Flynn's
Last Confession
Flynn
was failing. His organs could begin shutting down. The retired priest
might not last the night.
"I
want to confess grave acts of commission and omission," Flynn
confided to the hospice's Catholic chaplain who had been summoned by
the staff — not for the first time. "I've hidden these for
decades. I’ve no need to keep these secret now."
Flynn
was as hairless in his gown as a newborn's butt despite his advanced
years. Futile had been chemo. Flynn had joked in Admitting that, on
the bright side, he needn’t shave.
"I
charge you: Write it down; publish after."
"The
seal of the confessional! I’ll grant absolution after your sincere
act of contrition but I cannot grant your request," the chaplain
peeved. "You'll need another for dictation." Father
O’Rourke shifted in the armchair growling, "Not my job. Not
here. Not now."
"Publish."
"No."
"Help
me! I had a dream earlier. I was back in the Vatican in a library.
The papyrus I held was not the text I sought to study. The papyrus
told of the Gospels."
"Now's
not the time for dreams. I'm not your amanuensis. Confess so I may
anoint you and administer the Viaticum."
The chaplain tapped his left breast where, beneath his priest's
suitcoat but visibly suspended from O’Rourke's mastiff-thick neck,
a leather burse held an aureate pyx. "Begin, 'Bless...."
"To
hell with you if you won’t indulge me. Come back tomorrow."
“On
Christmas Day? Not a snowball’s….” snarled O’Rourke as he
removed his purple stole without ceremony, returned it to his coat
pocket, and exited, his mission unfulfilled — not for the first
time. After some time as agitation yielded to boredom, Flynn dozed.
ooo
How much later Flynn knew not — his room lacked
a clock
and his wrist his watch — he sensed a floral scent and the presence
of staff. Opening his eyes he saw a nurse he couldn’t recall having
recently seen, yet he felt uncertain he hadn’t met her before
despite her pixieish bob of bleached-platinum over dark roots
streaked with blue ombré highlights. She having brown eyes under
thick brows and her thin upper lip seemed familiar.
"That's
all right," said Flynn, and he thanked her.
"I'm
taking your vitals," she declaimed and put a thermometer under
his tongue, an oximeter on his finger, and a sphygmomanometer cuff
over his bicep. Squush
squush,
"Be grateful you weren't unresponsive," she deadpanned,
inflating the cuff, squosh
squosh,
"else you would’ve gotten the rectal," squash
squash, "thermometer
after an enema," squish
squish, "of
mild antiseptic,"
squesh
squesh, "which
you might not enjoy."
Flynn
took in her eyes and face and garb as she listened for a resounding
systolic beat and the fading diastolic rest. His unaided eyesight
could read neither her name tag nor her nurse's fob watch clipped to
her blue smock but could appreciate her B-cup chest under a white
tunic tee. The fob, he could discern, featured Betty
Boop M.D.
poised with her stethoscope, but not the inverted dial engraved with,
"Choose Hospice for a happy ending." Squeiaoush.
After
noting his pulse and peeking at the drainage bag beneath the bed she
annotated his chart, drawing out, "You're not...too bad...given
the circumstances." Flynn thought it uncanny her smock should
compliment the zany hue of her highlights.
As
she stowed the meters Flynn risked, "Can I share a secret with
you?"
"'Kay,
for a bit, but I'm on rounds. I might come back later."
"Deal.
Let's start. Forgive me, but I don't remember: What is your name?"
"Tháleia...Tháleia
Lækisis...c'est
moi...like-KISS-is,"
she puckered and audibly blew him an air kiss, "n'est-ce
pas?"
Then holding out both sides of her smock she curtsied a French maid.
Coquettishly she spun her torso away while swiveling her face toward
him and over her shoulder vamped, "I’m temping over the
holiday. You won't forget me; no man does," and winked.
"Pretty
name, Tháleia," said Flynn thinking, "Greek, wasn't one of
the — what
are they?
