I look around the church at the congregation. People of all ages are waiting silently for me. The smell of the woman's perfume is sickeningly sweet. She smells like my grandmother does on holidays - the signature smell of "Charlie". Both women wear an over powering amount. Why today of all days does she have to sit beside me? I have butterflies flapping in my stomach already, I don't need a headache too. .
I step up to the great oak podium centered at the front of the grand hall. I feel soft velvet under my cold hands. I take a deep breath and breathe in the smoky smell from the lit candles to my left. I breathe again and smell the bunches of red roses below me. The scent reminds me of a flower garden I visited in Washington, D.C.
I gaze around and soak in the scene. There are four sections of hard wooden pews. Every section has eight rows. Each seat comes with a thin dusty pillow covering. Only about seven benches have people in them. I watch as they fidget in their seats trying to make the centimeter of padding more comfortable. Today there are about forty people. This is actually a really big crowd - usually there are only around twenty five people. .
I glance up to the balcony and there is a camera staring back. No one is sitting up there, but if I had the chance that is where I would be. I wouldn't mind giving up my comfortable chair behind the altar for one of those hard wood benches. .
I notice the red carpets weathered with age. I quickly think about all the feet that have passed over them for all these years. They don't even look red in some spots anymore. They have grown more of a dingy brown with age. The red floor is the only lively color in the huge virgin white room. There are spots above the windows where the paint has bubbled and turned gray. No one has seemed to notice that the windows have a leak.
The high ceilings have fans that aren't on. It is too warm. I hear an ambulance whiz by and the traffic groaning down below in the unseen street.