Heat

Pastor Kenelan preferred walking his way into the day. Many of the three hundred sixty-two souls residing in the bay town of Rotterdam questioned the sanity of this ritual. Most days and nights during the year a body altering chill permeated the small, ancient community that had been posted on the edge of venturing too far north of the equator. Still the Pastor held to his dedication and belief that he was the example and the light, and the sacrifice of a pinky toe and part of his once regal nose only encouraged his piety.
The cool May dawn wasn't unlike many others. Here and there a light shown through a frosty window, illuminating a cautious start to a predictable day. Optimism was in short supply as alcohol and violence dominated the typical resident from about the age of ten on. Job security. It was a rare private thought he never dared share in order to hold it at bay. Just this week he presided over two funerals. Harry Todd, shot by an angry cheating wife, would go to God in a simple pine bed covered in a Grandmothers hand-sewn quilt. Sharon Todd, shot by a vengeful grieving father, would rest with only the pine.
Keith Kenelan wrestled with the conflicting emotions brought on by the funerals of Rotterdam. He never lacked for much. The citizens always kept him fed, always made sure there was plenty of wood in the shed for his stove. When his father passed four years earlier, they rallied to provide transportation to the lower forty-eight. Sadly his flock could not, would not accept a free funeral. He always received cash for these.
Now, as he walked, observed, and prayed about the $300.00 added to his coffer he began to cry. Tears poured and froze to his cheeks. Mucous held suspended on the long gone tip of his nose. He didn't want to be here. He wanted to empty the church account of the $378.42 and go. Anywhere. Warm. Secure. Loving. He was running, wrecked, to the small wooden side door leading to his office in the church he once so loved and cherished. Blindly, he grasped the tiny metal handle. Nothing, not even a wiggle of hope. Minutes later, several pairs of wide eyes were glued to the spectacle in stunned expectation. All certain
not anyone alive or dead in Rotterdam had ever witnessed the seventy-three year old pillar so much as raise his voice. In silence they watched their rock lose it. He had punched with his hands, kicked with his feet, screamed with his mouth, and at the end he even head-butted the shabby little door that would never be replaced.
Pastor Kenelan turned around and walked out of his day, musing at the fact that he finally had their rapt attention and he had nothing to say.