Cecidit - Chapter I

“There is no greater sorrow than to recall our times of joy in wretchedness.”

― Dante Alighieri.

«Jesus Christ! »

I jumped out of my slumber as I heard the blasphemous call echo in the church compound. I felt like waking up from a very vivid dream but not knowing if I truly was awake. My eyes were wide open and yet inexplicably blurred out, with only indistinct patches of colours and shapes covering my field of vision. I began to panic. Not clearly seeing what could be the cause of my awakening, I rose from the praying bench on which I had fallen asleep, frenetically rotating on my own body to find a potential clue of what could have woken me up, moving my head back and forth in every possible direction. My breathing was loud and choppy, each new breath I took weighing more heavily on my chest as they increasingly propagated in the otherwise silent church, resonating against the thick stone walls. My respiration felt deformed, low and guttural, and sounded like a legion of angry beasts marching around me, the primal rhythm slowly merging in my head with the trampling of my own footsteps in a dissonant orchestra. I was disoriented, I couldn’t see what was around me, if there was anything at all, and I couldn’t trust my ears as each new sound I heard, unsure if I was the cause of each or any of them, only furthered my paranoia of the possible presence of something or someone else in the room. I stopped moving and stood still. As the church regained its silence after a moment, which coincided with me not making any sound, I decided to take some much needed time to gather my thoughts. I began to close my eyes and empty my head of any thought in order to bring some sense of clarity to my mind and control my breathing. Trying to calm down, I took deep breaths, inhaling with my nose, and exhaling through my mouth to get rid of the stress that took over my body. I could feel the blood pumping through my veins, the deafening pulsations of overflowing adrenaline knocking on my temples like a jackhammer. Then, as I slowly regained my sanity, I realized that, knowing I was the only person inside the church, I may have been the cause of the sound that had woken me up, much like the other noises I had made which had given me goosebumps. Maybe I was only scaring myself, and if indeed I was the source of my own fear, which I was very likely to be, therefore I was on my own and had nothing to fear. This realization came as a blessing to calm myself down. I began to think logically once again and noticed that I indeed didn’t see my surroundings clearly because of one simple reason: I wasn’t wearing my glasses. I had a sigh of relief and felt a smile appearing on my face as I began to pat down my pockets in search of the much needed contraptions. However, as I was searching for my binoculars, I noticed a moving shadow casting itself next to mine, under the light of the candles reflecting on the walls of the room.

«Who’s there? »

I continued, with the most menacing tone I could muster in such a situation, my false sense of confidence not paying justice to the fear I felt creeping inside of me, causing cold sweat to drip down my back, sending shivers through my spine and causing my whole nervous system to shut down. I felt the tension in my muscles, my limbs were incapable of any movement, stricken by dread. Still, I tried to keep a fearless exterior, frowning my eyes in the hope that I looked convincing enough to chase away the eventual burglars or homeless men who I was now convinced, were responsible for the noise that alarmed me. I stood still for a moment, staring at my surroundings and trying to reconnect with reality by focusing on familiar objects, squinting my eyes to get them used to the deem lighting of the room.

« I saw you, » I shouted, «come out now and I won’t call the police.»

I glanced back and forth, hoping to catch a glimpse of the person the shadow belonged to. I waited, motionless under the weight of fear, focusing on the external sounds I could grasp, my heartbeat resonating in my whole body like a steam-powered engine.

No other sound came to disturb the tranquillity of the central nave where I was standing. This silence, which I usually cherished, was now bearing a feeling of unease and familiar to situations where only bad omens would feel comfortable showing their ugly presence. Finding the necessary courage to move a hand, I began to slowly pass my fingers on my right pant pocket, finding the softness of my cotton vest reassuring in this eerie situation as I was searching for anything that could be of help. There, as my fingertips moved across my pocket, I felt a bump, my fingers sliding on a smooth and thick surface. My glasses. Without losing a second, I swiftly pulled them out of my pocket.

As I put them on with a shaky hand, my vision, previously filled with shadowy figures and blurred chimaeras, had now regained its clarity and allowed me to no longer be a slave to my own imagination. The cloudy images I was experiencing a moment ago had now reclaimed their contrast and definition, allowing me to trust at least one more of my senses. The candles I had lit before falling in the arms of Morpheus were still standing on the table next to the entrance door, reflecting their warmth on the thick brick walls of the room and the smell of burning wax giving me a feeling of belonging. The bibles were still properly set on their pews, both sides of the main pathway leading to the altar still untouched, and the altar itself, principle jewel of the room, still tidy, clean, or as one would say, immaculate. Unlike me, the church was still asleep. Now more confident with my newly found eyesight, I decided to chase down the intruder that had scared me and was determined to give him a piece of my mind. I looked around to arm myself and be ready for the eventual encounter with the Judas who dared mess with a servant of the lord.