Catholic? Likely not."
"Here's
my secret: When I was a young priest they sent me to the Vatican for
graduate study in ethics. I was researching the Alexandrian
Church
doctors' teachings against promiscuity via sexual abstinence, their
defenders and detractors among the ante-Nicene ethicists. I had been
directed to a chamber with several
armaria
or ikon-decorated cabinets holding medieval tomes. I understood these
to be copies of third century texts. In Greek! I intended to read a
detractor of Clement. In the designated armarium and on the
designated shelf instead of a book I found a breadbox-sized casket
clasped shut with an ikon of Saint Anthony the Great.
Well, I pressed
the ikon, the clasp released. and the lid cracked open. I raised the
lid. I saw unbound papyri. The one on top began 'αυτή
είναι η ιστορία των ιστοριών των αναβιώνων
των ανόητων.' I translated as, ‘the
story of the stories of the fools' resurrections.’
I was intrigued. I came later to think of these papyri as The
Resurrection History.
Will you take this down for me?"
"Sorry,
rounds. Maybe later…or not. I'm dimming the light. Rest. Don't be
getting yourself up without lil' ol' moi.
That's my job."
After
she had backed from him on her matching blue clogs, dimmed the light,
and closed the door on exiting Flynn recognized whiffs of raspberry
and honeysuckle. Flynn whistled softly hweeEEEE
HWOOoooo.
Flynn
had been fitted with a Foley catheter. He tried to pass water. He
could not tell if any flowed.
He mused over how Tháleia
might get him up and induce some flow.
ooo
Tapping
gentle accompaniment to her patter, "Mister Flynn...James...oh ♫
JIM-mee
♪,"
Tháleia smiled as Flynn opened his eyes. He smelled her honeysuckle
raspberry.
"Have
you used a smartphone lately?"
"No,
eh, not lately."
"I
downloaded a voice recognition app for you. To work it follow me.
Press the microphone icon, here, and say something."
On
the device she held before him he pressed where she had pointed and
spoke, "Test. Test. Testing, one, two, three." She pressed
the icon.
"Let's
see," she said. The screen displayed, "Tess tess esting 1 2
3." She pressed the file icon, and she showed the screen to
Flynn while repeating back his words, as if to a toddler, and asked
confidently, "Good enough?" Squinting Flynn could not read
the text but he nodded his head and voiced, "Aye."
Handing
it to him she directed, "Speak what you want into the
microphone. You can edit later."
Flynn
held the smartphone with both hands before him and resumed his
confession:
"I
moved the casket to the carrel, sat, and worked. I copied and
translated from the papyrus into my notebook. I remember the text as
something like, 'Whosoever
the truth will know it is necessary this he confess. That Marco Proto
with silence and the tomb ended. Marco Proto with death and
entombment ends, "And
they out from the tomb went and with trembling and astonishment
griped fled, and they nothing said."
To die we each shall, but Marcopoulos Déftero added. Marcopoulos
Déftero to Marco Proto added,"He
to Mary Magdalene first appeared"
and ''He
to the eleven as they were at supper appeared."
Unless one wholly Marco Proto knows, without doubt in time
everlasting by Marcopoulos Déftero, a deceiver, and by Matthaíos
Anóitos, his disciple, a fool shall and misled be.'
"I
did not understand. I worked on. The next papyrus seemed not to
follow the first. Nevertheless, I copied, translated, and recorded,
'They
approved his having in Jerusalem himself showed. They, "Touch
me not,"
approved.
They then, "Woman,
now
it
touch,
it is risen,"
knew and they approved and to Marco Proto, having Matthaíos Anóitos
and his disciples accepted, would back not go.'
"I remained uncomprehending, but worked on. 'Marcopoulos
Déftero Marco Proto with lies shameless polluted, but Matthaíos
Anóitos Marcopoulos Déftero polluted. Each church what it wanted to
hear heard.'
