Mighty Things And Timid Souls

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cat_icon.gif joseph_icon.gif

Scene Title Mighty Things And Timid Souls
Synopsis Cat checks to see if Joseph is generally not dead. She offers some reassurance.
Date May 6, 2009

Guiding Light Baptist Church

There is no mistaking this building as anything but a church, with its arching glass windows and concrete cross fixed to the edge of the pointed roof. Curving stone steps lead up from the pavement to a set of black double doors, often kept closed during the colder weather, but unlocked during the allocated hours written on a blue sign fix to the brick wall. In white, formal letting, it reads GUIDING LIGHT BAPTIST CHURCH and lists its hours of worship.

Through the doors, you first step into an open, nondescript foyer, with access to an unobtrusive staircase headed upwards, and a second hallway leading off somewhere less public also. Mainly, this room opens straight out to the much more spacious worship hall, with immovable rows and rows of pews. A small church, it only seats an absolute maximum of around one hundred and fifty people at a time. It has a high ceiling and is warmly lit, simple and reverent in design, colours light and earthy. The stage before the pews is wide open, with seats off to the side for other pastors and guest speakers, and there is a podium placed off center. On the other side, there is a small organ with music sheets kept nearby.


The clock shows seven minutes past ten in the morning on the sixth, clock in this case being the display of an iPhone attached to the woman's right hip. Much as she had been on her previous visit here, clothing is casual. Guitar case and backpack are present too. Her features are pensive, perhaps even worried, from things she's been told. Aria, she mutters inwardly, thank you very little. The word bitch is in there too. See a vision of her death, act to prevent it, tell her the source in case she wants to meet the source in person, and what happens? Idiot gives the visionmaker's name and location to the man who tried to kill her.

So she's compelled to come here and ensure the pastor is both alive and unharmed. If he isn't present in the sanctuary area when she arrives, he will find the first clue to her presence is the sound of electric guitar being played at moderate volume. Led Zeppelin. Houses Of The Holy.

Joan not of Arc or Arcadia has returned.

It's a quiet morning. In not even ten hours, the worship hall will be filled with people, dressed a little more casual than their Sunday best. Wednesday evening, worship for the workers. Abigail will be in attendance, and who knows how many more? Joseph intends to talk about salvation. It's what he was writing about when the quiet rock song comes drifting through to his ears.

Cat is alone for a good majority of her music by the time soft footsteps finally reach her ears, but only just before his voice is quick to cut through the relative peace. "I have a Gibson."

He's dressed like he will be giving a sermon that evening. The tie is missing, the top button open, but the suit he's wearing is a nice one, navy blue with a white dressed shirt tucked in neatly. Not really dressed like he'd own a Gibson, but a wan smile implies this is the truth, from where he leans against the corner of where the staircase had taken him down from his office and into the larger church. "Acoustic. A J-45. Got it— oof, I dunno. Years ago."

Fingers on strings and frets go still as his voice is heard, she turns to face the man and show a slight smile. "It's good to see you, Joseph. You should bring out your Gibson, give it a workout." An understatement, good to see you. The rest is alive. Unelectrocuted, lacking a thrown knife in throat. "What you showed me before was valuable. I acted on the imagery, prevented something from coming to pass. But, I have to tell you…"

"Action makes other actions occur. Someone very unpleasant may come to see you." She doesn't much believe he already has, but it is possible. Aria, after all, wasn't killed in her hospital bed. "He might've made an approach. He's a most unpleasant man."

Joseph's hands slip into the pockets of his slacks, and he wanders on over with casual, swinging steps. "I give it a coupla goes now and then. Wiles away the time. One of the few things I thought to bring up with me from Tennessee." Clothes, Bible, guitar. Not a bad combination, all things considered. His hand reaches for the back of a pew nearest her, eases himself to sit, although with the posture of someone willing to leave just as quickly should it be called for. Not everyone comes to this place to talk to him, contrary to popular belief.

His jaw sets a little at her word choice but otherwise seems just curious, and somewhat concerned. "I meet a few unpleasant people, time to time. Part of my job, really." Joseph doesn't sound bitter about such a notion, and his mouth hooks into a half-smile. "But'm glad to hear the vision was helpful, truly."

