Touch of the Divine

The light from Cologne Cathedral’s floodlights rippled across the sidewalk like a frozen lake. Its twin gothic spires loomed over the streets rimmed with apartment buildings and small businesses. Snow drifted through the night air, dancing to the rhythmic buzz of the city.

Everyone raced past Brutus. But for him, reality inched by like creeping shadows on a sun-soaked floor. The routine slowed the clock to an everlasting crawl. It was as if the world had somehow drawn up all its efforts to linger in its own lethargy. 

Brutus turned his collar up against the biting wind and folded his arms. He stopped outside the cathedral doors. Second thoughts gripped his mind. He hadn’t been to pray in years. It seemed useless to keep trying. No one up above ever seemed to hear him anyway. But the last thing he needed was to spend another night alone in his apartment. 

Decades of a stagnant life, the same humdrum day-to-day like an infinite echo, left him desperate for a lifeline out of the mud of the mundane. But every potential outlet withdrew from his reach, save the renewal of a broken, withered faith in the divine. 

Even if no one can hear me, at least they’re with me.

He sighed and pushed the doors open, expecting the usual wild tourist chatter, but only an eerie loneliness occupied the church. His dark eyes roamed over the massive stone pillars, domed ceiling, and the swallow’s nest organ. The stained glass windows were alive with dazzling colors. The citrus and pine of frankincense combined with the spicy, earthy aroma of myrrh filled his senses. 

He glanced at the man with a cane in the last pew. The shadows of his hood masked his face. 

Brutus sat across the aisle from a young woman. She wore a holographic metallic bomber jacket. Her platinum blond hair raced across her shoulders from the ponytail at the crown of her head. Vibrant chameleon eyeshadow painted her eyelids. Her futuristic, avant-garde style starkly contrasted Brutus’ resemblance to a math teacher from the 1920s. 

He began to organize his thoughts when the woman’s whispered prayer penetrated the space between them.

“Time moves so fast these days,” she started. “I feel like last year was only yesterday. Every morning, I wake up, and it’s a race against time—a race against the clock. I’m just always going and going and going. I don’t mean to complain but… does it ever stop? Will it ever slow down? Is there even one moment of peace out there for me?”

Brutus couldn’t believe his ears. A world where time moves too fast? A hole swelled in his heart, a hole of desperate, unquenchable yearning, a hole of envy. His eyes gleamed with wonder at the woman. 

“Amen,” she said.

She looked up suddenly at Brutus, feeling his stare. Her gaze fell across his young but weathered face. The way she looked at him wasn’t strange but vivid with a familiar intimacy. Brutus shut his eyes tight. He shook his head and went over to her. His hands trembled, glossy with sweat, and stuffed awkwardly in his pockets. 

“I’m sorry,” he laughed. “I didn’t mean to stare. I just overheard you… well, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop or anything. I just…” his shoulders sagged at his loss for words. “You think time goes too fast?”

Her brow creased. “Well, doesn’t it?”

He shrugged. “Not for me, no.” 

“That even possible?” 

“I was about to ask you the same thing, actually.”

She patted the seat beside her. He nodded in thanks and sat. They regarded each other with silent but indulgent fascination. 

“I’m Minerva, by the way.”

“Brutus,” he said.

“What does it feel like when everything’s just… slow and still?” she asked.

“Exhausting, really.”

“You serious? Time’s always flying by like crazy for me. At this point, I feel like I’m perpetually burned out. I can’t stop imagining what it would be like to sit in silence.” She closed her eyes, imagining. “Nowhere to go, nowhere to be. You’re just peaceful.”

“Frankly, the silence gets pretty loud after a while,” he admitted.

“You’re kidding me. You should try being me for a week.”

The hooded man strode down the aisle. His cane clicked across the floor, and he slid onto the bench behind Brutus and Minerva, unseen and ghost-quiet. He listened to them for a time before straightening and clearing his throat. They turned, looking back at him. 

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” the man said. His glazed, sightless eyes caught the light. “I just overheard you talking and…” he drifted away for a moment. “May I tell you something?”

Brutus leaned back. “Of course.”

“When you came here, asking God for help, did you ever think that maybe he’s already answered your prayers? Maybe neither of you is wrong, but rather, you are both right? Maybe you are both blessed?”

Brutus laughed. “Blessed how?” 

“What if you were in each other’s shoes and you both saw time as the other does and always had? Would you be out living day-to-day without an ounce of discontent? Or would you still be here in this church, telling God that the opposite would make you happy? Just a thought.” With that, the man stood, thanked them for listening, and wandered out the door into the cold winter air. 

But Brutus found himself stumbling over a jagged and curious notion commensurate to the blind man’s ideas: how much of a thing do we actually want, and how much is just the induced thrill of longing? Why do we thirst for something to hold transitory jurisdiction over the mind before it grows old and fades into a new, bold objective? Or could it be the longing that drives us on year by year? 

He smiled at Minerva, but her lips curved with an aching sadness.

“Well, um, I should be going,” she said.

“Yeah… yeah, of course.”

They stood and held each other’s eyes for an enchanted and breathless moment. Minerva fidgeted with a hesitance of unknown nature before she pulled him into an affectionate embrace. Brutus tensed with surprise.

“I wish you could remember us. But that was so long ago.” She spoke with the gentle essence of an old friend—a friend who vanished, a friend forgotten, a friend who only existed in a timeworn memory from a place beyond the past. Brutus couldn’t quite put his finger on it, and before he knew, she made her way down the nave toward the door.

“Minerva!” he called after her.

She looked back at him with that same wistful smile. 

“You remember me?”

She put a finger to her lips. “Shhhhh,” she whispered before slipping out the door.

He laughed to himself, those missing memories dancing just outside his reach. Yet he relished in the longing for them.