The Stairs

I was walking up the stairs, big white sandstone steps, and was headed somewhere where i knew I was not allowed. The section was primarily for VIP of the SPA/sporting facilities.
As i moved upwards i recognised a man, a man that would surely throw me out if he new i was not suppose to be there. However, this time he let me pass, with a grim smile on his face. I was very surprised, but turned left at the corner of the stairs and kept climbing upwards. I felt somewhat suspicious, as if something would turn in to a disturbing joke on my part. Blinded by my self-pride: that I had managed to fool the man on the lower steps, and kept me climbing higher and higher.
I had little clothes on considering that it was in the middle of winter. This did not concern me much since I was already inside - what did grab my attention was the fact that I held my hands in my one-pouch pocket on my sweater-dress, as if I was scared to loose what was inside it. I was holding on to my phone for dear life. And when I looked up I was more frightened by myself - the way i was protecting myself, as if i knew I was in over my head - than what I was facing. It was a man's face. The same face as the one that I meet in the lower part of the stair case. He tried to stop me from continuing climbing with an authoritarian intent.
But suddenly - I saw the expression on his face change, as if he just realised something, something up-stairs that would mean the end of my well being, if i continued climbing.
He asked me if i had any belongings, but pulled the question back in his mouth before i was able to answer, if I would have been able to find it within me to open my mouth, as he saw that all I was wearing was that nature green sweater-dress with only a one-pouch pocket, in which my hands where resting.
I was happy to have my phone with me still, since it represented my only safety if I chose to continue upwards.
I knew I had to, I felt like there was no turning back, even though the expressions I new was not of kindness but rather an expression of their dark sense of humour - they where enjoying the irony that I, who was not allowed at the top of the stairs, could not stop climbing, even though it was to my certain death - or at least the complete destruction of my character and personality.
I could not stop myself still, even though the contentment of the men on the stairs still burned my pride. I knew I had to continue, but then, when i had reached the top of the staircase the man yelled, with the same smile as i had seen on his face before - you cant use that in here, you know, this is a mass. His face was dark and his eyes were buring with an intense fire of contempt.
He had known about my phone all along, as he was smiling at me with evil in his eyes, I thought. Mass, what is mass, it cannot be the Christianity deal that I have been avoiding since my attempt to manage a confirmation ceremony, to get the presents in the end. The presents were not worth it then and would not be today.
I held on to my phone and considered to turn it to silent, i don't know why, but i didn't. I reasoned that I should keep a low profile in a place where the elite of the believers where masquerading their thirst for power as piousness.
As I walked through the hall that was slanted downwards away from the stairs, i noticed that the people who where there to take part in the mass where terrified of me. They did not act as if they where afraid but they whispered as I walked passed. To my surprise there were only women. They where shorter than me, and all wore robes in a creamy white heavy fabric that was dragged along as they turned their attention towards me. The hall seemed gloomy even though the candles where lit and the sandstone floor was brighter than usual.
I did not know what I was doing there, I only knew that, as i had feared on the stairs, I was in danger.
Because I was outnumbered by hundreds I felt a calm - contradicting as it sounds I felt at ease - I had not fallen into the pit of an organisation like this one, at least my mind was not there - I, atheist or not, had a higher moral ground than any of the robes in the room. Suddenly my fear was gone and I did nothing to leave the hall - or made any attempt to reach out at all. I sat on my stone bench in the back of the ice cold hall, abandoned by the women who was still staring from a distance, with eyes of hatred, hatred of the lord in hell rather than the lord above. But I was calm.