The word "lacuna" can point to so many different types of gaps or openings: "between one breath and the next," the interminable wait for a lover to reply, or the emptiness that is not yet adequately occupied by God. This is also called back to from the end of the story where "The hollow in my chest remained, but it was no longer a void."

The concept of a space being defined by abstracts is not new in and of itself. We often read about the rooms of the heart, or the wastelands of the mind (mine is, anyway, with winds blowing across the vast emptiness most of the time ). It felt to me that Christ offers salvation, but that salvation is not necessarily defined as heaven and angels and cotton-candy clouds; rather, in this piece, salvation is simply the fulfillment of a need. The character is looking to fill that gap. Afterlife be damned (or not), Christ save us from this emptiness.

The color of the atmosphere is like "the inside of a closed eyelid." One must close one's physical eyes to travel into oneself; and what else do we do when we close our eyes? Why, some of us pray, some of us go looking for Christ. We see through a glass darkly, as it is written somewhere, through a "twilight" during our searches or supplications for God.

As mentioned, I was raised Catholic, and the allusion to the images of the Church are striking and evocative, the smells of: "old stone" of the man-made grandiose cathedrals and churches; the "melting wax" of ceremonial prayer candles--watch your pleas go up in smoke, kids; the "coppery hint of spent miracles," the scent of blood, the smell of the blood dripping from the cross as the Orthodox Christ dies in one final miraculous transformation from human to divine. This was one of my favorite passages because of its deft, minimalist tough while making an enormous point. It also sets up the contrast of the Unorthodox Christ that is eventually discovered.

The navigation of the human, orthodox, accepted understandings of Jesus intimates to the reader that these images are rubber stamps, cookie cutters that apply to everybody and nobody at the same time, like Halloween costumes. They're excuses to hide behind. The eyes that see nothing hint at insincerity, and the concept of transactional salvation again echoes a prevailing philosophy: grovel for my love, quid pro quo. And all of these images speak to routine, to ceremony, to rote recitation without feeling—a group of people searching for a salvation but never having identified the need that salvation needs to satisfy. Just deeds without faith, and statues without souls.

The main character says his "world was already ash." We have no context of this in the beginning, but one wonders if "the terrifying weight of a sleeping child's trust" was somehow betrayed. A child died in a fire? Was injured, taken, somehow not protected. The reader cannot know for sure, but the possibility is enticing.

"I was seeking a witness." The bible cites Jesus as telling us to visit the sick and the imprisoned. Isn't that what's being asked for here? "See me, I am sick; know me, for I am a prisoner." This resonated very deep within me, articulating a feeling I had no vocabulary for before reading this. We are all prisoners, too, of "shameful failures." Those everyday realities are plainly listed, but devastatingly accurate. For me, "the slow, quiet cowardice" about knocked me out of my chair. How many times have I thought, "I should help," but waited for someone else to do it, or just passed by with some thin excuse in the front of my mind. Shameful failures of quiet cowardice. Absolutely brilliant.

"I needed a god who understood the ache of a bad back..." If we were made in God's image, then the form of God to which we can most fully relate is a human god, whose back hurts sometimes, who gets pissed off at the money lenders but also feels the grief of a friend who is starving. The simple instances you use to highlight the concept—I can't put it any better than you already have. We just need a human God.

"I found him where the light gave up entirely..." What a wonderful metaphor for finding Christ in the darkness of our despair. It is subtle, not heavy-handed. Excellent!

We are given the description, again, of a human god, something flawed and worn and tired, "not from dramatic suffering," just from life's disappointment. And if we think about it, God must be disappointed by all the menial sins and petty sufferings for which he must be the balm. Is he disappointed in us, as the Church proclaims? Or is he disappointed for us, with us? Personally, I hope it's the latter.

It is said that misery loves company, but I think it is more accurate to say that misery seeks company. It seeks others who understand—not so they can make things better by sharing the load, but by simply witnessing and understanding the person's state. One wonders if the narrator identifies with this broken, tired Christ "acquainted with grief...as the familiar, worn-out coat he wore every day," or if Christ identifies with him.

That sensation of finally being known, understood is nicely understated. The knowing and feeling known is interactive, it is a silent communication to and from, distinctly non-transactional. "You are here, and I am here, and we know each other now. I see you for what you are, and I show you what I am." The physical touch is important, too, standing for a personal connection to God—something the Grand Statues will not tolerate. (Ever try to touch a statue of Jesus in a church? Yeah...not a good response the prelates and legates and other good children of the Mother Church.) It's a beautiful portrayal of faith outside the constraints of religion. We also get the message that the true Christ sees through to the bare truth: "not my potential, not my sin, but my sheer, unvarnished is-ness."

Again, we hear the echo of the biblical Christ's urging for us to visit the imprisoned and the sick: "He offered to sit with me in the un-fixedness." The next line just about sums up the life and purpose of Christ: "His grace was in his shared fracture, his divinity in his impeccable, heartbreaking adequacy." Christ's gift is us knowing he was human, knowing he's been where we are. If he could be saved from the abysses, maybe we can, too. If Christ can be broken and flawed like the statue, and still be holy, then maybe so can we.

Christ—salvation—once found cannot be unfound. "When I finally withdrew my hand, the connection did not break." That hole, that gap is now occupied by this knowing friend. The loneliness of being the only person to feel whatever way is assuaged; the heart and the soul are saved from starving to death or smothering under the weight of alone-ness. And that human, everyday salvation is what the narrator brings out of the dark and carries with him for the rest of his days.

