Evans knocked at the massive cathedral door, the sound echoing faintly through the cold stone silence. Nothing happened. He tapped his foot, checked the watch and was about to knock again, when the door opened. An older lady in a nun’s black and white clothes smiled at the two-person crew.
They were led through the corridors of the church, looking around, wondering why no one made it into a supermarket yet. There was certainly enough space… someone just needs to move all the wooden benches to the side… probably get rid of all those strange windows with folks painted on them—maybe replace them with screens?
“This way please.”
Evans blinked, jolted from his commercial wonders. “Ah, of course,” Evans said, following the nun into a small cabinet.
It was a cozy room with a huge window on one side and a humble sofa with few chairs on the other. The cameraman stared at the library by the wall, so surprised, he heard the nun coughing only after her third try. This time much louder than a respectable lady has any business coughing. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he said, molding his jacket. “Just surprised, that’s all. Those are books, right? Like paper books?”
“Indeed.” The nun smiled, before grabbing him by the hand and firmly moving away from the library. “As you can imagine, they are rather rare.”
Before seating herself, she asked if they wished for cookies or tea. She seemed so motherly, both of them wondered if they would need to ask for permission to go to the toilet later. A cup of tea and a few cookies later, they were ready to start.
Evans cleared his throat. “So, Sister Mary,” he started, “just need to have some papers signed. When is the owner coming?”
“I am not sure what you are talking about darling. The Lord is above us all.”
Stolen story; please report.
“Ah, yeah, sure,” Evans said, looking around, scratching his head. “We have just some docs to sign; like that you can’t sue us for what we record… that kind of thing. Who usually does these things. Is there a CEO of this… what do you call it?”
“A church, dear.”
“Oh, yeah… right. So who is the CEO of this church? We send the docs online, but your accounts are… well, offline.”
“We don’t have any computers here I am afraid,” Sister Mary said with a smile. “But, if there are documents to sign, I believe I can be of help.”
“You are the CEO of this church?” Evans eyed Sister Mary. She was clearly not what he imagined a proper CEO to look like.
“I am the Abbess of this church, my dear. It’s my responsibility to deal with the outside world, so sisters can focus on praying.”
“Works for me.” Evans shrugged and handed her the paperwork. Everything settled, camera prepared—they were ready to start the interview.
After an annoyingly smug intro Evans turned to the nun. “So Sister Mary, what’s the deal with your church?”
“Well, my dear.” Sister Mary smiled, putting down a smoking mug of tea. “We believe that technology is rather unhelpful in attaining peace. We follow the Lord’s will and dedicate our time to prayer and meditation.”
“How curious!” Evans said, widening his eyes in a mocking surprise. The cameraman rolled his eyes, but sister Marry just smiled and sipped on her tea. “If you don’t mind me asking,” Evans continued. “What does your day even look like? How do you survive without the miracles of the modern age?”
“It’s nothing complicated, really.” Sister Mary said with a smile, the kind of a smile a teacher gives to a preschool child who’s just brushed its teeth without help. “We pray most of the morning, then we eat breakfast and work on our communal garden. Afternoons are for helping those in need and evenings for tending the church.”
Even before Sister Mary finished, Evans jumped in front of the camera, waving his hands and grinning like a monkey that can’t find its banana.
“There you see it folks! Those nuns, right? Just spend the days helping around? And they don’t ask for payment? Have you heard that before? Unbelievable! But don’t you worry folks. We will follow Sister Mary around and find out how it really is!” Throughout Evans’ overexcited rambling, Sister Mary calmly drank her tea and smiled at the camera, nodding as if the whole ordeal went exactly as she intended. Which, in fact, it did. From her perspective, it was Lord’s plan, of course, but Sister Mary had a significant planning hand in this particular Lord’s plan.