Men of Faith (Book - Pre-Valentines Day)
Many a thing could happen in this place and brush Jesse by as routine these days. Zombies? Well, that was just something that the City wanted to experiment with, sort of like Godzilla. Only that had turned out to not be the City's doing. Which was surprising, actually. Two doctors, the newspaper had said. They'd been the ones to stop it, and it was suspected that they'd been the ones to start it. No further articles had been written up about it, though. Jesse had checked every day. The snow had been unfortunate and a pain in the ass, but that wasn't surprising either. They hadn't ever even had much of a winter before. It sort of actually made sense that the City would discover it and go overboard.
There wasn't really a whole lot that could shake him, after all he'd seen and been through back in Normal World, and since he'd come here, he'd seen a whole lot of other things that could just be added to his list of fucked up. Not starting with, nor ending with, a dead woman being brought in to make his life a living Hell.
So there wasn't any real reason that Jesse should feel like putting on the old clothes. He wasn't feeling more holy or righteous. He wasn't feeling particularly like a man of God, not in any new way anyway.
Maybe he was just feeling like he needed something slightly familiar as he walked the City's streets. Who could say?
Whatever it was, today he'd gotten up and put on a black shirt, and fitted his preacher's collar into the little notches. The only thing he left off was the white pants, forgoing them for black instead. Seemed to fit his mood, though that wasn't any sort of somber. It was just odd. An odd mood. That was a good way to explain it.
Jesse stopped in the park to watch the children play. Cigarette in his hand, sun in his eyes. Yes, it definitely felt like a different sort of day.