And it all takes place in the blink of an eye. That sudden discovery of what is needed most happens in an instant and can't be undone. But we have to be willing to more than just seek for a savior; we must also be prepared to find.

As I finished this story, I wondered if this wasn't some sort of test for the narrator, as well, something like Indiana Jones identifying the Holy Grail. Was it a challenge to the narrator to select the true Christ, or just the one that fit his needs the most? Is there one true Christ, one that is the same and available to everyone? Are the pious, the vengeful, the superior Christs decoys for those who aren't really seeking the salvation of a deep and personal connection? The story doesn't say, but it feels to me like that could be very, very true.

First and foremost, your tense agreement is all over the place. You flip-flop between past and present frequently, and not in a good way. I strongly urge you to pick one tense and stick with it. Either something happened or it's happening. It's important you decide way you're going to tell the story us.

Second, your punctuation leads to confusion in places, with missing commas causing run-on sentences and dangling clauses.

   Shorter lines could be better. Pretty is often about the surgical strike rather than the broad punch. Saying only what needs to be said can take the reader directly to the heart of the matter without distracting them with extraneous words. You might find it valuable to consider paring out articles and such.

   Rhythm or blues. There's nothing wrong with free verse poetry. There's nothing wrong with blank verse, either. However, sometimes a little rhythm goes a long way. I don't necessarily mean a Hallmark greeting card rhythm; sometimes an internal cadence even if different from line to line but remaining consistent from stanza to stanza can give lines a memorable quality.

   Rhyme and reason. Ditto the above about blank verse and free verse. However, a little bit of alliteration, assonance, and/or rhyme—even if it's just a few words within a line or two—can again hook the reader and keep their attention.

Characters: You set your characters up well, giving each enough definition for the reader to color them in in their mind. The exposition is sparse, but that is a strength; it provides a reason for the crew's presence but doesn't bog down the reader with excess details. Their behavior fits the story, but is individual enough to be easily believable.

Setting: The setting is subtly delivered. The military efficiency of the homes speaks to the fact that it is pulled from a military man's mind; the recognition of his home reinforces the telepathic reflection. I was wondering if the attic was going to be a void since he was never allowed up there and would likely not know what it looked like, making replication difficult or impossible. Its presence is an interesting detail, raising the questions of whether this is an actual alternative reality or a recreation.

Story: The story arc is complete—well, as complete as a cliffhanger can be. One is left wondering, though, how the boy at the end impacts Isaac emotionally. Nostalgia? Sadness? Encouragement? Fear, perhaps? If there were one last line stating its impact, this reader would have been one iota more satisfied with the ending.

Mechanics: I found no mechanical errors. Punctuation, structure, and layout were all correct and easy to follow. While a violator of good mechanics myself sometimes (shameful, I know), make a huge difference to me. It shows how much the reader cares about both their output and the reader's experience.

  Tom Callaghan: Your main character is only vaguely sketched until the end, but that works out in this case because there is more exposition up front that character interaction. The wife is only slightly mentioned, and in very generic terms. One hopes she becomes more involved later on.

  Callaghan Family: There is an inner turmoil in the family that promises to become a subplot, perhaps as Tom reacts to the movement of the mote. At this point, the family just provides a sketched framework for Tom's non-work life.

  Ollie: A coworker who seems familiar and comfortable with Tom. The reader has the feeling the two will work closely together as the story progresses.

  Professor Iris Vaughan: Potentially a key player in many ways. The reader knows Tom is having marital issues; could Vaughan be a paramour, or could there be a sexual/romantic tension between the two as the story progresses? Additionally, how will her expertise help move the story along?

  Marco: Pretty much a place-holder, and kind of a jerk.

  General World: The world of the motes is a bit difficult to understand at first. This reader thought the motes created a web between themselves, or emitted some sort of directional energy. As the "power" of the motes is explained, the effects mentioned earlier in the exposition, (planes exploding, people being injured, etc) make more sense. It might work better to explain the mote's interaction with matter a little earlier in the story.

  Society: I felt the social reaction was for too "accepting." While it serves the story better, I would think the reality would not have been the brink of war, but a breakdown in basic social services and international relation. While chaos would not serve your story, the idea of only days passing before everything was pretty much back to normal didn't sit well with the reader.

  Motes: A thoroughly novel entity, the motes are incredibly interesting, and their mystery draws the reader in deeply, no matter any other "flaws" of the story. Excellent antagonist!

  It is understood that this is the beginning of a story, so the arc is incomplete. However, the elements so far have set up multiple storylines that the reader can already identify as plot movers. This is a fine beginning, although with a slow-ish start full of necessary exposition.

  I did not find any glaring errors in punctuation, sentence structure, or tense or plurality agreement.

  Although a small item, I noticed that the lines of dialog beginning with Tom's greeting Marco are only single-spaced, whereas everything else is double-spaced.

  I found the headers awkward. I don't know if they represented chapters, or if they simply represented sections of one chapter. I have done the same thing, and I have seen other authors—some of them best-sellers—do the same thing, but in this case it felt like a shortcut from one concept to the next, rather than a smooth blending of the story. It's a hard one for me to explain, and it may very well just be my personal preference, not something that is either wrong or right.

  As mentioned, this story has an incredible beginning with a concept the likes of which I have never read. It grabbed me immediately and held me all the way through the end, leaving me wanting more.