Next to where I stood, laying on the floor was my cane. I leaned over and took it, gripping its smooth wooden handle firmly in both hands as if to gain a sense of control. Now armed and full of purpose, I first walked precipitately through the central nave to check the main entrance for any marks of forced entry. As I arrived, I realized that the door was locked from the inside, as I had left it. I then ran as fast as I could to the door leading to my office, facing the altar in the back of the church, only to find this door closed as well. Only two people had keys to both doors, Maxim and myself. As the key came to my mind, I instinctively reached across my neck only to find it safe and sound, still attached around it. It took me a few seconds to start breathing at a normal pace once again and realizing I was indeed alone. Still, my worries weren’t over as my eyes came in contact with the only other place where the Philistine could have sought refuge from my wrath, now truly palpable: the confessional. I stared at the small room with the firm intention of unveiling the last place where the owner of the shadow could be hiding, mechanically moving towards it, each step I took being more confident than the last, each new step striking the cold paved ground with more strength and violence than the previous one, announcing by its percussive sound the impending doom that my unwanted guest was about to face once I would get to him. I could feel my blood boiling in my entire body, the heat of revenge fueling my every move and causing warm sweat to drip from my forehead, burning my eyes as droplets fell to my face. I savoured the delectable and yet unusual change of status, going from prey to hunter, swapping my otherwise calm temper for an explosive will to bring the intruder in front of divine justice.

« This is your last chance, either you stop toying with me and come out nicely, or I will teach you not to underestimate a priest. I was in the army and I still can kick your ass if need be. » Truly meaning what I had just said, I kept my cane held high over my head with my right hand, ready to strike, and grabbed the doorknob of the confessional with my left hand in order to swiftly open the door and surprise my enemy.

« I’m counting down to three: one, two,» Without waiting to end my countdown to take the intruder by surprise, I quickly pulled on the knob, left the door wide open and let an unusual war cry I had not heard sin Nam escape my throat as I jumped in the confessional cane swinging.

And nothing. The fire in my lungs was quickly extinguished by the instantaneous disappointment born of the emptiness of the little room. Eager to not have done all of this in vain, I looked in every nook and cranny of the confessional to hopefully find the littlest of clues of not having dreamt the whole thing up. I passed my hands over the wooden bench, looking closely at the rugged interior, and scrutinizing the old corners only lit by the dim light of the candles passing through the door and the small dormer. However, it was when I found myself bending over, my head upside down and squinting my eyes to see more clearly under the carved bench that I realized how ridicule I looked and how useless my actions were. Slowly recovering my sense of self, of dignity and of reality, I came out of the confessional, closed the door behind me, went back to the bench where I awoke, sat down, and passed my hands over my face to gather my thoughts in the comforting warmth of my fingers, tightly pressed against one another.

Here, in the comfort of my palms as I felt protected from the external world, a question still remained. I didn’t know where this shadow came from, that is if I had truly seen a shadow at all. It could have been a waking dream, although it seemed improbable to me, as my actual reasoning was sound, everything around me looked the same and felt like nothing had changed since before I had fallen asleep. The candles were still unmelted as if I had just lit them. All the doors were locked. And now that I thought of it, I wasn’t sure I had fallen asleep at all. Dozed off, probably, but nothing could really confirm that I had fallen asleep.

Still, I did not know for sure, as I had no means of knowing how long it had been since I had first arrived in the church. I looked at my wrists, and no watch was there to be found. I then padded down my pants pockets in search of my cellphone, pulling them inside out only to find this search unfruitful as well. I knew I had heard somebody yelling, but I had to accept the fact that it might have been my own voice and that I had probably been shaken off by the feeling of falling that comes with drowsiness. Has I stretched my legs, still a bit sleepy, I felt my left foot bumping against an unfamiliar object. Curious, I looked down and saw a book lying at my feet. I couldn’t clearly see any details from the cover with the faraway candles as the only source of light but the format and size of the book were not the ones of the bibles I was used to displaying in the church. Picking it up, I took a closer look at the cover.

«Heaven, Hell & In-between, by Nikos Prethuemos,» I read at loud.

Turning the book around, I then read the blurb on the back.

«In Heaven, Hell & In-between, Nikos Prethuemos attempts to connect the dots between the many religious currents in our ever-changing world, and to identify the truth hidden in their myths.»

I could not help but let a small laugh of relief come out of my throat. Reading the blurb of the book reminded my tired mind of how I had fallen asleep.

I now remembered finding the book while cleaning the office, thinking how curious it was to have found this type of book on my shelves. I remembered walking around the central nave with the book in my hand and playfully reading over some of its passages.

So that was the catalyst of that fearful night, I had fallen asleep reading a book, and not even a boring one too, a science fiction novel. Could I have been more of an old fart? The book must have slipped through my fingers as I fell asleep and the feeling of losing my grip on it must have been the kick I needed to wake up. I laughed, trying to wrap my head around this possibility. It was a logical one, but a feeling of uncertainty still roamed in my mind. I laughed again, knowing how the lack of sleep made me forgetful at times.

I laughed louder and louder, gaining confidence in hearing only my voice echoing in the room. This laugh, which first came from amusement over the silly situation in which I found himself, quickly changed into a more thoughtful clearing of the throat. I was indeed the only one around. This realization hit me like a hammer would a nail.

I didn’t remember the last time I had seen another living soul inside these walls or the last time I had held a mass, or even the time it was. All of these uncertainties began to pile up in my mind.