"With
that I saw a glimmer: I had seen in Rome the movie I VAMPIRI.
I-oh boy if ever there was a temptress for this celibate she was
Gianna Maria Canale in CinemaScope:
una giovane donna,
full breasts, brunette, arched brows, small waist, and on ubiquitous
magazine covers were her eyes of Apennine lake aquablue.
What
I, drowning in desire, would have suffered to be in her sight!
"In
I VAMPIRI
the
vampire legend had been retold for that latest generation, mine. What
had begun with Le Fanu’s CARMILLA was spread a generation later by
Bram Stoker's novel and the subsequent NOSFERATU silent film. Another
generation passed and there came Bela Lugosi’s talkie DRACULA.
These were before my time, but in the fifties Gianna Maria Canale
starred in CinemaScope: her tongue of fire I would have had descend
on mine!
“With
that insight I inferred my author's message: if Marco
Proto
were the evangelist Mark
and Matthaíos
Anóitos
were Matthew then Marcopoulos
Déftero
had been the one who had added the Resurrection story onto the Mark’s
original Greek Gospel. My author was stating that the
gospels were spinning a reanimated-corpse tale differently at
different times to different churches, different cultures, as those
vampire re-tellings had done millennia later. My Resurrection
History author
was inveighing contra such spins: That the Resurrection, as we had
come to know it, had been like an evolving crypt-tale of increasingly
explicit sexuality, warped around the Mediterranean by entertainers.
The frame had
been
changed: The sinister drinker of innocents' blood was the inverse of
Our
Savior’s innocent blood shed for us sinners to drink, the
Eucharist. We are the spiritually dead imbibers of His
eternal-life-giving blood. Hic
est enim calix sanguinis mei."
Flynn
glanced around his room. He found himself alone. He thought maybe
Tháleia might have backed out as he had become engrossed about
Gianna Maria. Tháleia’s scent of raspberry honeysuckle lingered.
Then
that squeaky wheeled gurney sang crescendo — HEEEE‑meee...
HEEEE‑meee...HEEEE‑meee
— its dirge through the wall from the corridor beyond as the
gurney approached, passed, then faded decrescendo — HEEEE‑meee
— "Likely for Persky," Flynn inferred; "they'll be
wheeling that for mine soon," which reminded him of his first
professional corpse.
ooo
At
the hospital from the triage nurses' desk Father Flynn had been
directed to follow the red stripe down the main corridor until the
next-to-last door on his right. He knocked, and announced, despite
his novice's nervousness, "Forgive me; I'm Father James Flynn."
Hearing sobbing from within but nothing otherwise forthcoming he
risked entering. He saw in that windowless room an ashen patient on a
gurney, its side-rails down but with the chest and head elevated,
beside which sat a sobbing woman holding the patient's hand — the
patient's eyes closed, early-forties, street clothes, but covered by
a sheet to mid-chest — and a nurse, mid-thirties, sitting in a
corner. For the patient there were neither intravenous drips dripping
nor monitors monitoring. Flynn nodded gravely in turn to the woman
and to the nurse who blinked her green-gray eyes twice and with the
smallest head shake signaled him that all hope had been abandoned.
Flynn slow-blinked, “Acknowledged.”. He caught odors of beer, of
urine, and of bowel.
Without
further introduction given the circumstances he removed his stole
from his priest's suitcoat, kissed and affixed it around his
shoulders purple-side up, removed from his black leather sick-call
bag his leather-bound Ordo
Administrandi Sacramenta,
and opened to the page marked by a red satin ribbon. He
paused. The woman placed the patient's hand on the stilled chest and
stifled her sobs. Flynn then read softly but audibly the conditional
absolution, making the sign of the cross at the patient as directed,
"Si
capax, ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis✝in
nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen."
