I wrote this for a class in college
“Chicken Soup for the Soulless”
Karl sat up on the luxurious red plush carpeted floor so that Brenna could pop another tasteless morsel into his mouth. The food provided absolutely no sustenance and Karl doubted that it ever did, but he ate it anyway out of an appreciation for irony. Brenna's hair hung from the ornate wooden table above him. She was lying on her back so that she saw him upside down. From where Karl munched the bit of tasteless white food, the tinted light that was blasted from what was left of the once beautiful windows highlighted her hair.
"More wine?" Brenna produced a silver chalice.
"Sure." Karl took the chalice and took a heavy gulp of the potent sanguine brew.
Thousands had died in this place, sitting on the uncomfortable wooden planks or upon their knees in between. They screamed for mercy, while the statues of their gods and heroes looked on in impotence. The building was no more than a Luby's cafeteria with gothic archways. The towering walls that were designed to carry words of wisdom to the heavens had been the echo chamber for the damned as the living were torn to pieces by the dead. The red carpet in the aisles was stained brown with their blood forever.
"What do you think went through their heads when they died?" Brenna mumbled through a mouthful of the flat, bland wafers and red wine.
"A bullet if they were lucky." Karl frowned. "More likely, it was something like, 'These wafers stink, why didn't we order a pizza?'“
Brenna giggled and stuffed a stack of the treats into Karl's mouth. "Could be that they realized that they had been sitting out there their whole lives, listening to some guy up here on stage and eating the body and blood of a dead guy and now the dead guys are eating them. Dickens couldn't have done it better."
"That candle's going out." Karl pointed at the array of long tapered candles that were slowly burning near Brenna's perch. She took the long silver pole with the wick on the end and lit the one that had blown out. They both stood up and stared into each other's eyes. Karl smiled a little and Brenna looked away like she always did when Karl gave her an endearing look.
"Stop it," Brenna smiled a little too. "It's embarrassing."
Karl just smiled even more. "Thank you." he said softly.
"I'm glad I stuck around and that was mostly because of what you said. You mean alot to me." Brenna just looked down shyly and wrapped her arms around him.
Suddenly there was the sound of gunfire outside. They looked up, collectively rolled their eyes and reached for their weapons, which rested against the pulpit.
"In the name of the Father," Karl popped one last wafer into his mouth. "And the Son."
"In the Hole He Goes!" Brenna chimed in as she slung her M-16 onto her back and kicked open the wide double doors that lead back to the outside and the cruel world.
