I Am The Local Atheist Read Online Free

and design not seen around here before. But a
voice that cries out in the wild without recognition in one town,
may just be the voice that is heard above all others in another. To
encourage her, will you please welcome Miss Callasandra
Schuar.”
    A young woman
with dark tousled hair and a solid, but not large – ‘cushiony’ as
an old friend would say – body stepped up in front of the ribbon
that led to her exhibition with an assured smile on her face.
    “ Thank you so much for coming.” She pulled her hair away from
her eyes with a single finger. “First I guess I should thank the
Polytech for supporting me as a student and my awesome tutor who
suggested this exhibition, but also the curator who agreed to it.
It’s hard when you are an artist working on your own, but with the
constant collaborating between the Polytech and the gallery that I
hear so much about, I couldn’t help but think what an awesome
opportunity that would be to present these new works. Having an
exhibition has been made so much easier!
    “ This was not the case in my hometown of Auckland, where
sometimes it really did feel like I was a voice crying out in the
wild: unheard and unappreciated. But here in Invercargill I never
truly felt like I was alone. But with that sense of support I also
found something else that seemed to inspire more detail in these
paintings, and you may recognise aspects of your own town here in
these works. I hope you do, but also appreciate how they are
depicted.
    “ Thanks again, to the gallery,” the curator and host nodded
politely, “my fellow students,” a set of starving faces lifted
their heads from the snack tables momentarily “my tutors, and all
of you art enthusiasts that have turned up here tonight. Thank
you.”
    She nodded
some more and stepped to the side as the crowd gave a round of
applause and the host stepped up with a pair of scissors offering
them to Callasandra to cut the ribbon. She took them, smiled as
some photos were taken and proceeded to cut the ribbon that would
open the door to the rest of her life… as they say.
    I waited for
the crowd to disperse. Lisa managed to slip back into her own group
of friends without saying anything more to me. I left my corner and
began weaving my way through some of the bodies to have a look at
the work that hung on the far wall.
    There were
some smug looking people on one side and then some others with
their hands over their mouths on the other – some of these were
turning away in disgust, others were wide eyed and trying not to
laugh. What could be in those paintings that were dividing the room
before me? What would they represent to me, a disillusioned young
man trying to escape his past? Trying desperately to forget
everything that had caused him such isolation in the world?
    I walked up to
the first painting as though it was some kind of monolith waiting
to transport me into another world where I could evolve into a
higher state of being and not care for the banalities of everyday
life; something that I had longed for for so long but had somehow
eluded me here on earth. But the painting remained as an
impenetrable reminder of the world that I did live in and that had
cruelly cast out the knowledge of Jesus that I had once known.
    I didn’t like it. There was something nasty that was trying to
reach out from its stark black background and engulf the viewer. It
scared me so I moved to the next only to find vicious images
suggesting anger and frustration directed quite clearly at a
religious target. As I moved from painting to painting, I started
feeling a deep and penetrating reminder of what I had done, yet
there wasn’t a single painting that I could point to and say this is it, this is the statement that the artist
is trying to make – about me . The images
were so obviously making a statement towards an event that, by the
looks on the faces, most of the audience knew about, but no one
could possibly tell from one single picture that hung on