Flynn turned several pages. He took then from his bag his phial
labeled OI,
removed a fresh cotton ball from a glass jar, and opened a small
pewter box. He set both the cotton and box on the gurney sheet,
unscrewed the phial, moistened barely his right thumb with the oil
for the infirm, and re-screwed and returned the phial. Bending down
and forward he anointed the ashen patient by making a sign of the
cross on the cool forehead with his moistened thumb while reading
audibly but softly, "Si
vivis,✝per
istam sanctam Unctionem, indulgeat tibi Dominus quiquid deliquisti.
Amen."
He straightened up. A black-green fly flew from under the gurney and
lit on the anointed forehead. Flynn whooshed the fly that lit on the
door. Flynn wiped the cotton across the patient's forehead removing
the oil, deposited that cotton into the pewter box, and put the box
into his bag. He decided, given the circumstances, to dispense with
any anointing of eyes, ears, nose, lips, or hands.
Once
more Flynn turned pages. He softly, audibly, read the indulgence and
the blessing, "Ego
facultate mihi ab Apostolica Sede tributa, indulgentiam plenarium et
remissionem omnium peccatorum tibi concedo, et benedico te✝in
nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen."
Flynn
closed the book and put it into his bag. He backed a half-step from
the gurney, finished. He thought he had been professionally thorough
given the circumstances and had passed his first
trial in professional ethics — appearing
to do good despite patent evidence of futility. Before any sign of
nervous relief could cross his face, Flynn took in the woman's
questioning look.
"Gee,
if you can, say a prayer in English," coaxed the nurse.
Flynn
started improvising: he joined his hands together and raised his
voice subtly in volume beginning an Our Father in English. Neither
woman spoke the customary response, so he, himself, hushed through,
“...and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Flynn next began a Hail Mary but the same silence prevailed, so he
whispered, “...Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now
and at the hour of our death.” He bridged to, "The God of
infinite mercy has granted His forgiveness on his soul. Eternal rest
grant unto him, O Lord." Again neither joined his hushed,
"...And let perpetual Light shine upon him." Unsure of his
improvisations Flynn offered a blessing: turning to the woman, he
lowered his voice in pitch but intoned, "May Our Lord and His
Blessed Mother comfort you
at this, your
time of sorrow, and I, now, bless you..." — signing
at her with his raised right hand to a six-count —"in the name
of the Father..." — while modulating tone — "and
of the Son...and of the Holy...Ghost..." rejoining his hands on
a rising bump note of, "...A-," then mimicking a hymn's
resolution with the final, falling, "...men." The woman
crossed herself and resumed sobbing, a tear down each side of her
nose. Flynn's eyes strayed down the likely course of her tears, and
he noted her silver pendant cross above her amply filled red sweater.
Flynn risked making as if to touch the woman's shoulder, but the
nurse head-gestured for him to leave. He took up his bag, backed from
the gurney, exited with that fly in pursuit, and retreated a
half-dozen yards up the corridor so as to be in a position to express
condolences or to offer comfort. After a bit the nurse too exited and
approached.
Her
badge read, "O'Kloth R.N." She wore a starched apron over
her white uniform above white stockings and white gum-soled shoes.
She had fixed her copper-colored braids plaited back into a terminal
bun beneath her white cap.
"Thank
you, nurse," hushed Flynn while taking in her green-gray eyes,
retroussé nose, and freckles and surmising "Celtic, so
possibly."
"Call
me Moira. Your first time, father?"
"You
knew?"
She
whispered, "On this beat priests have that memorized."
Flynn’s
face flushed at being chastised. Flynn felt again as if a
black-habited nun had found cause to correct schoolboy him.
After
a pause Moira O'Kloth R.N. said softly, "We give the widow some
time alone before I cover it up and send it on. D.O.A. That's how
their cardiac arrests at their tap rooms go. The ambulance pair
called it and notified the cops who notified the widow. Gee, by the
time she gets a neighbor or her mother to watch the kids and gets
down here he's been dead and cooling for more than an hour. Still, it
was good of you to have gone through with it for her and added on at
the end."