My head began to hurt as I tried to remember the last day as if I was not meant to access the information. I began to massage my temples with the tips of my fingers and tried to force my way into my memories, focusing even more than I previously did, bearing with the migraine. I didn’t know when I had left the church for the last time. I am sure I had begun to work very early, but I didn’t remember how I had spent my day. The pain caused by my reflection was similar to several thousand mosquitoes trying to get in my brain, their stingers puncturing its surface with surgical precision. I became more and more worried and decided to no longer continue to further my journey into my memories, aware of the searing pain it caused me.

I tried to calm myself down. After all, I had known days like this one before, working so hard, putting so much time in prayers without a clock or a phone around, that I would lose track of time. I began to take a closer look around.

There wasn’t anybody here but me. No other soul searching for absolution or asking for guidance on the proper path to follow. I was, once again, the only one here. The nature of my present occupation made me even more thoughtful.

I was in one of the holiest of all places on earth, at least according to my beliefs. I was sitting in the house of God himself, watched over by the many saints carved in the marble, drawn on the colourful stained-glass windows. I had grown used to these walls with time, practically calling them my home, so this new feeling of unease in my own place of work seemed out of character for me, especially after guarding it for so many years. I once again attempted to remember what had happened in the past few days, trying to rely on spatial and temporal markers. I couldn’t say how many years it had been since I had first started but I could clearly say that I had changed, and so had the way I fulfilled my clerical duty.

Many years ago, I would have had prayed every night, taken care of the candles, dusted off the sculptures out of respect for what they represented, and bowed down to the huge cross standing on the altar in the heart of the church. This was, after all, the proper occupation for an intendant. But I was now far from the young man I used to be. Scaring myself off, wasting time in games of cats and mouse against myself, going as far as reminiscing with a certain melancholy about the strength of my past self’s fervour. I had even stooped so low as to fall asleep while supposedly fulfilling my duty to the Lord, reading a paperback copy of a fantasy novel written by a wannabe author, instead of planning my next sermon.

I wondered If my heart was in it as much as it used to. I had spent so much time in this place, in my role as a preacher, that I began to question if it wasn’t all just a perfectly rehearsed play, just make-believe that I had trapped myself into rendering believable. Everything I had at some point held dear, my will to become a good man, help others and show them the way to forgiveness, have my own church, my own parish, fulfil my duty as close as I could be to the Lord, it all now seemed like a routine leading me through yet another day.

The silence of the church brought about a proper atmosphere for such introspection.

I must have had led a very boring life for such an insignificant event to have such a dire toll on my soul. I didn’t know where my former passion had gone.

I was not going to lie to myself. The world had changed. Priorities had shifted in today’s society. God was now pushed on the sidelines. And still, here I was, one of the last vestiges against a self-destructive people decided on bringing their whole world down.

Yes, times had changed. People had found new gods to worship. Demons were now depicted as heroes, the devil had become a product of entertainment. Television series, movie stars, Youtube, Facebook, these were now the ones they prayed to. Even I had adapted to this new world, using social media to connect more efficiently with my parishioners, enjoying the occasional talking cat video in my free time and keeping track on the latest world news on my smartphone.

The many technological contraptions I was now the slave of, which would have been seen as sinful by my forefathers, were nowadays just demoted to the rank of bad habits. Of course, they were still bad for me, or contrary to the fundamental laws of the catholic church, but they weren’t were fundamentally evil per se. And besides, they didn’t cause any pain to anyone. Nothing like a good old Lent to cleanse it all away, for a time at least. My head rose up, my eyes opened wide, my face full of disbelief. I had surprised myself by this remark, amazed that I could ever talk so lightly about one of the most important precepts of the Christian faith. This was not the voice of the young man I used to be when I first became a priest, my only hope being to help suffering people to lead better lives. I had grown more cynical as I saw the world changed in the past twenty years. I saw the catholic order shift opinions under new scientific discoveries, modernizing its beliefs, changing them to appeal to its followers when it would have been the opposite a thousand years prior.

I witnessed the downfall of my all-mighty religion, powerless to its fate. It is possible that this indecisive and fatalistic nature had also changed me in the ways I fulfilled my clerical duty. I was indeed, a true product of my time.

Yes, I had changed too, grew older, lazier, lost a bit of my faith in my own role in this ever-changing society. Deaths, violence, pain, all these things I was never really prepared to face as a priest made me grow pessimistic, angry, and, it is fair to say, a bit lost at times. I was a priest by habit, this role is the only thing I had ever known, without another clear defining goal in life.

A lost soul in the army of God. This eye-opening realization made me feel even more uncomfortable to be in this house of worship. I stood up from the bench and walked in front of the cross on which my lord was crucified. I looked at it for a moment, thinking about what it had meant to celebrate the death of a man for so many years, serving this blank face sculpted in the wood, loving it as much as I would have loved my own child if I had ever had the chance of having one. But I realized, deep inside, the undeniable truth: I didn’t know Jesus that much to begin with.

Him who I had called friend, father, guide, was, in fact, a stranger I had never gotten the chance to know on a personal level. I looked up at him, without kneeling or bowing to the statue as I would have done before, and I began to address it in the most unorthodox prayerI had ever dared to formulate.

I didn’t want to be guided by ceremonials anymore, there wasn’t anybody here to mesmerize with shiny garments and imposing candlelights, sermons or wisdom. Nobody to elevate to the rank of a true believer. It was now only a matter of talking to the man behind the symbol, just the beginning of a conversation between two beings who lived simply, many years apart from one another, a confession through time, space and conventions.

