Part 1: The Gathering
The conference room was beige. Aggressively beige. Beige walls, beige carpet, beige chairs in rows like stoic little soldiers preparing for an ecumenical war. The only thing that wasn’t beige was the pedestal in the center—obsidian black and so pristine it looked like a Photoshop layer in real life. Atop it, glowing with the sort of radiance usually reserved for divine revelations or high-budget fantasy props, sat a golden chalice.
Nobody had spoken yet. That was probably the most miraculous thing about the moment.
Pastor John stood rigidly in the back, arms folded like someone dared him to be comfortable. His deacon hovered near the hose they’d dragged in for an illustrated baptism demonstration (“only if necessary,” John had growled). Beside them, Sister Louise clutched a hymnal like a weapon, her eyebrows sharp enough to shave the sin off anyone who looked at her sideways.
Across the room, Pastor Maria practically vibrated. “It’s Holy,” she whispered, hands outstretched like she was about to catch a Spirit-induced football. Behind her, a young guitarist strummed a D-chord that hung in the air like a question, while another woman began whispering in tongues, lips moving so fast they blurred.
Elder Sarah adjusted her glasses and stared at the chalice like it was an overpriced paperweight. Next to her, a solemn-faced young man held a silver tray with exactly one communion wafer on it, like he was offering it to the concept of moderation.
Bishop Thomas, ever the picture of serenity in his tailored gray robe, hummed a hymn under his breath and gently ushered his quartet into quiet harmony. “Amazing Grace” leaked softly into the stale air.
Rev. Elizabeth arrived precisely four minutes late and immediately began organizing the seating by Reformed hierarchy. “Predestination, left aisle. Open communion, to the right,” she said, waving her gavel at confused bishops.
And then came Bishop Catherine—robes flowing, cross glinting, and a choirboy in tow who already tripped once over his own cassock. The scent of frankincense wafted from her censer bearer like holy cologne. When she saw the chalice, she gasped and clasped her hands like a widow in a BBC drama. “Sanctified,” she murmured.
That’s when the room erupted in polite, chaotic reverence.
“It’s just a cup,” John barked, already halfway through a mental sermon about idolatry. “Probably gold-plated garbage.”
Maria clapped her hands. “No! Don’t you feel it? The presence! It’s humming!” She bent down and whispered into the floor, speaking in what sounded like a mix of Aramaic and emotional jazz.
“Or maybe it’s a symbol,” Sarah offered flatly. “We over-symbolize. It’s probably symbolic of over-symbolizing.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Elizabeth snapped. “It is clearly providential. Predestined to appear at this very gathering, for this very moment. As Calvin would say—”
“Calvin would say we should sit down,” Thomas interrupted, with the patience of a shepherd herding theological goats. He turned to the choir and gave them a nod; they responded with a soft doxology that seemed to hang awkwardly in the rising tension.
Catherine knelt before the chalice, murmuring the Nicene Creed with almost erotic reverence. The censer boy accidentally swung smoke into his own eyes and began coughing.
Then the absurdity escalated like a worship service with no off switch.
Maria began “Holy Spirit dancing,” a soft shuffle with arms waving above her head, while the guitarist launched into an unrequested solo. John, muttering about “nonsense,” looked about ready to use the hose. Sarah’s wafer guy offered communion to the choirboy, who looked spiritually overwhelmed. Elizabeth struck her gavel once, calling for silence like a judge in a courtroom of sinners. Bishop Thomas, ever the peacemaker, poured tea from his thermos into porcelain cups he mysteriously carried at all times.
“I believe the chalice is meant for grace,” he said, sipping.
“I believe it’s meant for deconstruction,” John growled.
“I believe it’s meant for activation,” Maria said with eyes closed and palms trembling.
“I believe it’s meant for pageantry,” Catherine whispered dreamily, as the censer swung wide again and hit the guitarist in the shin.
Silence followed. Brief, thick silence, the kind you can stir with a theological spoon.
Then Sarah sighed. “This is going to be a long meeting.”
Part 2: The Argument Erupts
It started with a prayer.
Or something prayer-adjacent.
Pastor Maria had dropped to her knees again, this time closer to the chalice. Her arms were out, her voice trembling. “Spirit, descend. Touch this cup—anoint it anew!”
The glow intensified.
A low hum filled the room. Not mechanical, not musical—mystical. The chalice pulsed like a heartbeat.
Everyone froze.
Then Maria lunged.
She grabbed the chalice with both hands like she’d just found the Holy Grail at a yard sale. The moment she touched it, her face lit up as if Pentecost had broken out in her bloodstream.
John moved like a linebacker. “Get your hands off that thing!”
He yanked it.
They tussled—briefly, awkwardly. Maria shrieked, “You’re quenching the Spirit!” as John grunted something about idol worship. In the scuffle, the chalice slipped, hit the edge of the pedestal, and dented with a clunk that sounded sacrilegious.
Then it rolled.
Right off the pedestal, across the carpet, glowing like radioactive honey. Everyone gasped like they were watching Moses drop the tablets.
The light flared. A flash.
Then came the shouting.
“You’ve desecrated it!” Catherine shouted, clutching her cross like it might call down angelic reinforcements. She grabbed the nearest thing—Thomas’s teapot—and flung water at John. It hit his chest with a splash.
