- Janna Barber
A Sacred Quarantine

I sat in a room with the four white walls, pristine painted pews, and a
cushion on the bench—worn through, but still padded enough for
comfort—and watched people moving up the aisle, one after
the other, to stand before the rector.
“Remember that you are dust,” he told them, stirring oily ashes inside
a clay goblet. “And to dust you will return,” he said, crossing each forehead with a sign.
Yes, there goes another one, I thought, as a woman in soft brown stockings
and pale cotton khakis walked back to her seat.
Oh, no! He has it too, I startled, as a handsome young man brushed
aside shiny black hair, revealing a charcoal smudge.
It seemed as though every person in the building, every heart left
beating in that bright sanctuary, was dying of this sickness, called
humanity.
Even I will go into the ground someday, I reminded myself,
examining the patients around me; but I didn’t believe it. Not really
that is. Not until I looked into those priestly eyes myself, and felt the
slow, earthen movement of his warm and dirty thumb.