"The Passing Days Only Brighten" Response

          Butch Godfrey is the mayor of Rhodesia, Alabama, a small town devastated by a tornado. In the wreckage, Butch discovers the body of Carver Belvoire, and is deeply shaken. The recovery efforts begin under the aegis of Reverend Jeremy Kelworth, Butch’s anticipated rival for the Rhodesia mayorship, as community tension builds. 

There were a lot of things I really admired about “The Passing Days Only Brighten.” I love the correlation between the Biblical books that Pastor Kelworth chooses to preach from and the tiny town shaken up senselessly by an event seemingly at the hand of God. I think this could be played up even more, perhaps with some of the weirder stuff from Revelations, because the creepy parallels are pretty much endless there. Along the same line, I think the image of the two churches, Rhodesia Baptist and the Redeemed Apostolic Church of the Penecost (great name) facing each other, one ruined and one intact, across the road. I’d like to see this image surface again nearer to the end of the story. One last thing I admired was how certain elements of the story, like subtle weather description, repeated themselves in a way that was noticeable but meaningful. In one place, weather description is used to signal the passage of time (“When the sky turned purple and orange”), which is understandable for a town so heavily affected by it. 

One issue I had with this story is a desire to know more about the protagonist. How did Butch end up the mayor for over a decade, as alienated as he seems to be from the town’s other inhabitants? Does he or did he have a family? The reader is teased with the information that “His house had room for at least four people, but he lived alone.” What is his background with religion, since he seems to have a wariness for it approaching antipathy? Not all these questions need to be explicitly answered, but as I reader I would like more information about Butch. The only other significant issue I have with this story is the ending. I was a little caught off guard by the suddenness with which the ending arrived. The sections leading up to the conclusion focus on Butch’s alienation and apprehension about the eventual mayoral battle, and the last paragraph seems to continue this theme. However, the introduction of the artifacts of Carver Belvoire’s past (especially the yellowed letter that seems to suggest that his son had something to do with the death of Carver’s wife, if I’m not reading too much into it) doesn’t seem powerful enough to provoke the physical reaction they do in Butch, with his “senses blurring.” If they’re not intended to have a powerful effect, then I question why they are included, or how they facilitate a change in Butch’s character.