Ave

“Welcome, child. What troubles you?” The priest asks in a creaky voice as I enter the Fountain Street Church, his back turned to me as he attended to his studies. His soft voice echoed, unheard by anyone except for me, off the stained glass windows and lofty ceiling.

I blinked in confusion at his question as I proceeded towards the pulpit. He’d barely seen me come in, he’d barely heard my footsteps on the carpeted floor, I hadn’t even so much as said a word and he already knew. How could he know why I was here if I’d said nothing?

Maybe he’s between sermons and he’s dealt with others who had troubles, says a little thread of thought in my mind.

He stiffened as I approached, as if not anticipating that I was going to draw closer.

“Well, child?”

No turning back now, Michael. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t set foot in a church in years. It doesn’t matter if you’re becoming nervous in front of a man of the cloth. Tell him. That’s why you came here, right? Because you have no idea where else to turn. Why not back to God?

“Father,” I said, pulling the hood of my thick winter jacket down and tugging at my knit brown winter hat, “My wife is dying. She’s dying and all I can do is sit here and be useless.”

I almost felt the priest’s concern as he considered my words, though he said nothing. Concern, and... judgment?

My eyes fell to the floor. No, it was my mind. All in my mind, which was playing tricks on me. My mind, guilt-tripping me for drinking when I should have been at home last night.

“I’m afraid I’m a selfish man, Father,” I continued, my hands wringing the snow and sweat from my knit hat. “I… She suffers so much, she’s got terminal cancer, she’s in a coma… she’s suffering and all I can think about is how much it hurts me. How little I can deal with it. Not her…”

“Go on,” the priest murmured, sensing I had more to say.

My eyes looked up to the baroque image of the crucified savior above the pulpit, looking down at me with sad, compassionate eyes. The only one in the room that didn’t seem to be judging me… I couldn’t. I couldn’t admit my foolish binge-drinking under that gaze…

It’s only a statue, Michael, stop. It’s only a statue, the real thing understands. Of course he does. He understands you fucked up, he wouldn’t have died for you if he didn’t…

My eyes returned to the priest, still milling about the pulpit organizing his things.

“Father…” I responded, swallowing my nervousness at the thought. “Father, what if Andrea isn’t alright when she finally passes on?”

The priest once again stiffened and stopped, no longer setting the little communion wafers in their packages aside, or setting aside the little chalice, or even closing the hymnal. His hands folded behind his back, and he thought for a very long time, silent and almost brooding, head tilted towards the floor as he thought.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour, he spoke.

“I think, child...” he responded, his voice now as resonant as God’s own, “That you are having a crisis of faith. This is not an uncommon thing when mankind is faced with Death, not an uncommon thing when mankind sees what they cannot comprehend. It breeds… fear. Fear begets anger, anger begets sorrow, and sorrow begets fear again. You cannot be faulted for being afraid…”

The response hit me like an arrow in the center of a target.

“Yes… yes, that’s it exactly, and it troubles me,” I admitted, settling into one of the nearby pews. “I’m a good Christian man, Father, even if I’m not practicing… but… I… I just don’t understand. I don’t understand why the Lord would let Andrea suffer like this, why He would let her die like this. Why be so cruel? What peace could she possibly gain from such pain?”

“So then, you doubt it is her time, is that it?”

I said nothing for several minutes, considering the whorls in the wooden pew, and then quietly murmured, “Yes.”

“You… greatly misunderstand both death and the afterlife, child,” the priest responded, after yet more thinking. “You see, the concept of death is this horrific thing to mankind somehow, and to be frank even I myself am not sure why. Life itself is so frightening, so full of danger, that it’s a wonder you don’t all scatter the moment something even remotely dangerous rears its head…”

I listened, intrigued, once more the child sitting in Sunday school. I found it odd that he continued to keep his back to me, but who was I to question the word of someone closer to the spiritual than myself? It would be disrespectful, and I was here for guidance, not to make enemies.

“And furthermore,” the priest continued, once more tidying his work area, “You seem convinced that the afterlife itself is something you earn, but this is not the case… Heaven and Hell, these are labels mankind applies, but these places… they have no true name. Only the names we call them. All die, and therefore all arrive somewhere at death. The afterlife is not someplace one relaxes after death, as so many deem fit to consider it…”

I blinked again, this time confused. Something… something about what the priest was saying, something about the way he said it… jarred me. It didn’t seem correct, it seemed… too knowledgeable. As if it were something not even a priest should know, as if it were information reserved solely for God. But on I listened, not wanting to be disrespectful, not wanting to cause a stir, not wanting to give reason for the statue of the crucified savior above me to cast his sad eyes onto me…

But Michael, whispered the little doubtful voice in my head, If this is the truth, surely it has to be the truth… right? Maybe your beliefs are wrong. Maybe you had it incorrect this whole time. Maybe it’s just you…

Maybe it is just me. In fact, it probably is.

And so I listened on.