«My Lord,» I began, «I never truly talked to you the way I wanted to. I have always lived under the fear that not giving you the ceremonial cult I had been taught would anger you. I have lived like many priests do, following what I was told and not thinking on my own. But, being a priest for so long made me realized some things, things I have always known but never truly accepted. Before, my mind would have been mesmerized by your bibles laced with gold, the high monuments built in your honour, or the satisfaction of being one of your soldiers on earth. But for a while now, I have begun to see through the cracks of it all. The hypocrisy of the Vatican, a pope living in luxury while the poor die at the doorsteps of his city. The suffering that the wars in your name have caused, without truly seeing any sign of you disapproving them. I never asked myself how you would have wanted to be treated if you were still alive or what you would have thought of it all as a man. I do not think you would have accepted to be treated as an idol, to become an icon whose face would be printed on t-shirts, or an apparition some man with a misguided sense of miracle would see in his piece of toast one morning. I believe you have lived a simple life as an example for us to follow, and instead, we made a product out of you. Is this why you are not helping us? Did we offend you in our pathetic attempts to make you more than what you wanted?»

Saying these words at loud with all the fervor of my heart, I felt a tear falling on my cheek and looked at the face on the cross while guilt covered my own.

«I want to know the way you would want us to repent from what we have done, but I am afraid I have also lost my way. I know I am not worthy of any of your attention, but I need to have a sign from you to believe I am doing the right thing. I have followed you blindly for so many years without seeing any change, so much that I wonder if these years have not been in vain. For my loyalty towards you, I know I at least deserve a sign from you showing me the right direction. Can’t you show me?»

I waited in front of the cross for a moment. I then rose my arms toward it, waiting desperately for a miracle to take place, hoping the stern wooden face would talk to me. Lost in my disillusions I repeated this last sentence tirelessly, again and again, each time raising my voice a bit more in the hope that it would reach the many ears of Heaven.

« Can’t you show me?». I then stopped repeating and looking down on the ground said: «I guess your silence is as good of an answer as any.»

I wiped away the tear which had slithered to my upper lip with the back of my sleeve, the salty taste of this drop matching the bitterness in my heart. I decided to do as I had always done, be a priest by habit, going back to the autopilot mode which seemed to have become my default configuration for the past few years. I walked towards the bench where I had left the book to pick it up, and I looked at the cover.

At least this kind of literature had the ability to make us forget about it all, if only for a moment of praised and blissful ignorance. I knew it wasn’t much but it was at least the start of my cheering up. As I learned to sit down on the bench, I opened the book, delicately pinching the title page with two fingers to turn it over, and I began to read the preface at loud:

« Love and Hate. Order and chaos. Life and death. These concepts and their opposites have been studied, dissected and philosophized upon countless times and from all possible angles, but they always bring back to the same outcome. No matter the way we look at them, or the sense we want to make out of them, cosmic counterparts always seem to fight one another in an attempt to assert complete dominance.

However, on a fundamental level, they appear to rely on each other to exist, as if coming from the same origins, feeding on one another, sometimes in a dire attempt to annihilate the counterpart and bring about the end of all things in the process, but without any true satisfying outcome. They hunt each other. They are drawn by the differences that keep them apart, making them want to snatch and consume the essence of one another, to fulfil an insatiable, forbidden, yet essential need, while still always stopping themselves in their lustful and depraved actions before slurping the last drop. The strong one always seems to bring the weaker one as close as possible to death as it can, but without ever being able to properly finish the job.

One could question the reasons for such a cat and mouse game. And the most logical answer is that fight opposing the immortal enemies will most likely always end in the destruction of the fragile ecosystem that witnessed their birth.

This is the reason why these equal forces never truly achieve their goal, powerless to the face of the ugly truth that none of the parties wants to accept. The victory of one of the two entities will also always mean the downfall of everything else. Good never truly succeeds in defeating evil, and the cursed never achieve complete dominance over the blessed. This is the status quo, the agreed-upon limit, the balance respected by both sides.

Quite simply, they need each other to survive. It is a fragile yet essential coexistence, vital for all things to exist, and it has prevented each side from truly becoming the victor on the other since the genesis of it all. What sentient creature would in their right mind ever want to win when the victory is comprised of nothingness? Dying for the sake of having the last word is too small of consolation to truly be contemplated by any of the majestic Essentials that regulate our world.

Light calls out the darkness, the shadows stalk the lanterns. This is why the creatures from Heaven and Hell, as omnipresent as they may be, are trapped in an indefinite succession of near-victory/near defeat cycles. They are so intertwined in this never-ending feud that they do not see the forces raising from the sidelines, waiting to play a part in their game.

They seem to have never asked themselves what would happen if the end of their struggle didn’t come from their hands but from the middle ground. They never considered the possibility that oblivion could take root where both darkness and light meet or even fathomed that a third entity, born from the balance, could decide to no longer abide by the rules the Essentials had agreed upon.

Such a power would eventually have the means to destroy fiery anger and chilling wisdom alike, while gladly paying the price of their actions in destroying everything in the process. The creation has always been underestimated by its creators, seeing it as a lesser being because of its artificial nature, but this lack of respect could possibly be the best reason for it to want to upset the status quo and to rise against its makers in an attempt to have the last laugh. In such a case, none of the two sides could be able to stop or prevent it from reaching its goal and bringing about the downfall of the world as we know it.

