I’ll go and talk to the priest. I need to see his eyes, watch how they shift, turn, squeeze, or pretend to stay still while I talk. My stepsister says he’ll listen, that that is all there is to his priestly title. But I do not want to confess, no. I have nothing worth confessing. I am not that kind of sinner. All I do is walk the streets, picking dirty stones and hurling them into the river near the park. And when the elderly people try to scold me, I run off, as far as I can away from them, their wrinkling skin and sorry eyes.

Do not be sorry for me. Nothing comes to me by chance. I chose all of this, layer by layer, pattern by pattern. Do not look at me with the colour draining out of your face like the decaying pelt of a predator’s prey. Do not look at me like an abandoned child who “had no choice” but to follow the path that leads to nothingness, like I’m a child who has no one. Do not look at me like that. Do not look at me at all.

…

I must go to the priest today, as I have already been shown what will happen. He will not be dressed in the usual disappearing white. He will not be dressed at all. No robe, no stash, no cap. He will be bare. Not naked, but bare. Stripped of all forms of priesthood, waiting to see anyone but me. Yet, he will see me. When he does, he will sit still, his eyes fixed on me, muttering the Lord’s prayer under his breath, his cursed, noisome breath. As I get closer, he will take his eyes off me like I am a plague he must not contact solely because of his prestige. He will take those eyes off me, washing himself of that damned image of me. But I will continue. I will sit by his side. He will then look me in the eye. Those eyes, they will do the talking.

When I open my mouth to talk to my priest, he will shut his eyes as if not to hear me, because that is how he hears me, through his eyes. I will see tears, but I do not know the trigger. What happens next, I was not shown. I do not know. But today, I will go and talk to the priest.

…

The windows were shut when I arrived. The heavy, large doors though, were wide-open. I could see the priest, praying against perdition. For who? Oh, my priest is cursed.

Satan has sought to sift you, but I have prayed. For you.

He must pray. He must not accept what has been written. He will not be like Eli, no way. He will beg for mercy. He will beg—teeth rattling, skin shedding. He will beg. He will not go boldly. He cannot. He will go begging, with his back bent dangerously, his hair tousled, his nose bleeding. He will not cast his crowns because he never understood honour, never imbibed it. My priest is cursed.

…

Everything happened as it was shown to me. He cried because now, there was light. His tears flowed because his eyes had seen the vision. There will be blood. There will be more than rattling teeth—they will be gnashing.

I talked to the priest. I watched his eyes. I watched them twist, turn, squeeze. I watched them bleed. Then, I saw pleading. For a split second, I saw defiance. I saw rejection of fate. Yet I kept talking to my cursed priest. He talked back once, managed an “It is finished.” His tears stopped then, and mine started. When they reached my mouth, they were not salty, they were bitter. Then I talked some more, letting my bitter tears express my heart, pouring itself out to my priest. When I was done, he held my hands to pray for me. I did not shut my eyes while he did, something he once tore me apart for. He did not shut his eyes either.

Let he who is without sin be the first. Cast the stone.

I was not the only one who wanted to watch his eyes, he wanted to watch mine too. He wanted to see my reaction to his every word, every burden, every scripture.

…

It has been a month since I talked to the priest, my cursed priest. He is free now, free from all that begging. I loved watching his eyes until they could no longer hold. I loved the blood. God, I almost brought myself to taste them. Was it bitter like my tears? On his first day six feet below the ground, the new priest said he was such a priest that his last words were prayers. But only I know the content of those prayers. Only I can know. Even you cannot know.

Tonight, I will go and talk to the priest. Tell him it is finished. It is.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Ato Aikins on Unsplash