The Importance of Narrative Presents

This sentence implies the narrator is entering right now. It's good to mention things for people we don't yet know, but it gives us a sense that we're entering a world that has already existed before the story. Notice how that second sentence makes the earlier description of the absence of furniture unnecessary and unneeded. The only problem with this is why does the narrator call him goth in the narrative and minister to his face? Wouldn't he first be introduced as minister goth or something? You don't want to be calling the same person goth the man and minister over the course of a few sentences. No time for pleasantries. I didn't do an armpit fart.