The future of mankind or the role it has yet to fulfil in the game of chess played by God and the Devil is still unclear, even for the most accomplished psychics there are.

What is known, however, is that the most frightening force will not be reckoned from the ranks of demons or angels, but from the earth itself.

As they have proven many times before, throughout their history, humans are capable of anything once they believe, deep inside their souls, that it is the right thing to do. And the belief of humankind is truly its strongest characteristic.

They dance between infinite skies and endless depths and will be the only ones to decide who among them will ascend and who will fall. Still, if influenced properly, they may be used to the favour of one or the other, as the only match there is for the iron will of man, is the tendency of this very same will to be easily bent. Humanity can be persuaded of doing anything and made to believe it is of its own volition, slowly burning its ardent spirits between the righteous power of light and the seductive essence of darkness.

Like all chess manoeuvres, a good strategy always begins by choosing the proper pawn and deciding if it will be used as a simple diversion, or as the key to the most unexpected checkmate. May both sides choose their pawns carefully, and let the pieces come into play as they are meant to once the bell of fate rings... »

The bell of fate. This proposition felt odd to me. The ringing of destiny, an overly used and outdated metaphor too on the nose to truly bear any significance in the mind of the readers, especially in a world where the symbols born from religion are lost on them. Whoever this Prethuemos was, I didn’t think he quite knew how to lock the interest of his audience. Still, as I was about to indulge in a guilty pleasure of mine and tear apart the first chapter with criticism, I was interrupted by the sound of a ringtone echoing in the church. I first mechanically reached a hand in my pant pocket only to remember that I didn’t have my phone on me. I looked around, waiting for the sound to come again and to try pinpointing where the sound was coming from.

I waited a moment but nothing came. It probably was a trick of my imagination, my tired brain trying to digest the information of the day through images and sounds.

As I began to read again, the ringtone came once more.

«Hello?» I answered puzzled, my call only greeted by silence. The ringtone then rang once more inside of the church. I felt confused as there was no phone in the church except my own, and I didn’t know where I had left it. It came as a bit of a surprise to me that not knowing where my phone was didn’t really bother me at that point, finding the source of the mysterious sound becoming my only goal. All I knew was this was not a ringtone I was familiar with and yet it felt like it was drawing me in. As I trailed the tune with an attentive ear, it sounded as if the ringing came from the centre of the church.

Unsure and uneasy, I slowly made my way to the altar. At each step I took, the ringing became louder and louder, as if coming from all sides, the sound reverberating left and right, top to bottom, front to back, gaining in intensity at each new iteration. As I reached the altar the ringing became as heavy as the sound of a thousand bells playing their roaring choir. The cacophony was deafening, troubling as much my vision as my inner ear, I felt nauseated, like an alcohol-induced haze. I tried to cover my ears but the ringing insinuated itself inside my head. It hurt, so much so that I couldn’t focus on one specific element without diverting my eyes to another spot. The reflections of the candles on the walls became brighter, creating intense shadows propagating all around me. Nebulous figures were moving on the walls, inconsistent, distorted shapes swaying on the concrete stones as the candles stood still. I fell on my knees in front of the altar, the sound becoming too unbearable for me to stand on my feet.

I looked up at the face of my saviour on the cross, only to realize that the sculpted body was no longer there. As I was about to faint, the insane ringing abruptly stopped and left room for a regular ringtone coming from an old rotary telephone which was set in the middle of the altar. Still, in shock from the disappearance of the Lord’s figure, and the appearance of the device, I mechanically grabbed the earpiece and held it close to my cheek.

«Hello?» I mumbled hesitant, not knowing what other tricks my mind would play on me. No one answered.

«Hello,» I repeated.

Then the unexpected happened. My call received an answer.

«Hello.» responded a voice from the other side. I felt my hair rising on my entire body.

«Who...Who is this?» I continued, my eyes wide open, asking but fearing the answer to come, my mind dancing on the edge of sanity.

«Theo? Is that you?» asked the voice.

It knew my name, and I became even more puzzled. In between fear and confusion I replied:

«How...How do you know my name?»

«Theo, I need you.» said the voice.

I was shaking, scared and lost but focusing on the frighteningly familiar voice to put a face on it. The voice was deformed, covered by static interferences. It was as if the call came from a place far away.

«Who is this?» I added more insistently.

«Theo. Why did you stop believing?» The voice replied.

«I need you, Theo.»

«This is not amusing, I don’t know why you are doing this but I will not be intimidated,» I yelled trying to convey the illusion of confidence.

«But you asked me to answer did you not?» The voice added.

«And now I need you, Theo.»

I dropped the phone as my hand began to shake uncontrollably. I walked back on the floor in a crab-like manner, sobbing hysterically. The voice then began to echo in the whole church, the walls shaking under its intensity.

«I need you, Theo, to accept me, one last time.»