"This happens often?"
"Almost
every night, but they're not always Catholic. When they're wheeled
into there," she head-gestured at the room, "someone
ought
to
cry over them, but some
nurse
has
to cover them. A‑and, believe me, covering them is easier than
saving them."
O'Kloth
continued to spin out softly for Flynn the protocols at this
hospital as a professional courtesy she would have extended to any
novice, but Flynn tuned her out with, "Forgive me," and he
busied himself fixing the aforementioned tools of his trade back into
their compartments in his sick-call bag.
He
treasured his bag as it had been compartmentalized for each
sacramental and other essentials.
Flynn
smelled vanilla and apple blossom from O'Kloth, a relief from the
ambient septic and antiseptic odors.
After
what seemed to him to be few minutes the widow, composed, exited with
her lipstick and mascara freshly applied underneath her hat and veil.
She carried her coat over her arm, her purse suspended from her
shoulder. She grimaced through her veil bravely for the nurse, nodded
at Flynn, but turned and advanced further down the main corridor, her
shapely legs and fetching bottom receding, purposefully disappearing
from Flynn's sight, bound for her next station: the making of
arrangements somewhere beyond the Admitting Office. Moira, struck by
Flynn's corporeal interest, teased, "Interested? 'Kay,
'til next
time," with a wink, turned, and re-entered the room before he
could mutter, "Aye...deal." Flynn registered Moira's slim,
uniformed figure. Flynn pursed his lips as if to hweeEEEE
HWOOoooo.
He felt a woody rising.
ooo
—e
... heeee‑mee....
Starting
from his reverie Flynn noted the silence grow after the gurney had
rounded the corner toward Persky's. Flynn resumed his dictating.
"The
next papyrus I translated as, 'Marco
Proto first came. Marcopoulos Déftero after came. Matthaíos Anóitos
Marcopoulos Déftero after came. Matthaíos Anóitos, "Simon,
you upon my peter are," wrote...,'
but a wimpled nun librarian opened the door. She had designated the
armarium for me. I remember that musky sandalwood wafted while she
conversed, not venturing beyond the chamber door. She was shapely yet
small waisted in her black habit. She had aquablue irises framed by
eyeglasses."
Flynn
acted out the scene for the smartphone in Italian, rendering the
nun's role in falsetto.
"'Mi
scusi, padre.'
('Excuse me, father.')
'Si,
sorella?' ('Yes, sister?'),
'L'hai
trovato? Stelle e crepuscolo e tre....'
('Did you find it? Stars and twilight and three....')
'No,
ma non è importante per oggi. Sto traducendo un altro che ho
trovato.'
('No, but that is not important for today. I am translating another I
have found.')
'Taglia
corto. Lavorare su ciò che cerchi, seguimi.'
('Cut that short. To work on what you seek follow me.')
'No,
non oggi. Aspetterà un altro giorno.'
('No, not today. It will wait for another day.')
'Come
dici, 'Kay.'
('As you say, 'Kay.')
'Si.
Abbiamo
un accordo.'
('Aye. We have a deal.')
"She
then took off her glasses and winked one eye a couple of times as if
some mote were a bother before she left, closing the door. Tempted by
a scholar's career-making find I worked the rest of that day copying
and translating the papyri from that casket. The next papyrus I
translated as, 'The
Physician Matthaíos Anóitos in everlasting time followed...',"
—
ummp
... ka-thummp ... Ka-Thummp ... KA-THUMMP
— the squeaky wheeled gurney under a load approached in the
corridor. "Persky's aboard," Flynn reckoned with, "He
couldn't dodge this by going AWOL."
When
they had met weeks back and were swapping their life stories Persky
had regaled Flynn with having been destined for a sonarman S.O.
rating in the Navy.
