us perish in this ancient sand with our hands clasped together and our hearts filled with boundless love.
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