The Chapel 

They officially named it The Chapel of the Sisters Without Mercy the day the corner stone was laid.  It took one year to complete, during which no one was killed, no one injured, nobody lost their job or was hired away.  There were no sick days.  No lunches were cold or wet, no miracles performed or needed, no complaints or disgruntlements snaked through the girders like Fagan’s boys.  No material was stolen at night, there were no overages, and nothing ever found to be out of plumb.  A project of intolerable boredom. 

She hesitated at the top of the stone steps deciding whether to knock.  The Sisters did not appear to be in, but who can tell from the outside of a Chapel?  Recently afflicted by the stigmata, she was exhausted and drawn to a place where no one would find her interesting. 

She knocked on the great slab doors.  No one responded, though at her touch the doors swung open easily.  An engine of satisfaction coiled through her.  She stepped into the dark, lifting and shifting her arms ahead of her.  Her feet rose and moved with her hands as if attached to them by strings, moving sketchily ahead, guided to the interior by the light streaming through them.