He didn’t flinch. “Is that supposed to be holy water?”
“It’s Earl Grey!” she barked.
Elizabeth slammed her gavel on a table. “Order! Order!” The choirboy tripped again and landed face-first into a pile of hymnals.
Maria scrambled after the chalice, which now rolled under the refreshment table, glowing brighter as if mocking everyone.
Then the hose came out.
John barked, “Deacon! Ready the spray!” The deacon, long since thrilled by the chance to use church equipment indoors, uncoiled the green garden snake like a man preparing for spiritual pest control.
Water burst forth, soaking the nearest stack of notes, and hitting Sarah’s wafer tray midair. Tiny communion discs flew like Eucharistic frisbees.
Sarah gasped. “You wet the Word!”
“No—I washed away your ritual,” John bellowed, positively glowing with Baptist indignation.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Maria squared off.
“You undermine order with your ecstatic babble,” Elizabeth snapped, her gavel tapping like a metronome of judgment.
“And you suffocate the Spirit with your dried-up liturgy!” Maria countered, arms flailing as the guitarist started strumming again—nervous energy turned melodic chaos.
Thomas tried to step in. “Please, can we focus on grace?”
“Don’t you start with your cheap grace again!” Sarah snapped, pointing at him with the authority of someone who had memorized every footnote in the New Revised Standard Version.
He blinked. “I was just offering tea.”
The censer swung wildly, smoke clouding the air like spiritual smog. Coughing broke out. Someone yelled, “I can’t breathe!” and someone else yelled, “That’s the Spirit!”
Papers flew. The chalice lit up like a Vegas sign. Even the janitor, who peeked in at the commotion, muttered “Nope” and closed the door again.
And through it all, the chalice rolled.
It slipped through hands, dodged between chairs, even avoided a thrown hymnal. It spun like it had a mind of its own, daring them all to figure out what it meant, what it wanted.
Maria saw a miracle.
John saw a trap.
Catherine saw a relic.
Sarah saw nonsense.
Thomas saw confusion.
Elizabeth saw divine judgment—and poor planning.
But none of them saw what the chalice actually was.
Yet.
Part 3: The Silence Between
The hose had been shut off.
The guitarist’s strings lay limp, waterlogged and twanging pitifully. The censer had burned out on the carpet, a tiny ring of charred fuzz marking where it gave up the ghost. A half-crushed hymnal steamed on a radiator, leaking blue ink like bruised theology.
The chalice, now dented and sitting on its side like a toppled idol, pulsed dimly—less divine, more embarrassed.
Security had arrived about five minutes too late and five gallons too calm. With stares as flat as drywall, they began escorting the drenched, smoke-scented, and theologically shell-shocked clergy out of the room one by one.
“Let go of me—I am a bishop!” Catherine yelled as her censer boy sneezed uncontrollably behind her.
Maria was still muttering in tongues, now subdued, like the Spirit was exhausted too.
John, soaked and fuming, turned back toward the chalice as he was dragged out. “Let that be a lesson. No ritual, no relic, no righteousness outside the blood of Jesus!”
Sarah followed behind him, muttering, “We came here for unity…” She shook her head, her voice breaking, “And we couldn’t even agree on a cup.”
Elizabeth marched like she was leading a church committee off a cliff, gavel in hand, muttering about doctrinal clarity and divine sovereignty.
Thomas lingered.
He looked at the chalice, now dim and awkward on the floor like a failed centerpiece. “We meant well,” he said softly, half to himself, half to God. “Didn’t we?”
No answer.
Only the soft wheeze of the air vent.
He was the last to leave, the door hissing closed behind him.
For a moment, the room was still.
Utterly, profoundly still.
And then—
The air shifted.
Not with the cloying incense or the electric scent of performance, but with something… darker. Like burnt paper. Or sulfur dressed in Sunday clothes.
A shape emerged from the far corner, where shadows had lingered longer than they should. A man—if you could call him that—strode into the empty space, all polished shoes, three-piece suit, and an unlit cigar chomped between perfect teeth.
Another followed behind him, awkwardly hunched, scribbling in a leather notebook with the desperation of an intern on his first day.
“Well, that was glorious,” said the first. His voice was silk over broken glass.
The second peeked out from behind thick glasses. “You think it worked, sir?”
“Oh, Wormwood,” the first said, patting the other on the head. “It sparkled. One cup, and they tore themselves apart. Pride. Doctrine. Denominational dander. It’s like jazz—discordant, but beautiful.”
Wormwood adjusted his notes. “I especially liked when the wafers went airborne.”
“Yes, charming. It’s always the little touches.”
They stared at the chalice together.
“Think they’ll blame us?” Wormwood asked.
Screwtape grinned, cigar between his teeth. “They never do.”
They turned, coats swishing like old church banners.
“Next time,” Screwtape mused, “let’s try a cross. Or maybe a relic with ‘authentic’ Apostle toenails. That should get the Anglicans and the Pentecostals swinging.”
Wormwood nodded. “Brilliant, sir. Diabolical, really.”
Screwtape winked. “Naturally.”
With a puff of sulfur-scented smoke, they vanished.
The janitor shuffled in a minute later, mop squeaking against the soaked carpet. He looked around, sighed, and muttered, “Christians are weird.”
The chalice gave one last flicker of glow—then went completely dark.
