By Rae Strunk

There are rats in the church house. It’s a terribly old thing with uneven wooden walls and a creaky screen door. They show me the latest victim. His neck is unnaturally crooked in the mouse trap, and they throw his body into the woods.

That night, we are all singing and dancing by the altar, clapping our hands and stomping our feet and shaking the church house on its foundations. Hearing the commotion and shaken from sleep, the rats might gather at the hole in broken wooden trim, unaware of their brother’s fate. They might watch us from the back of the church as we spin. They might shake each other’s hands, practicing the motions of fellowship.

One brave soul might scramble out of the hole. He might hide behind wooden pews and press himself flush with the wall. He wants to twirl underneath the women’s flowing skirts and shuffle across the floor with the men’s dress shoes. To gaze up at their smiling faces haloed by the golden overhead lights like holy angels. He might want so desperately to be His child as he looks upon the portrait of His face on the wall.

He might scurry along the trim, longing to spin under the watchful eye of God and to feel holy like those standing above him, if only for a brief moment. Instead, he might come across a trap set out along the wall underneath a pew with temptation ready to be taken.

“Oh, how wonderful,” he might say. A gift, he might think, left just for us.

The pounding of our shoes on the dusty wooden floors might drown out the sound of metal snapping down over his neck. It might conceal the sound of tiny paws scrambling back into hiding. 

In his final moments, as his breath runs short, he understands he might never be holy. As he lays there against the wall, hidden by a pew and watching the people dance, he knows he is just a rat hiding in a church house. He might wonder if this desperate search for salvation makes him any better than that. Is this death Christ’s pity on his sorrowful undeserving soul? Does laying here in the shadow of their dancing and praise make him the tiniest bit holy, even for a moment?

We don’t find him until next Sunday. They show me his body once more, and this time they throw him in the creek like a sick sort of baptism. I wonder if, as he floats through the water, does he finally feel holy? Does the water still cleanse your guilt, even in death? And I wonder if he might scramble his way up those stairs. I wonder if He might be waiting to welcome his creature in. I wonder if He might stand at the gate and say, “My poor creature. Do not be mistaken. You were always holy.”

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Rae is 17 years old and was born and raised in Tennessee. They’ve enjoyed writing and art from a very young age, and they intend to study art and writing throughout college and to hopefully make a career out of both.