When someone decided to speak from the altar there was no one to contradict them, anyone could step up and lead if they wanted. The echo of these new voices was deafening, unnatural, the space too big to hold it. These leaders said things we didn’t understand, private things about those at the center of the ceremony, details that didn’t seem appropriate to share. Someone else (not a leader) sang make it last forever. On the floor beside me there were reading glasses, a veil, a book of hymns, the seeds of a blood orange.

There was no electricity and when night came the church was dark. Someone tossed flowers around. We stayed put. We lit candles (not church candles but scented candles: apple, rose, beach dream, salty waves, and lavender petal). More food was being passed around, and everyone ate it without asking questions. All the food was circular, spherical or cut into circular shapes. It tasted of sage, cinnamon, game, and scotch bonnet. A honey biscuit from Church’s Chicken, hard-boiled eggs. There was a dessert made with lavender, honey, coconut milk, rice, banana leaves, fig.

In the candlelight I could see an individual passing very close to my face, exposing their belly button. It wasn’t the belly button but the lips that caught my attention, the lips were brown, and where the lips met, in that interior layer there was pink, two-toned lips. The belly button was forgotten in light of the brown and pink lip.

On my right a pregnant belly was tightly bound in a bronze strapless dress.

Tea came around, chamomile or green, there was a choice. Someone yelled the choices out loud: green! chamomile! I chose chamomile because I wanted to rest. And I did, for a while. When I awoke I had been moved from the pew to the tiled floor. The tile was intricate, a mosaic tile made by hand—burgundy, white, blue, green, cold. The church bells that had once been suspended were also on the mosaic tile floor, rusted. They sat near my neglected body, near my nose. The bells were large, unnaturally so, and they held markings, illegible scrawling and dates. The bells weren’t in use; they were quiet.

From the floor I could see that the walls were pink, an odd color for a holy place. The plaster was peeling, the paint peeling, and the pink mixed with yellow, brick, green, with mold. Some of the windows were broken and the cool air came in. The beams on the vaulted ceiling were untethered; pieces fell on our heads.