A Priest's Dying Thought

For years he’d been selling people on the "promise of happiness," of "spiritual freedom" – offering all the people he met their own little pieces of perfection. He’d been to countless weddings, housewarmings, births, and eased the suffering of the bereaved when a death would occur that anyone paid attention to.

For a while (in the early years) he believed that being happy was attainable – like getting into shape or building a classic car: It was a long road, painful, filled with obstacles. But in the end, you reached your goal, tore through the tape, raised your arms and shouted, Yes, finally I made it! I’m happy!

It certainly looks that way from the outside; the celebrations, the shared photos, the public announcements of amazing lives.

But no one invites you to bankruptcy parties. No one sends a "get well" card to a child whose parents burn him with cigarettes. No one puts photos of infidelity in his Instagram album.

And yet, behind the smiles and waves and “wish you were here” selfie winks, these things fester under the skin. They grow thick and black. After a while, the blackness leaks out from beneath the cheery smiles, between the bleached teeth, and through emptiness in the eyes.

But the easiest way to see corruption is in the hands: Tiny wrinkles signify repressed stress; larger wrinkles where wrinkles don’t naturally grow reveal frustrated resentment, born from a lifelong struggle to achieve what cannot be achieved; and the chasms that bore straight through the flesh – those are the secrets… secrets no one would dare tell anyone, even his own priest.

But for Jacob there was no need to look to a person's hands. He saw. He saw it as soon as they came in and pulled the screen closed. He could see the shame and the lies, the hopeless dissatisfaction, while their mouths were streaming meaningless "sins" in order to feel good about doing a religious duty. And what else could he do but say ‘amen’ and bless them with a misinterpreted collection of words that were equally as meaningless?

This isn’t about faith, he thought in the silence. Faith or not, God exists – that he knew. God exists; and He has nothing to do with anything.

Somewhere nearby a bubble burst in a high-pitched ‘plip.’

This isn't about faith or about God. This is about men, women – people who don’t feel, or feel too much, and who cares what else? They are a humanity that has forgotten how to be human. Through their own wills, they have let their thoughts and emotions become choked in mournful hatred. And then they act upon that hatred. They lash out and corrupt - seek to stain the outside world as black as their own hearts.

His body sank slowly, releasing more and more tension as it went down, deeper and colder into the dark. His mind, however, continued to flurry.

When Jacob spoke mass – always to a full house of course – he could smell the resentment in the crowd. It reeked up toward the altar, stifling when it mixed with the hot candle smoke and incense. Through the stench he preached the word of God – useless words. To them it was a language stuffed deep down beyond consciousness, irrelevant to their lives.

He saw them writhe, shift around, shuffle like kids at a lecture on proper nutrition and hygiene. He felt them force it out. Meanwhile their minds - their hearts - were far away. Next week he tried a little harder, drove more emphasis into the sermons, spoke of issues during the homily that affected them directly: issues of hate, pain, intolerance, neglect of the soul. No one made eye contact. Ever.

But he could see them.

He was always seeing them, whether he prayed to be free of it or not. God was listening to him; that was certain. God knew what Jacob saw; He saw the very same thing. He had chosen Jacob to be the witness of this – an impotent witness of decay. Jacob was cursed by God himself.

As years went on, it – the blackness – smoldered. The collective evil – the clotted shroud of disgrace. It spoke to him. A simple cough turned into a profanity, mocking his defense of God. A sneeze became a shriek of pain that sent fingernail shivers down his spine. When two people whispered, he could see smoke curling between their lips, could hear them plotting to steal, to harm, to destroy.

Sometimes he would stop mass entirely and just listen to the blackness. There is no good, it would say – one hundred thousand souls in one ugly voice. There is only nothing, it would laugh – one hundred thousand eyes with fog behind them.

Mouths fell open, tongues dropped out, blackness oozed to the floor, creeping, creeping toward the altar, gaining mass and momentum as it collected from the others.

We will destroy. We will suffer.

It inched its way to his feet like a corpse worm with no purpose other than to absorb. In the early years he had tried to fight back at it - and then he had tried to run from it.

But time and again it attacked. Growing more massive with every hour, fed by broken spirits. And finally he knew. He had nowhere to go. This - the destruction, the hatred, the hopelessness - this was God’s will.

Another two bubbles – bigger ones – popped. Jacob’s eyes drifted away from the stones tied to his ankles to gaze up at the moonlit surface seeming surreal and so far away.

Below him he could hear voices of the damned, moaning, sobbing - his congregation. He didn’t want to look down. He just let his body sink.