"I
finished high school and got thrown into the draft eligible pool. Not
wanting to bleed out in a rice paddy I signed on for a stint in the
Navy. See the world: am I right? I had always liked going down the
shore. Anyway, the Navy sent me to sonar school. I passed. They
billeted me to the USS
Thresher,
nuclear powered SSN‑593, the newest boat in the fleet.
"My
girl, instead of joining me for my graduation ceremony, sends me her
Dear
John
even after I had sent her enough dough. Well that was an 18 karat
hurt. I had never hurt so badly up 'til then. I've hurt some since,
though.
"I
had leave before having to report so I went back to make the tomato
see me. Well, doc, after I turned into the original Endsville loser,
smashed and a crumb over that mish-mash. I couldn't stop thinking
about her doing her new creep. I went AWOL. A‑and when I learnt
it wasn't just one but a string of creeps — like the quin was
recruiting an infield of goombahs — I couldn't stop thinking about
her hey‑heying. After the MPs caught me I did lockup, got
dishonorably discharged, had to forfeit everything, but, wow-ee wow
wow, I dodged the Thresher's
last deep dive, the big casino. Thank God Almighty, ain't that crazy?
She and I never made up so you might say, doc, I dodged another
effing disaster. And here I am now, the living end, more than fifty
years later.
"Doc,
I'm not hacked to be cashing out, but I'm gassed to have been so damn
lucky."
To
that
sailor story Flynn
had recounted for Persky his own analogy of the self and the soul
that Flynn had formulated after having read how the nuclear powered
USS
Nautilus
had operated submerged under the polar ice cap. He gave Persky, as
comfort, the orthodox version with the soul being like a submariner
who escapes his sinking vessel, swims to the surface, and is saved in
the Light. Flynn had kept his apostate version to himself.
Some
months after his library epiphany Flynn had reasoned that each self
is a confederacy of the organs, an illusion, a mirage without
anatomy, the insubstantial integration of sensory signals.
Insubstantial, without substance. As if each corporeal organ (of
sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch) sent up reports and an
integrating function in the brain — like a submarine's officer —
from those reports amalgamated a transitory chart
of the sea and my current position.
As it must be in that submarine: integrating situational awareness
from sonar, making course plots taken from inertial navigation,
engine speed, and depth of dive, from adjustments for currents: to
issue a command to the planesman to rise to periscope depth for a
look. How we each function in the world according to our own
transitory, internal charting amalgamated by each brain's
integrations, but we, per
se,
don't exist beyond the transient moment. Each self is as transient as
that sub’s situational awareness, or, he had reasoned further, like
music: Music, per
se,
does not exist except as it is played: the musicians playing what the
audience hears. Let either stop and music ceases. Regardless of
instruments or black printed notes, music ceases once the vibrations
have dissipated. Each of us are but children of Euterpe, the muse of
music. Each self ceases when the organs cease reporting and the brain
ceases to integrate, with the act of dying being the brain's
recognition of a grave lack of input. Most of us, Flynn had
concluded, never rise to periscope depth, but sink in silence into an
abyss, lost, gone forever, like the all
hands
aboard the Thresher
in 1963.
And as for any insubstantial soul, well, Occam's razor.
It
had taken time after his Vatican eureka for Flynn to reconcile
himself fully to this personal apostasy but he never allowed that to
affect him professionally: Flynn would ever outwardly and visibly
appear to do what appears to be good.
ooo
—Ka-Thummp
... ka-thummp
... ka-....
In
that wake of silence streaming after the gurney's passing Flynn
resumed dictating to the smartphone. "Where was I? Simon, my
peter! The next papyrus I translated as, 'The
Physician Matthaíos Anóitos in everlasting time followed...',"
but Flynn yawned. Thinking that there was too much to recount
presently — his author's disparagement of the empty tomb of
Matthaíos
Anóitos,
of the materialization on the road to Emmaus and the after-supper
de-materialization as if as some tomb
bat,
of the behind-locked-door
materialization and ghost talk with feeding by wolves on lambs and
sheep by Ioánnis Evangelistís; his author's assertion to the
veracity of the Gospel of Didymus, the Twin, not to mention Flynn's
mounting inference that day that his author's history may be
the
gospel
truth
— Flynn pondered stopping with, "I can edit more in later
Tháleia said."
