Music To My Ears | 2gether Short Stories

I Prayed For You - Chapter 01

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned"

Father Dim smiled at the gentle voice. "Speak freely, my child."

"My doubts persist. I feel more distant, more conflicted with every passing day. I don't know who I am anymore. It's a grave sin to not feel connected to the Lord, and yet my heart does not speak to Him anymore.

I pray, I read, I meditate. But it feels to me as though I'm simply going through the motions. They hold no meaning for me.

I feel like the only truth I've ever known has become the biggest lie of my life. I'm lost, Father. So lost."

Father Dim sighed. Tine was his favourite among all his charges. To see him struggling like this, torturing himself day after day, it made Father Dim's heart ache for the young man.

"Son, the Lord doesn't love His children for their prayers. He loves them unconditionally. Devotion cannot be forced. Let the light flow into you in its own time."

"I need atonement, Father."

"What you need, my child, is faith. Faith that you will find your path soon. And courage to walk it when you do."

*

Tine looked around himself. The hustle-bustle of the college campus seemed strange and intimidating to him.

He stood before a tall building. Boys walked in and out of the large, swinging doors in groups, chatting, laughing, fighting.

Tine felt extremely alone. He took a long, deep breath, steeled his resolve and entered the building.

He stopped before a door and checked the letter he held in his hand. Room 414.

Yup. This was his room. Two beds, one bathroom, one roommate as per the letter.

He pushed the door open and blinked. It looked like a hurricane had swept through the room, destroying everything in its path.

Clothes lay strewn all over the room - the floor, the tables, the chairs, the beds. A vest even hung from the ceiling fan and an unidentified piece of clothing was caught in the window grill and swung gently in the breeze.

Half-eaten packets of food littered one side of the room, mostly around the bed. The bedside table near it was overflowing with waste and a full ashtray with a still-smoking cigarette butt.

The whole room smelled strange, like a burning garbage dump.

The walls were filled with posters of rock bands, models in various stages of undress, movies and anime. Some of them were peeling off and one particularly explicit nude fluttered loose and floated to the ground at Tine's feet.

Tine had half a mind to turn back and never return. This was as close to a visual representation of his tattered life as he could get.

Remember what you promised, Tine. You'll give this a shot. One year.

He swallowed and stepped into the room, picking his way gingerly around the chaos to the relatively cleaner side, which was inconveniently the far side of the room.

He set down his suitcase and duffel bag and stared aimlessly at a chocolate bar which had a huge bite taken out of it, and now lay melting on the table beside what would be his bed.

The more he saw, the more his irritation grew. Tine did not expect much from life, but even a clean bed seemed to be too much to ask for.

He wondered where and how to begin setting up. The room needed a thorough cleaning before he could unpack.