Shawn was only 29 but was one of the leading HVAC engineers in the state. They had built an innovative lab to mock up whole rooms at his company so they could observe how air would behave in new construction builds. He was an intern when he started but eight years later was in charge.
And he had been asked by his church if he would help give some recommendations as they were looking to get a new HVAC system. He had almost stopped coming to church because it had been so long since he had felt God. So most of the time he stood in the back just watching and waiting for the service to be over. He never felt the spirit moving him to raise his hands or anything, and he didn’t want to be insincere, so he never tried. He’d decided he'd wait on God, but God had never come.
And so here he sat in the back of the room, staring at a bottle of water (except he had just finished it off). He was holding it, resting on his knee, as everyone was else standing and singing to the worship music.
He set the cap on and noticed how the vibrations stopped. He took it back off and raised his eyebrows at how much the bottle vibrated at some of the notes the band played. He had never noticed this law of nature before, but he thought it related tangentially to his career so he should notice these things.
He was used to monitoring air flow in a room, but this project had engaged new sides of physics he usually didn't think about. For one, the vibrations in a room filled with music. Another: he was noticing fluctuating heat in each person, depending on what songs and which parts of songs they were singing. He held his phone camera up with the attached infrared lens to look at the room. And it seemed the heat swept through the people in the room in waves. He had just watched the red flare up in bodies on the left side and the color moved to the right side.
He turned a knob on the phone’s lens attachment, which enabled visibility to electro-magnetic fields, which he had never used before but the capability had come with the device so he thought it might be interesting to have a look.
Oh, now this was interesting. Was that… wait, was it? Yeah, he could see a slight rotation and rising of the field around most people, like tiny cyclones. It also moved as a whole through the room, in a clockwise direction as it flowed through each person. It seemed to be propelled more through certain individuals… individuals who were… raising their arms, or oh there was a lot coming from that one who was kneeling. And then others seemed to block the flow, like that pastor who was on his phone.
Those who had their mouths closed seemed to block the flow more than those with it open. He thought of the open bottle and how it vibrated so much more.
Just then the setting sunlight coming through the large cathedral windows lit the room up in a beautiful magic hour orange and seemed to glow in the room right as they were hitting a new sincere and heart-wrenching chorus in the music. People saw it and smiled. They leaned into the music more.
Just then he saw interesting movement happening with the dust moving through the light rays. It picked up in speed, going almost sideways. He clicked the camera lens back to the infrared view and a gasp escaped him.
There were little balls, or more like little tear drops on heat forming above certain people’s heads, whipping upward as if the electro-magnetic waves were sweeping it up with them, and the swirling balls of heat were almost jumping to others from the folks that had it.
He saw these strange balls of red approaching him. He was collecting so much remarkable data, but he realized the spirit he had been longing for, for so long, was coming near. He set his bulky phone onto the pew next to him and he looked at the people around him.
He slowly raised his hands.
He started humming the tune.
He tore his eyes away from the other people and looked up and then closed his eyes as he opened his mouth.
He let his voice join into the tide that was already rising among the people around him. He took off his hat and let it fall to the floor as he prayed, God, I’m sorry for doubting. I want to feel you. But knowing you are there is enough for me. I'm sorry I had neglected to do my part.
Raw Spoon, June 12, 2024
Dallas, Tx.
So random and weird ross!