Despite
another yawn Flynn yielded to a compulsion to commit his conclusion
to the record presently with, "There was my, one might say, sin
of commission: I hid my Saint Anthony casket of papyri on a different
shelf in a different armarium in a different chamber, where I would
know to retrieve it, but any other, searching, would be frustrated. I
had learned during seminary: what is misplaced in library stacks is
lost forever. The armarium to which I had been directed had
crepuscolo,
tre pipistrelli e stelle.
Or had that librarian said tre
papa strulli?
Regardless, where
I hid my casket depicted Jonah
and the Whale.
I left the library at closing with my notebook copy and my
translation. I never returned. I informed my adviser I would not
continue to study ethics, but I did not confess why. I returned to
America where I lectured at delinquents in the diocesan boys high on
school days and I suffered parochial souls on weekends and sick
calls. So I had two gigs with room and board and Blue Cross. I got
cash stipends for wedding and funerals and the odd cash referral
gratuity. I enjoyed consoling the occasional young widow through her
grief too. After Vatican
II
I burned my notebook of The
Resurrection History.
I never sought to publish — that was my sin of omission."
Flynn
ceased dictating. He felt lightened to have confessed. After a few
minutes more, tired, he dozed. Flynn dreamed again.
ooo
I’m in
that chamber in that Vatican library. I'm smelling musk and
sandalwood. As the wimpled nun librarian Gianna Maria Canale has
opened the door but she is coming in. I-oh boy — hweeEEEE
HWOOoooo
— no habit but in a black lacy corset, garters, seamed stockings,
stilettos, and opera gloves. Through eyeglasses she is batting her
eyelashes while asking, "Giacomo, scholar you, find you, no
publish you, why?"
"That
might have ended the grift, the — aye — con. As long as there are
sheep they have to be sheared. A‑and shearing them is easier
than saving them."
She
throws her glasses with, "Cut it." "All'inferno
con te,"
she sneers and, "vieni
su sorella Atropos.
You
take I given the circumstances, 'kay?"
She
literally sneers revealing fangs. She pulls me close with both arms
and bites my neck. My carotid artery gushing is for her an
over-pressured drinking fountain. She slurps.
"Some
flow,"
I recognize the
voice of Lækisis.
Atropos
clamps her right gloved hand on my gusher. She spits her mouthful of
blood at the back of my left hand. With her own gloved left hand she
bloodsmears my forehead, eyelids, and nose using the back of my
hand.
"Give
him a taste: checking: does his imbiber's palate find the vintage as
tinny as une
huître de mauvais goût?"
teases the voice of Lækisis.
“Sorry...not!”
Dropping
my hand Atropos kisses my open mouth, laving my tongue with my own
blood. My blood tastes metallic like a foul, French
flat
oyster.
"Gee,
give him an earful of English," I recognize O'Kloth's coaxing.
Atropos
tongues my left outer ear. She salivates and tongues a mixture of her
saliva and my blood into my ear canal. She blows into my ear. I hear
a breeze freshening. I hear male voices chanting the Dies
Irae:
I'm
splitting into two: my consciousness self is watching from above and
outside of my body below as hooded monks process behind one in a
Knight Hospitaller's garb: a cross argent amply filling a crimson
field. The knight's face is behind a monstrous ikon of Baphomet.
Flanking that knight are acolytes in Knight Templar garb: a cross
crimson on a white field. Their helmet beavers are down. My
wonderstruck nose takes in raspberry, apple blossom, vanilla, and
honeysuckle along with the musk and the sandalwood.