I crawled backwards the length of the church only to find myself with my back against the entrance door. I turned around and tried to open it as the voice seemed to resonate and bounce off of the walls around me, getting dangerously close to me as the sound became more powerful. My instinct seemed to dictate to my body what to do as my brain was shut down by fear. I had only one thing in mind, to escape. All my life I had hoped for an answer from the divine, tired of my routine of nightly monologues addressed towards the heavens, but now, my rationality was trying to take a hold of me, this grim answer looking less like a message from God than a call from the devil. As I frantically tried to open the door, my hands drenched in sweat, hardly holding on to the knob, I saw thorns bursting out of the wooden surface and covering it entirely, the thorns piercing both my hands in their centre. Blood was pouring from the circle-shaped wounds and I couldn’t help but yelling through the pain they caused me. I couldn’t move my arms but my head moved from left to right, right to left, my eyes sweeping the room, only to see shadows covering the walls, growing through the candle lights, crosses dripping with blood appearing from the flames and mutilated faces of my saviour spreading across the stones. Pulling with all my strength for my hands to be freed of the stakes on which they were empaled, I fell onto the floor, crying. With adrenaline pumping through my veins, my reflexes sped up for a second, as did my clarity of mind. My eyes met with the confessional at the other side of the room, the only closed off and a safe place for me to be. There wasn’t any doubt in my mind, I had to lock myself in. I took the last thread off of my courage, and ran in direction of the door, pushing my palms against my ears as if to shield myself from the non-physical threat. I grabbed the knob, my hand surprisingly still and on task considering the situation I was in and the state it was in. I opened it, slid through and slammed it behind me, closing the lock of the door and holding on to the inside knob with all of my remaining strength. I felt safer but not totally in the clear as the voice was still calling my name, asking me to give in, its words resonating outside of the confessional. I felt surrounded. An electric presence was on the other side of the door, like an aura of power I had never felt before, insinuating itself through the spaces around the door. My muscles felt like pudding, barely holding on. It began to push against the door, making all of the confessional trembles at each knock, the sheer strength almost ripping my arms off as I got out of breath and energy, giving all I had to prevent it from coming inside for just a second longer. I then heard my own voice from the outside, repeating what I had said just moments prior to the voice’s apparition.

« I’m counting down to three: » I knew what was next, the countdown would not last that long. No longer was I the hunter, I had to accept that this fight was one I couldn’t win.

« One, » I was outmatched, hurt and scared, a prey waiting to be finished off. Death began to feel like an acceptable compromise between me and the outstanding force wanting to get through.

« Two, » I closed my eyes and lowered my arms, letting go of the blood-stained knob feeling like a relief. My hands drenched with bright red haemoglobin, I decided to end it all with a painfully slow sign of the cross, drops of blood falling on my forehead, on my clothes and on the floor in constant flux, accepting my fate like the lord before me, waiting for the inevitable to take place.

Then, there was silence. No more noise, apart from the buzzing sound in my ears brought by the total absence of sound itself. I could hear my own heart pounding back and forth inside my chest. The absence of sound felt like a relief, but only for a moment. Not knowing where the strange voice was, what it was doing or if there was actually anything anywhere at all, was even more frightening than knowing that it was there. I had made my peace with what had to happen to me. For years I had made myself ready to meet my maker, to encounter one of his miracles, but I was now scared to even glance at what he had sent me. Lost in dead silence and my eyes wide shut, I could only feel the burning sensation of my own blood drenching my injured hands, my head spinning from the blood loss. I felt like fainting, the absence of conscience seems a better option than the sensation of having high voltage current going through my brain thanks to the surge of adrenaline caused by the pain. However, the relief of having found a potential exit strategy was short-lived as a cold current of air went through me, chilling my blood and taking any thought of falling asleep away from my mind. The cold air passed all around me, stopping next to me in the adjacent room normally reserved for the priest listening to the confessions of the believers. I had not noticed that I was sitting where my parishioners had always been sitting. I had never put myself in their position, in the delicate situation of having to share my deepest fears and flaws. I had always felt like I belonged in the other room, like I was the righteous one, the instrument of God, but never as the one in need of his teachings. And still there I was a sinner among many wanting to repent and to ask for forgiveness. As I clenched my fists, the pain keeping me awake, I felt a presence next to me, on the other side of the dormer. I did not dare to open my eyes to see who or what was waiting for me. But then, after a moment, I began to recite the formula I had heard so many times before:

« Bless me, father, for I have sinned. I have doubted the presence of God in my life. I have wanted proof where belief should have sufficed. I have brought shame on our Lord by not realizing that he had always been there. Will I ever be forgiven? »

like a calm and soothing whisper, I then heard the familiar voice reply:

« You have named your sins, you have accepted your guilt. You are forgiven, my son. In turn, please forgive me, for not answering your prayers when I should have been more present. I will try to make amends. Will you grant me your forgiveness?»

« Of course father, you are forgiven. »

« Thank you, » muttered the voice.

As I heard these two words as a relief from the unknown force, my body felt lighter than ever, as if the weight of my sins was no longer holding on to my soul, allowing me to be freed from my mortal coil. I became filled with all the known human emotions. Before my eyes even closed, I saw everything I had ever known and everything I had never even thought of, the life I had led, the many different lives I could have had, the women and men I could have shared my life with, the children I could have held in my arms. I saw all the possibilities, the answers to questions I had yet to ask myself, the beauty in the pain I was feeling, the sadness in its ephemeral state.

