Short Story: Confession

As Grace opened the curtains to the bright morning, its streak casting a glow across the room, illuminated the once dark space as if to expose the secret that lurked. Nothing that could pass for a humiliating confession or a lengthy penance.  Or not? This memory brought a smile as she remembered how she knew someone had been a bad Christian by the hours spent kneeling after seeing the priest for confession. 

Chuckling as she moved about the tiny bedroom she occupied; giving semblance of order to the chaos unleashed the night before. “I need to go back” she thought. “But how do I start, seeing as I’ve stayed away for too long”. With a heavy sigh, she went back to placing things in their position, while making a mental note never to call the dude she brought over.  He was the type you fantasize about but was not worth the spittle. Dang! If she had a card to rate them all, he would get a minus. She didn’t wait until dawn to send him on his way.” Good riddance” she mouthed as she gave the customary hug and kiss and bade him good-day. She had clung to hoping she could erase his stamp but his cologne hung like a plague in the air and trying to combat the smell with an air freshener was making the air smell like fart and dead rat combined.

Giving up the losing battle, she decided to take a walk, letting nature take care of the rest or something close to that. She had been trying to evade the visions that creped unannounced in the past few weeks. Memories she had locked in a safe and forgot the combination. She had been doing well or so. She had defeated the visions that were mild to label “nightmare”. She always saw the convent she had lived, the cuffs on her wrists as she was led away, the face of the man she told all her darkest secrets, the blood that stained his cassock, the matron screaming and the disdain from other sisters. They were coming in droves now.  She knew she was slipping as was evident by the number of sleeping pills she was popping. Which meant the scores of guys she brought over for fear that she would travel back in time and relive the episode wasn’t helping.

As she turned, the street corner, she heard the chime of a church bell. Startled from her reverie, she looked around to take in her surroundings. It was her old street. “How had she gotten there” doing a 360 turn, she breathed the once familiar air. The smell of the bakery that always had fresh loaf all the time. The “No worries store” that sold pirated CDs and the noise from its speakers competed for supremacy with that of the mosque close to it. This was where she had called home. Turning back, she stood across the church that made her take the oath of celibacy”. Now that was a thing of the past, her present a blemish on her once clean record. She felt a pull, like a gravitational force pulling her into its centre, or maybe it was nature’s own way of telling her, “It was time”. Time to operate on the wound that had been left to decay and cause more harm than good. Solemnly, she walked to the confessional, knelt and with the sign began…”Bless me father for I have sinned”