The Afflicted

The church at the end of the street was traditional and pure, coated in a bleached white paint and surrounded by a classic white picket fence. The grass was short but not recently mowed and there was an air of longing about the place. It had a steeped, charcoal grey tiled roof and a rusted, out of character, old cross hanging just beside the old mahogany double doors. On the very top steeple was another smaller wrought iron cross. 

The neighborhood in which it was located was ideal. A stream of pale yellow and cream colored houses with small front yards and porches dotted with rocking chairs. Bikes were parked lovingly in the midst of pavement driveways and newspapers lay properly on the steps leading to robin's egg blue and emerald colored doors. The trees were full and hearty, their leaves a crisp, rich green. The sun was high in the sky and bright and warm, like a summer afternoon. Everything was perfectly ordinary. 

Everything was perfectly silent. 

Oh but in the idealistic blue sky, every now and again, a small storm cloud would leisurely jaunt in front of the sun and things would turn a bit different. 

The grass would recede into some unknown port key and in its place would be scorched hay, dry and dead like a desert's dream. The road was strewn over with warm dust and long and hollow cracks reached like fingers down the length of it. 

The houses all turned a pitiful shade of peach and the windows became boarded up. The bikes lay strewn, rusted and distressed, onto canvases of dying grass and wretched mother earth. 

Oh but the church, the church was still bleach white, encompassed in a white picket fence. The cross whoever was a shiny hammered copper slightly tilted to the left. The cross on top of the steeple was missing. 

The sun in itself also seemed to be harsher; more arid and unforgiving. It brutally beat upon the houses, until the little cloud danced off. 

And things would turn normal again. 

The grass was green. The atmosphere pleasant. 

And no more screams were heard from a distance somewhat under the church. 

Yes, things were ordinary again; until another cloud passed.