I was in sensory overload, losing my preconceived notions of time, space and self to leave room for unadulterated bliss.

From afar, lost in layers upon layers of alternative realities, I heard the voice talking to me once again.

« Now that there is no more doubt in your heart, I will need one thing from you Theo. I will need you to let me in. Let your faith back in and fill the void your doubt left. »

I was subjugated by the endless flow of life I was subjected to. No longer controlled by doubt, I began to reach for the lock, opened it and pushed open the door of the confessional.

« Will you let me in? » The voice continued to whisper with an intoxicating and almost sensual quality.

I was tamed, in its control. I opened my arms as if to welcome it, giving in to the temptation and replied:

«Yes. I will let you in.»

«Then open your eyes, my son,» the voice whispered, now in front of me, like a warm and intimate invitation, an oral embrace.

As I opened my eyes, everything went back to normal. I was no longer in the confessional but sitting down of the praying bench where I had woken up. There were no more malevolent shadows on the walls, no more thorns covering the doors, and no more wounds on my hands, just the silence and the clarity common to the church.

«Jesus Christ » I exclaimed, amazed by what had just transpired.

I stood up, still shaken up by this unexplainable experience. I started heading towards the altar, one foot at a time, my walk still a bit shaky. The sculpture of the Christ was back to its original place and a sigh of relief came out of my mouth. As I walked back to it, I heard a metallic sound behind me. After each step I took, I could hear it gaining in intensity, stomping on the floor like an armour clinking under its own weight, following each and every one of my steps like a delayed and booming shadow. Once I reached the altar, I stopped and stood still, trying to look as far on the sides as my peripheric vision allowed me to without turning around. As nothing happened, I decided to slowly turn my head around, then my shoulders and my entire body followed the movement. As I came face to face with the origin of the noise, an intense beam of solar light came bursting in my face like a shockwave of immeasurable energy blinding me and I heard a loud and cavernous voice commend to me:

«Open your eyes!»

«Father Theodore? Open your eyes Father, time to wake up!»

The voice calling out my name brought me out of my slumber. Panicked, my eyes still heavy from a good nap ended prematurely, my vision inexplicably blurred out, I rose from the praying bench on which I had fallen asleep and looked frantically around me to find the reason of my awakening.

«Jesus Christ!» I yelled as I looked in front of me. I could make out the shape of a face which seemed familiar to me. While still staring at the face for it not to get out of my sight, I hastily checked my pants pockets, patting down each possible place where I could have put my glasses. My fingers came into contact with a bump in my back pocket and without thinking, I pulled out what was inside of it and quickly put my glasses on only to see the blurry shape leaning on me change into Father Supio.

«I am sorry if I have frightened you Father Theodore, but the first mass of the day will begin in an hour and we must prepare the church to welcome our parishioners.»

I looked at my younger colleague with eyes wide open, and put my hands on the young man’s shoulders to make sure he wasn’t a figment of my imagination.

«Yes. Yes, of course, thank you for waking me up.»

Father Supio’s surprised was almost palpable as he looked at me.

«Did you spend the night here?»

I stood up and wiped my face with the back of my hand.

«Well, I seem to have found peace of mind with the Lord,» I answered, faking a smile to reassure the young man.

«Very well,» finally added the young priest «I will be setting the altar for the 10 a.m. mass.»

I took a moment to make sense of what had just happened to me. I looked around. The church looked completely normal, the light was shining through the tainted-glass windows like a blessing from the sky, the figure of Christ was upon its cross and the doors were thorn-free.

«Was it all a dream?»

I shook my head to erase the feeling of uneasiness I felt about what was obviously a very vivid nightmare fueled by my own personal demons. Reassured, and taking this experience as a sign from the Lord, I was about to walk towards the entrance door when my foot bumped into something.

Sliding on the floor from the impact, I saw a book stopping its course in the main alley. As I picked it up I read the title:

«The many symbols of religions: Clever Thoughts and Heavy Sermons, by Lucian Aris».

«I know this book,» I said to myself.

«Was it the same book as before?» I wondered silently, trying to remember the contents of my dream as it slowly began to vanish away. The more I tried to focus on the cover of the book I had seen, the more the image I remembered started to fade away.

«What was I doing? What did I dream about?» I asked myself puzzled.

«You probably want to freshen up before we open the doors,» said Father Supio as he stared at me «I’ll set everything up, so take some time for yourself.»

« Oh! Thank you, Maxim,» I responded with a small grin on the corner of my mouth. My head full of questions, I walked towards the back of the central nave through the door behind the altar, in the direction of my office. After going through the hallway separating the two rooms, I opened the door and took a moment to look around my office as if to find something familiar and comforting to relate to.

It was the same office I had been spending much of my free time in for the past fifteen years, at least when I wasn’t taking care of church matters or was off taking care of one of the dozen charities I was supposed to be involved with. My wooden desk was set in the middle of the room, behind which a wide window was sharing the first rays of the morning’ sunlight, lifting dust from the bookshelf to its touch.

«The Den» as I called it , was actually more of an apartment than just a workplace. It was composed of three rooms. The front door led to the office part of the apartment, which also served as a bedroom thanks to a very convenient pull-up sofa changing into a bed when I needed to rest up. The kitchen door was situated at the left of the sofa, whereas the bathroom’s entrance was located on the right side of the office, closely aligned with the old bookshelf.

