ALL CHURCHGOERS ARE FANFIC AUTHORS — ANDY LOPEZ
/You can drop the act; I know you’ve been stealing glances at my phone for the better part of the sermon. And no, I’m not lost. Have you not taken into consideration that I, too, am here for the truth? I’ve been taught your gospel for years, now let me show you mine: a 30K Fix-It Fic, the tags read: Post-Canon, Prolonged Hand-Holding, Frottage. Don’t give me that look, as if people don’t fuck in the Bible. Because people fuck in the Bible. Hell, they do a hell of a lot worse than getting it on—like crucifying the Christ, ring a bell? But those are details, details.
This isn’t about me. Why are you here? Too dark out there, in the real world? Need a little vitamin C as in Christ? I feel you. We’re here for the same thing, aren't we? The artistry that happens in this temple each week, the creation of transformative work, making prisms out of mud rock to see other branches of possibility. Want to hear a secret? There’s nothing. No secret, that is. Nothing your pastor can do that I can’t, blindfolded and bound.
Don’t believe me? Watch: in Naruto, right? No, listen. In Naruto—he chases his best friend-turned-traitor who leaves the village, leaping across countries, performing death-defying acts, and beating the odds to bring one boy back. At one point, Naruto proclaims: I’ll take your pain and die with you. A lovers’ suicide. As if to say, what good is this world without you in it?
Yeah, don’t remind me how it ends. About the kid with the blue eyes or his wife’s dark hair. The beloved man—unmoored again. I’ve made my peace. I want to believe when Sasuke thinks of home, it’s to a pair of war-hardened hands and a smile that hits like a cold drink in July. The nights in the Hidden Leaf Village are chilled, but where their hands touch between them, they are warm. What else is truer than this? I want it. A love that looks like me; a love beyond belief.
Your turn. Don’t be shy! The day of your mom’s stroke, that was God’s hand, right? After, you learned to pray. And what about Yolanda, 2013? Or last year, when you got the call from the police station—I’m sorry, Mr. Cruz, this is about your son—and God was right there with you, hours before your knees learned to kiss the carpet like a gunshot. Life is shit; old news, too bad. But we learn to throw out the old water in our lungs. We learn to choose the light.
A year later you emerge from the depths of loss with hands that know how to transmute everything they touch. You are kinetic, unbound, a body hallowed by grief. But you’re also here for the truth, as am I. Take my hand. Fellow sinner, fellow truth-maker—it’s beautiful, isn’t it, the light?
Andy Lopez is a writer and advocacy communications manager from the Philippines. Her work has been published in Ascend Magazine, Non.Plus Lit, and other magazines and anthologies. Find her on Twitter at @andylopezwrites.