“You see, Michael, there does not truthfully exist a line between Heaven and Hell, as you conceive it,” the priest resumed. “Rather, it is all one place, all one concept blurred together. It is where everyone is sent, sinner or saint, upon death. It is where demons hide, and angels, and many things you would not consider feasible or extant… and yet, there is no true theistic ruler. It is a truly incomprehensible, lovely, horrid place, really, most awesome to behold…”

I squirmed in my seat, uncomfortably considering what this meant for Andrea. If this was true, if this was the case and the afterlife was nothing more than a wasteland… Andrea was still going to suffer. She’d still suffer, even after all this, for eternity…

“Do you suppose, child,” the priest responded, again after a pause for thought, “That any sort of god can exist in a kingdom with no ruler?”

No, I realized, slowly, as my eyes widened in horror. No, He can’t…

My stomach inverted, and I could have sworn the Christ statue above flicked its eyes towards me in desperation, pleading for me to defend him. All sense of respect for the priest suddenly drained, and all sense of trust was broken.

“Enough!” I responded sharply, standing, gathering my hat, and proceeding towards the aisle to leave. “Enough… What kind of priest are you, saying stuff like that? How dare you, a man of God, say He doesn’t exist?”

The priest paused momentarily, considering my words again, but did not speak.

I was halfway down the aisle when he finally did.

“Michael.”

This time, I stiffened, and my heart climbed into my throat. I’d never given him my name. I’d never said a word about it, never mentioned anyone other than Andrea, I…

I’d found another demon, hadn’t I?

I’d have laughed at the irony of finding a demon in a church if it wasn’t so horrific.

“Michael, turn around. Before you do something stupid and rash again.”

As if possessed by a greater force than myself, I turned back towards the priest, swallowing my nervousness. The priest was now standing at the end of the aisle, in front of the pulpit, facing me. And he was wearing a mask.

Not just any mask, either. His face was covered by a white mask of some sort, one of those cheap plastic things you found at the dollar store at the last second for Halloween.

What the fuck? I thought, eyebrows knitting in confusion and nervousness. Why a mask? What was he hiding underneath it?

“Come closer, if you would, please,” the priest stated calmly, as if nothing at all were wrong.

And then an awful thought hit me. What if, since this was another demon… what if he didn’t have anything behind the mask? What if the mask was his face? What if…

My breath hitched as I walked back down the aisle towards the priest, eyes set on the ground once more. “Father…” I murmured nervously, fidgeting. “You’re… you’re not a priest, are you?”

“No, Michael, I am not,” the priest responded patiently as I came to a stop in front of him. “I am far more than that.”

“Are you a demon?”

“No, I am neither angel nor demon, although I suppose some may call me either.”

 “Then what are you?” I asked in a frightened whisper, failing to comprehend anything of what this creature had just told me.

“That is not important, Michael,” the priest responded, his gaze fixed on me, watching my every move. “What is important is your inability to let go. Your inability to do anything other than let your own anger consume you. Your inability to do anything other than fear. And most importantly, your complete and utter lack of the ability to deal with death. You are just as frightened as all the others, Michael, no different, no stronger or more courageous in the face of it. A shame. I had perhaps thought you would more readily embrace it, seeing as Andrea is so close to it now.”

The priest leaned down, one hellfire-hot hand on my shoulder, and for the first time I looked up into his eyes and saw… nothing. The priest’s eyes were not eyes, more like wet, obsidian orbs set in sockets that vaguely resembled human eyes…

I shuddered.

“I cannot blame you for the last thing, Michael,” the priest continued. “No human can comprehend the true nature of death, not when humans must first die to understand death… a shame you can’t join me in that knowledge. There is, you know, still time…”

The priest extended both arms, as if offering to take me in.

“No… I… can’t do that,” I responded, lowering my gaze back to the floor and proceeding back towards the door again. “I can’t accept that, Father. I just can’t. It’s a catch-22 and -”

“And the universe is built on such fallacious logic,” the priest continued, lowering his arms once more in what seemed to be vague disappointment as he watched me leave. “But if you insist, Michael, very well. Continue to believe your shallow view of death. I refuse to try to change your mind; I have already both piped for you and sung a dirge for you, and yet you have neither danced nor mourned. It is of little consequence to me. But remember, Michael, you are only human, and humans often learn throughout their entire lives. Knowing this… what shall you do when Andrea is gone?”

I paused mid-stride in front of the door, not bothering to turn back towards the priest.

“I don’t know,” I said, my fist clenched against the church’s door. “But I know for damn sure I don’t need your help to do it.”

“As you wish. But I do believe we might once more cross paths –”

The mighty wooden door slammed shut behind me as I walked down the stairs into the snowy street, cutting the priest off. Seven ravens, startled in the nearby tree, cawed raucously as they scattered in every direction, aimless.

Aimless…

That’s just what you are, Michael, aren’t you? Aimless. Losing everything. You don’t even have faith to fall back on now, do you? So what are you, Michael? Where do you go? What the hell are you going to do now?

I stood, silent, considering, as the snowflakes caught in my knit hat, the knit hat Andrea had made for me. Silent as I felt my gut jangle in anxiety I couldn’t contain anymore.

Silent as I walked home again, feeling tears slide into the snowdrifts beneath my feet.