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a pulpit on one side, and another lectern up a little higher on the other side. In the middle is a long communion table with the words This Do In Remembrance of Me on it. There is a white candle on top. It is burning.
    I stare at it, mesmerized for several seconds at the slightly-flickering flame before me, before turning from side to side to see if I am being examined in the silence.
    Nobody. It is musty and old-smelling here, too.
    The light of the candle shows dust particles in the air above and around it. They swirl backwards beyond the choir pews over to the organ, before being slowing tossed higher: air rising from a staircase down below.
    Meet me in the basement.
    “Well I tried to meet you in the basement yesterday, Michael,” I say to myself under my breath, “But your little church turned into an office building with a deranged child on top of it.”
    I climb up three stairs and pass the burning candle on my way over to the stairs. There is a light shining down below, and I can feel warm air on my face as I descend. These stairs are carpeted, too, so the quiet of the sanctuary is not threatened by the sound of my steps.
    “It’s alright,” I hear Michael’s voice call from the room below. “I don’t mind waiting.”
    I continue down the stairs, ducking my head under the ceiling of the stairwell as it opens in the lower anteroom. Michael is standing in the center of the wood-panelled space under a bare light bulb.
    The place looks to be rather old and stately, yet seems to have been renovated rather poorly with a smattering of modern conveniences, although I suppose lighting as a modern convenience is a relative term.
    “Have you been down here the whole time?” I ask.
    “Well now, that depends,” he answers. “I’ve been down here a long time, but here isn’t always where I am, even now.” He winks at me, “And there’s something you have to remember about places like this,” he says. “You can always get from one to another without too much difficulty.”
    “Right,” I say, non-committal. I don’t see any reason to believe anything this man says, but I walk over to stand directly in front of him anyway.
    “You see, Jonah,” he continues, “We’ve been waiting a long time for you to find this place. We need that rock, and we need it now.”
    “Who is ‘we’?”
    “We means WE,” he says, his eyes bulging with emphasis. “I thought by now you would have figured out what it is you need to do.” He turns his unseeing eyes directly to mine.
    I hesitate to respond. I can’t imagine what I could possibly be expected to do for this man, or whomever he is representing. “I don’t follow you.”
    “You ain’t expected to follow.” His voice is a whisper now, yet his expression doesn’t change. I feel like I should say something to assuage the feeling of dread building up inside me. It’s like we’re approaching something inevitable, some decision that I won’t be able to turn away from.
    “You have to connect things together, man!” Michael goes on, becoming more animated. “Things are never what they seem to be. Everything is bound together and there ain’t nothing just happens out of chance. The choices you make today are built upon yesterday’s raindrops. We need someone that won’t just float away when the current moves swiftly down the river. We need our rock to seat itself in the middle of that commotion and resist the flow.
    “You got to have the faith that you can do what you need to do to.” He leans towards me, saying more quietly, “You got to make things right.”
    There is a rumbling noise from high above as the storm increases in strength. Michael reaches out and touches my arm, a hint of desperation on his face. “You must endure this storm. The questions will be answered, in time.” His lower lip is trembling. He asks me, “Will you serve?”
    I stand there, flabbergasted. I haven’t the faintest idea what he is asking of me, and yet I feel the need to