The Lesson

**

— It must have been a church, too, at one point, said Loring.

— How come?

— Well, look at the pews. And that’s the place where the altar would have been.

It would have been a small church, if a church it had been, perhaps some Quaker meetinghouse of sorts. There was room for perhaps fifty people, certainly not many more. In fact, at that moment, the place was empty.

— Take your seats, take your seats, murmured the doorman.

Somehow, he had come up behind them.

Loring and Stan sat in the first row, facing an empty stage. Behind the stage was a large window of painted glass on which many birds had suddenly alighted from the grass of a field.

A bell rang, then, and the show began.