I looked around the place with a smile on my face. The smell of closed-off space stagnating in the air would have felt nauseating to some, however it felt familiar and comforting to me. I enjoyed the strong smell mixed with the scent of the many old books left here and there laying around the place, and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee coming from the kitchen. It wasn’t much, but it was home to me, the only home I had known for a long time.

I stepped into the room, put the mysterious book I stumbled upon on the desk and stood up in front of the window. I looked straight at the sun for a few seconds, until the intensity of the solar beams made sunspots appear in front of my eyes as if to cleanse unwanted images from my mind. I closed my eyes and took the time to enjoy the newborn sunlight, the warmth showering my skin like a U.V massage, strengthening my core.

«If this isn’t a miracle of the Lord, I do not know what else people need,» I thought to myself, feeling a wide smile lighting up my face. I re-opened my eyes and sat down in the armchair in front of the desk. My mind went blank for a short moment as if my brain needed time to reload and process last night’s events. My stare, which was first fixated on my desk, slowly travelled around the table, stumbling upon several items collected through the years, before stopping on a dusty old picture. It was a photograph I had taken many years before in which a woman dressed in red appeared to run on a beach. Intrigued, I took the frame in both hands to look closer at it. It took me a moment to remember that this woman was no other than my own twin sister Mary, staring back at me. I had taken this picture during a beautiful holiday trip to Sicily, where we went after our high school graduation. She was wearing a red one-piece swimsuit, her curly black mane flowing in the ocean wind as she smiled at the camera on a sepia-coloured summer day.

The frame was a simple square-shaped window lined with gold, and I could see a thin message written in black pen in the bottom left corner: «To Theo, Love. Mary. June, 21st, 1977.» It’s funny to see how much just a bad dream can make you rethink your opinion about people and objects you thought you had made up your mind on. This picture, which had become a reminder of personal tragedy, was now a bearer of hope and renewal. I don’t think I had ever taken the time to think about Mary since her passing. The thought of her seemed too painful to even bear. However, now it felt to me as if this picture of Mary was a beacon of light for my poor weary soul and that it made her still alive in some way, her memory is more vivid than it had ever been. « Another angel brightening the heavens. »

After smiling at the picture and remembering how happy we were on that day, regretting with melancholy the innocence of a past long gone, my eyes were then drawn to the book I had found.

«How did this book arrive here?»I asked himself. «I would not imagine one of our regular churchgoers reading such an unusual book during a mass and then leaving it behind.»

My sight began to feel blurry again. My eyes, still too heavy to deal with this unusual encounter after such a tiring night, I stood up and walked in direction of the bathroom. Facing the sink, I turned the cold water on and splashed the refreshing liquid on my face. As the water dripped from my face, I took a look at myself in the mirror above the sink and stared blankly in my own eyes for a moment.

It had been a long time since I had taken a moment to glance at myself. Of course, I had been used to glance at my face while shaving every morning. However, it was the first time in years that I actually spent time studying the facial features making me who I was. Curiously, this face that I had learned to be familiar with, seemed somewhat different. My old wrinkled skin, that I grew accustomed to living with, seemed to have regained a sense of life and elasticity. My eyes, usually grey and monotone, looked as if they had been swapped for the expressive hazelnut eyes of my first years.

I wiped my face with a towel and went to the office to pick up a change of clothes from my dresser. As I was finishing to put on my black buttoned shirt, I went to the kitchen area where a fresh pot of coffee was waiting for me. Max did know how to make people happy with simple gestures, and I knew that even the Lord couldn’t match the energizing effects of a cup of pure arabica. Pouring myself a cup, I glanced at the clock hanging on top of the microwave to make sure I was on time. Looking at it, I realized that the needles didn’t seem to move. Time had been stopped at precisely three a.m. I didn’t pay too much attention to it as it probably had run out of battery, which was something occurring fairly often with these old models.

I drank the invigorating liquid at once and came back to the centre of the church, closing the door of the office behind me. There, Max was already done setting the altar, preparing the communion wafers and the wine.

«Are you feeling better, Father?», the young man asked.

«Much better, thank you for the coffee,» I replied with a now carefree smile. I wanted to add something but was stopped as I looked passed the altar. I remembered my dream had taken place in front of it, but I didn’t exactly remember what role it had in it. I tried once again to picture the scene, now completely woken up. Still, it was like trying to remember something I wasn’t supposed to, like my mind was blocking me out of my own memories, protecting me from unwanted thoughts.

The sound of heavy pounding coming from the entrance door took me out of my daydreaming.

«Do you want me to open the doors?» asked Father Supio.

«No, no, I’ll do it,» I reassured my young comrade as I walked along the main entrance.

«Idle hands are the devil’s playthings,» I continued laughing.

As I opened the lock to welcome the many people gathered to take part in the mass, I came face to face with a young man. Our eyes aligned in an instant, and there, in the penetrating blue and grey marbles I was staring at, behind the veil of moisture that tears were making on the stranger’s pupils, I recognized a familiar soul.

«Forgive me, Father. I, I fucked up.» The young man sobbed, his face drenched in sorrow, before falling to my feet.

«Lucian?» I said surprised as I tried to catch the young man in his fall.