Robert Pope

Church Mice

I was eating my sandwich with all the deliberate and grateful speed
of a man who has not eaten in a good while. They would allow me
to remain inside the church only until I finished the meal provided.
Afterwards, I would have to go back out into the minus zero
windchill of a bitter cold mid-January morning in Michigan. The
ear-splitting wind of the previous night had abated and snow had
stopped falling a couple of hours before, with drifts in some places
up to several feet. No time for brooding in such a winter landscape,
though everything in me wished no more than to concentrate on
the state of mankind and my own personal fate.

I had not fully relaxed when I heard the rustling beneath the pew.
As I leaned to look beneath my seat, a young man crouching there
—eyes looking into mine with a level of pleading I understood too
well—placed a finger on his lips in an obvious request I say
nothing of his presence. I had of course been aware of the men in
threadbare coats and scarves and hats huddled beneath the pews
since I first sat down, particularly when one sought a sinecure of
greater refuge and secrecy than he occupied the previous moment.
I would attempt to join them without drawing further attention to
myself once I swallowed the last crumb of solace.