After a barrage of knocking and several persistent buzzer prods, I relented and opened the apartment door.

“Yes! What?!”

“Good afternoon Sir, how are you on this blessed day?”

Crammed into the hallway were a smiling cluster of figures in what could only be described as funeral garb. The men wore dark suits and dark ties, the women dark crepe and shawls, all of which clashed bizarrely with their beaming smiles.

I felt my anger slacken into bewilderment and fumbled for a response, “Yeah – I’m good, thanks. Uh, how are you?”

“Marvelous. Just marvelous. Aren’t we everybody?” A chorus of vigorous nodding. Then a pronounced pause. They continued to beam. I forced a polite smile in response. No one offered an explanation.

“So. How can I help you?”

“Help us? No, no, we're here to help you Mr Jones”

“How do you know my—?”.

He waggled a stack of envelopes. “Hope you don’t mind. We thought we’d take the liberty of picking them up for you on our way in.”

“Right. Thanks.”

I scrutinized my well-mannered interlocutor. He seemed pleasant enough really: clean cut, friendly, immaculately polite, so much so he had still not unclasped his hands from behind his back.

“Anywho. I am brother Simon and this here is our humble little congregation,” he continued. “We come here today from The Church of the Weeping Wound. Do you know us? No? Well in that case, we have Liza, Charles, Jonathan —” he glanced back at the throng and thought better than to name them all. “And that fellow there,” he gestured to a titan of a man lurking by the complex’s gate, “is Peter.” Peter glowered in acknowledgement.

“Do you have a couple of minutes?”

“Not really, I’m actually quite — ”

“Oh it won’t take long,” he swept onwards. “Now do pardon my intrusiveness here. But we’re all eager to know. Have you found our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

“Yes. We’re all Methodists thanks. Is that all?”

“No, excuse me if I wasn’t clear just now.” The syrupy sweetness of his drawl hardened into something grave. “Have you found him?”

I glanced behind the door. Finger pressed against his lips, eyes white and wide. He stared at me in a silent, urgent plea.

“You see, we’ve had some reports, and well, we’re under the impression that someone here has likely found him by now.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

His eyes narrowed. The congregation straightened into alertness. In the corner of my vision, I saw the man behind the door press himself back into the corner. Several seconds passed. Then, Brother Simon began to nod solemnly. His drawl returned, “No, no. My mistake. A fine Methodist like yourself, of course you've found the way already."

“Is that all?”

He nodded and turned over his shoulder.“Peter,” he called out tenderly to the giant at the end of the corridor.

“Yes, Father.”

“Guard the gate.”