January 7, 2019
Behind the rotted body of the son of God and the rose-tinted glass was a dry, airless room in which men lay their souls bare in the darkness. In this room, where light need not escape, I incessantly bore witness to their shame. My ears swallowed their voices like the wine of sacraments. I felt the indignity, their meek compliance, wash over me in wretched waves. I reeked of it–the putrid odor of a humiliated man. And even under the shroud of clotted dust and mildew, I breathed more clearly than I had before. In this room, I held terrible power over these men seeking forgiveness in God. One man, with pockets that dragged and the glint of gold at his collar, came to the confessional near the rear of the church. I peered through the lattice that separated myself from the man and studied his grim, sallow features: pixelated by wooden matrices. His lips were pressed into a thin line. He spoke of a recent sin–a night he had spent away from his wife.
While he blathered on about the stake this had driven between himself and his wife, I nodded and offered meaningless condolences. My fingers strummed across the underside of the table as if they were searching for something to hold in their grasp. He recited his pitiful tale, exultant at the chance to disclose secrets that plagued his soul, protected by a hollow barrier. When his story reached its bitter end and his red-rimmed eyes sought the eyes of a stranger for repentance, I gave him the gift I gave every man who had sat with me in this room: God sees your suffering. Those lips thinned into a fleeting show of teeth. He stood from his seat and prompty left this place of judgement, feeling a weight lift from him. As I closed the curtain behind his retreating back, my eager fingers closed around my newfound treasure in the dark: a pocketful of gold. The lattice did not extend to the floor, leaving an opening between the two men that left room for thieving hands.
The man was so relieved to assuage his sin, he would never notice what else had been taken.
YOU ARE READING
YAWP: A Collection of Short Stories
Historia CortaShort stories I have written over the past five years that I may never finish-ranging from a preacher who lied about the word of God to a little girl with monsters in her basement, these are all stories I wrote myself and may never continue. In the...
