A flash

Lightning struck the spire, then stayed, stretched across the sky like a nerve. On cold days it stretched out taut and thrummed in the wind; on warm days it curled lazily around the sky. Before long we found we were navigating by it, without thinking: it framed our space the way the bells framed our time. And the easiest place to navigate to was the church, so blinding bright inside that you could not step through the doors.