A puzzled expression of uncertainty comes from the other side of the screen.
“Can I just give these to you and you can handle the rest?”, I hold up a folded piece of notebook paper.
“Erm… that’s not really how this works. You must say those aloud, my son.”
“Oh, sorry. Let me start over. I meant to say: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been about 5 years since my last confession.”
“Go ahead.”
I proceed to tell the priest about the incident. I try to not leave out any important details, while also protecting the identities of those involved.
Minutes pass by as I stare at the floor, yapping away. It’s been so long, it feels strange to speak for this long without having someone else chime in or interrupt.
The smell is starting to get to me. It’s nostalgic but stale. Like a really old book that hasn’t been read in a long time. It feels like nobody has sat in this seat for years, but I know that’s not true since this is one of the busiest churches in the area.
I guess my confession turned more into a soliloquy after some time. I didn’t even know if the priest was still there or had gone to lunch. It didn’t matter as long as I could offload what had just happened.
“So, Father, if you’re still there, what should I do? I’m kind of at a loss here.”
“I’m still here, my son. To answer your question—“
My phone begins to vibrate, the box amplifying the vibration to where it’s just as loud as having the ringer on. I check the caller ID, and sure enough, I can’t ignore it.
“Sorry, I gotta take this.”
The priest raises his finger as if to ask me to wait for a second, but I grab my phone and step out of the confessional immediately.
As I walk away, out of the church and back onto the main road, I’m thinking to myself: “Wow, that actually helped. I feel so much better!”
My bosses’ stern voice on the other end of the call is like an everyday sight I’ve become accustomed to. It has no effect on me anymore. I’m half-listening, half-thinking about why I gave up religion in the first place.
Hell, if I can take what I need from it and not worry about the rest then that’s good with me. I guess that’s how I treat the other things in my life, anyway. Work is first, everything else comes after.
I want to change, but I’m afraid I’ll lose my identity in the process. I’ll keep trying to chip off the paint, layer by layer until I can start over the right way. Baby steps, I suppose. Baby steps.
The ship painstakingly slid up to the dock. The sailors couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of them. They might as well have had saran wrap over their eyes.
“Captain, did we hit the dock?”
“I don’t think so, Williams. It feels like we’ve still got a few yards to go.”
“Well if you feel it…”
“Don’t use that tone with me, Williams. We’ve all had a long day so cut the attitude.”
Williams tilted his head away with a wormy smirk. Apparently, sarcasm wasn’t appreciated during such focused times. He flipped up his collar and began to squint, facing the biting cold.
“I can’t see a damned thing!” “We might as well have our eyes closed for god’s’ sake.”
“Keep it moving, keep it moving. We must be getting close.”
A thunderous roar erupts as the boat begins to furiously dance.
“Captain I think we found the dock.”
“Williams, if I could see you right now, so help me God, I would clobber you with my telescope.”
The men trepidatiously hopped from the deck, finding their footing on solid ground for the first time in what felt like ages.
One foot in front of the other, both of them thought to themselves.
“I guess keep walking–slowly– until you reach a wall or somethin’.”
“Aye aye.”
Another journey in itself just to get from the boat to a wall. Great.
The thickness in the air seemed to grow heavier with each step. Both men simultaneously have their hands on their shoulder-bags as they cup their hands near their eyes, unsuccessfully attempting to shield their eyes from the cloud-like fog.
A minute passes by, or was it just a few seconds? Thin laughter overcomes the men as they notice a clearing ahead. It’s an archway, maybe leading to a town center or courtyard, although it doesn’t matter where it goes as long as it’s out of the current situation.
The captain reaches the clearing first, breathes a sigh of relief, and removes his hand from his face, the fog no longer posing a threat to his vision.
“See, Williams? I told you we’d be out of that mess in no time.”, the Captain assured.
The captain turned around to a wall of fog just outside the archway, as dense as ever. No sign of Williams. Slightly puzzled, the Captain continued forward into the arched area.
Williams was always getting himself into trouble wherever they sailed. A clumsy prankster and a sloth most of the time, it wouldn’t be unlike him to stumble and lose his way, fog notwithstanding.
Through the archway, a grass-covered clearing was a welcome surprise. A fountain emblazoned with an emblem of the city, presumably, sat at the center of the clearing. The sky above was a light periwinkle with a dusting of clouds. The weather was mild, much like a clear spring afternoon back home.
The captain checked over his shoulder for Williams as he strolled closer to the fountain, blades of grass folding underneath his thick-soled boots.
Maybe it was the long day or the trip from the boat to the clearing, the captain’s mind was tired. The men had run out of water earlier in the day and hadn’t had a morsel of food since the bread and milk at dawn.
Not a small man by any means, the captain was dwarfed in size by the cast stone fountain. He kneeled down, his joints cracking as he supported himself with his elbow on his thigh. Faces stared back at him, intricately sculpted into the outward-facing ring of the fountain. Strangers to him, he thought. He didn’t recognize any deity or world leader in the faces’ construction.
The captain shouldered his bag further up his torso, then reached out his weathered hand to the clear fountain water. At long last, an answer to one of his problems. He didn’t care whether the water was potable or not, it could’ve had insects floating on the surface.
He slurped as much as his hand had the capacity for, relieved, the water was ice cold. He closed his eyes in appreciation of the gift, absorbing his surroundings. He shoved both of his hands into the fountain, deftly bringing water to his mouth repeatedly. With a crazed look in his eyes, he dropped his bag, got down on both knees, and drank to his heart’s content, more still.
“I’d lay off if I were you.” an unfamiliar voice said. Frozen, the captain lifted his head, looking into the eyes of the face before him.
“That water’s not free, buddy.” the face said.
Bewildered at the notion of a talking face in the fountain, the Captain assumed he was delirious from dehydration or perhaps overtired.
Unconvinced, he persisted nonetheless, drinking as much purifying water from the fountain as his hands could shuttle into his mouth.
This continued for another minute or so, before the captain finally stopped, as if he were a marionette being controlled by strings. He stood up immediately, and jumped head-first into the fountain. His entire body vanished.
The face in the fountain looked to its left, felt a sense of familiarity, and gently acknowledged the new face beside it.