She gives a description of him, detailed from memory. "His name is Niles Wight. He's able to make copies of himself with electrical forces, and is a murderer. He targeted a woman, her death was prevented. I told her about the vision to get her attention, have her believe me. I never expected she would tell the man who tried to kill her how people knew the attack was coming. Stockholm Syndrome, maybe. Believing she maybe owed the man something, that perhaps she somehow deserved his attack." Her eyes roll.

"I couldn't not come tell you any more than I could just have let her death happen as you showed it to me," Joan asserts.

People are so strange here. Or maybe their futures are, Joseph isn't sure. His brow remains in that knot of confused tension, smoothing out into something more surprised, especially as that description— well not everyone has a super memory, and Joseph talks to so many people. But there is a man who stuck out to him, and unconsciously, Joseph brings up a hand to rub the back of his neck. No glasses to fidget with, nervously, so the hair at the nape of his neck gets scratched.

"If he's a murderer, then— maybe she was scared." And he finds himself defending a woman he never met who perhaps pointed a murderer here. Maybe it's not the people here that are strange. "I, uh. There was a gen'leman, actually, looked like you said. He didn't— he was complainin' about how a vision of mine led someone into hurtin' him? N— " His mouth thins into a line, and shakes his head. "He jus' had a few things to tell me before goin' on his way."

Might be someone else, and doubt filters into his voice quickly. Obviously that exchange is just on his mind, right, and he's unconsciously scrabbling for something to make sense of it. This is his internal assessment that only shows on his face from a lack of a usually ever-present smile.

"She may have been," 'Joan' admits somberly. "And your visitor may have been him. Hopefully if he was and moved on, that's the end of it between him and you. I hope this won't discourage you from showing what you offer, Joseph. Dangerous things are often the most worthwhile efforts. Too many just drift through life, follow orders, accept the world as it is. I, and some people I associate with, take a far different tack." She won't share just who they are or the name they operate under. There is no guilt on her features, just the simple concern for his safety.

It would seem she believes, as she herself would, his position as a pastor entails an understanding and shouldering of risk without complaint. That perhaps he would say if death comes, his soul is prepared and no reason to fear it exists.

It's something he'd like to believe too, if the slightly guilty glance Joan's way is to be of any indication, but Joseph's gaze directs itself frontwards, as the positioning of pews encourage. Lift up your hearts to Lord our God, the cross nailed to the wall above the pulpit seems to encourage. What a great many things he finds himself thinking when his eyes drift to the iconic symbol. Forgiveness, afterlife, death for sins.

All that good stuff. "It only encouraged me t'think about showing what I offer," he assures her, a fleeting smile. "Say Mr. Wright came by before you did, Joan, and took my hands and saw the people who would prevent this lady's death. He asked me to take responsibility, an' I can't. Not of the actions of other's, that's— it's the point. Behind gainin' knowledge. Free will comes with a price.

"But I can take responsibility in other regards. It's a fine line between judgment and fatalism, and I steer clear from both. Neither are my domain." Of course, one could argue that fortune telling shouldn't be either, but Joseph's come to grips with that one a while ago.

"You do good work, Joseph," Doctor Not Of Arc replies. "Thank you for doing it." She begins to pack her guitar away. A smile forms and begins to spread. "You've a sweet gig here for a guitarist. Not so much rock and roll, but hey, it could be. Acoustics seem good for the sound, and at least once a week people would come to see you play." Stages are everywhere, she believes. So much of life is in the presentation.

Playing out in her head are twin tangents: the sounds of a Rush tune and the speech in a Shakespeare play they got the lyrics from. All The World's A Stage.

It's an unmistakable blessing to so often be able to improv the lines and actions across those seven ages.

That bright smiles returns, all the wattage as usual and a genuine laugh, and Joseph moves to stand, crab-step out from the pews to allow her a clear path for the exit. "Fortunately we got real musicians, but you're right, the acoustics are nice. Music's as good a praise as any." A beat as the pastor watches her pack up, and less exuberantly toned, he adds, "And thanks, Joan, for comin' down here and— well, I guess checkin' to see if I was alright. Nice to hear, too, you're the kind to take matters into your own hands."

"You're very welcome, Joseph," she offers as the packing is completed and she moves toward the doors, exiting. More quoting follows, this time from Theodore Roosevelt. "Far better it is to dare mighty things than to take rank with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

"That may be," Joseph agrees, gently. A fleeting wave is given to the guitarist before the pastor is left alone, once more, in an empty church, to remember the reverberations of the organ being played at night through to the tuneful strings of an electric guitar that echo just as neatly as effortless quoteage.


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