Writer's Workbook #13

#13 This church gave me a creepy feeling…

I know churches. I know cathedrals. I know that they have ornate altars and dazzling stained glass windows and huge crucifixes hanging from the ceiling. This church had that, but it was all wrong. The altar was metal instead of wooden. The stained glass portrayed images of  massacres and sacrifices, red glass scattered to show blood and the black glue distorting the faces of the people depicted. The worst was the crucifix. Normally those are saddening and horrible to look at as is, but this one was twisted. The cross was gnarled and the wood looked rotten. Nails stuck in the hands and feet of the Jesus upon it as usual, but this one had extra nails dotting his stomach. The red paint seemed to still ooze from the wounds, and there was a distinct smell of rotting meat. Jesus’s face, however, was positively grotesque. His features smiled manically, eyes rolling back in his head and a sloppy grin pasted on his thin face.

I sat in a pew, trying to figure out why the decorations so often used as decoration were so horrific.