Love After Heaven

24 At the mall

After officiating at Sunday Mass, Father Romy decided to have his lunch at a giant mall downtown. He loved walking around without children or pious women kissing his hand. It wasn't just being incognito. It was also his way of experiencing what his parishioners did outside the church. He had read The Shoes of the Fisherman, the novel by Morris West, and he liked to imagine himself as Pope Kiril exploring Rome without anyone knowing he was the pope.

As usual during Sundays, the mall was overflowing with people. The mall had replaced the park as the venue for family outings. Very few people actually shopped in the hundreds of shops in the mall. Some people ate in the hundreds of food outlets. Most people, however, just walked up and down the malls as a respite from Manila's overpowering heat and air pollution.

Father Romy was admiring a sound system that he wished his parish had, when a loud sound knocked him off his feet. He did not know that sound could do that, but there he was, on his back, looking up at the ceiling. He turned to his right side and saw that several people were also lying on their backs, presumably also knocked down by the sound.

He sat up and saw smoke rising from the central portion of the mall. There were people running away from the smoke. He heard screams from men, women, children, from everyone in the mall, even those not near the smoke.

He stood up unsteadily. He saw that some of the shop windows had cracked and broken glass was everywhere. He marveled at how the people did not go inside the shops to help themselves to the goods there. Perhaps the recent government campaigns about honesty had worked.

He looked up and said a silent prayer to thank God that he was still alive. He noticed blood coming from his left arm. There was a piece of glass on his arm. He pried it loose with his right hand and quickly placed his handkerchief over the wound. He remembered that he had undergone first aid training at some point in his youth, and he knew how to deal with wounds, particularly this superficial one.

He walked towards the smoke, the only one going there rather than rushing out the exits. He wanted to help whoever had been hurt, and there were a number. He first lifted up some small children who were crying and pointed them towards the exits. Fortunately, there were other adults there who did not think only of themselves but helped children move with the crowd.

He saw a young man, who could not have been more than eighteen years old, bleeding profusely from what looked like stab wounds all over his face, neck, arms, and legs. They were not stab wounds, of course, but woundscaused by glass and metal. There was blood all over his shirt. The young man looked up at him. Father Romy was not a doctor, but he knew that this man was not going to make it.

Suddenly, déjà vu. He remembered someone with stab wounds. It was himself! That was ridiculous, of course, he said to himself. He was never stabbed by anyone, and all he had from this blast, or whatever it was, was a small wound on his arm. But he clearly saw himself on the floor of somewhere dark. He was behind a car. His car? There was someone else there, someone stabbing him from the back, then from the front. He could not see clearly who it was, but he knew that it was he who was being stabbed. He could even feel the pain, the shock, the confusion.

Father Romy shook his head to rid himself of that vision, or whatever it was. There were wounded people around. There were dying or even dead people here. He was a priest. He had to minister to them, to give them the last rites, to make sure that they would be able to confess so they could go to heaven.

The thought of heaven brought a strange light into the mall. No, it wasn't in the mall. That light was in his eyes or in his mind or in his imagination. Or perhaps he himself was afraid of going to heaven prematurely. He was a priest, for heaven's sake. He was not supposed to be afraid of going to heaven. In fact, he was supposed to want to go to heaven. To die. To move from temporal existence to everlasting happiness.

Father Romy was a picture of calm as he walked around the people lying on the mall floor, blessing them, telling them not to bother mentioning all their sins to him because he was automatically absolving them. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them. He forgave them all their sins.

Inside, however, Father Romy was a picture of chaos. He had seen someone very like himself being stabbed, dying, going to heaven.

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