Atropos
orders, "Check." Each acolyte draws a sword and heats the
tip over the other's burning candle. When the points glow orange-red
Atropos orders, "'Kay,"
removes her gloved hand from my body's neck, and the acolytes, in
turn, cauterize, each responding, "'Kay"
as my body's blood hisses and steams from their sword-point
treatment. I recognize the acolytes' voices as those of Tháleia and
Moira. My body screams, "Bloody murder." The stench of
burnt flesh overwhelms the perfumes.
Atropos
orders, "Down." She rips off her wimple. She has short
cropped dark hair. She throws the wimple at my body. With ceremony
the Knight Hospitaller lets the ikon fall and I recognize the
hospital widow, who proclaims, "Melpomene is here," and
tosses aside, "though I'd rather be throwing myself under a
moving train."
On
striking ground the Baphomet ikon metamorphoses into that widow's
ashen patient who jumps up with his own feet. On landing he
metamorphoses to a female gospel singer who declaims, "♫
Euterpe
is here ♪."
With
ceremony the Knights Templar throw down their swords and candles.
They throw down their helmets in unison exclaiming, "The belles,
Clotho and Lækisis,
are thrilled to be here."
"How
thrilled are they?" Melpomene straightmans.
Moira
adjusts her tabard at her neckline while scanning the scene,
wisecracking, "They're so thrilled that if that isn't a banana
under Flynn's gown Tháleia's gonna ring some peals outta him.
"Bah-DUM-bum,"
quips Tháleia.
“I'm
gonna have that old clapper swinging in a bell’s mouth," vamps
Lækisis.
"Idiophonies,"
Euterpe taunts.
"Don't
you know campanology?"
sounds off Melpomene.
"No
respect; we get no respect," sighs Moira.
My
self watches the Knights Templar kick each helmet that, on taking
flight, metamorphoses to a tomb bat. The tomb bats, helmeted with
green mitres, fly circles above my body while dropping batshit on my
body's scalp. The monks are humming in chorus to that Dies
Irae
melody backing the gospel singer's solo:
Sings
Euterpe,
"O, my sisters,
Smack
Flynn's backside 'til it blisters.
Chastise
— aye — con man ministers."
Tháleia,
Melpomene too,
Whack
Flynn's backside 'til any blue-
Veined
skin shows welts of zany hue.
Wearing a navy blue sharkskin suit and Cuban-heeled, pointy shoes, a young Persky appears, his wavy hair side-parted. He's snapping his fingers in time. He chimes in with, "Aren't they ring-a-ding? They call themselves The Fates and Muses and they're backed tonight by Les Frères de la Mort. They're gonna swing that ditty now, so dig." The ensemble picks up tempo, singing:
Moira
shoves Tháleia's novel
Bovine-sized
enema nozzle
Up
Flynn's rectum. He does grovel.
"He's
gone down, Thál, see? Gee, he's smote.”
Boof
starts, wine flows. From Flynn's — "WHEEeee!" — throat
Wails
he from boof, pitched high-C note.
Cried
he, quaked he, Flynn's yet slumpin'.
"Wail
less," coax’d nurse, the wine pumpin'.
Flynn's
butt burns like taurine-hump'd been.
"Resurrect,"
Atropos urges,
"Corpus
meum,"
up emerges
Flynn's
cock at sister, as dirges
Chant
Gregorian we dour, "Him
Cut
down..."
My
self beholds Les
Frères
encircling Clotho and Lachesis who raise my body up, its erection
patent, to their sister Atropos who draws out a reed-like thing.
My
body protests, "You pain me for sins I committed. I drank, I
lusted. At least I never molested a child."
"But
your pastor did: see," flash in English
subtitle
like an Italian cinema while Atropos rants, "Ma
il tuo vescovo ha fatto: vedi."
My
self beholds the parish pastor then, Monsignor Weissmann,
spread-eagle naked, posterior up, atop a pile of cow manure, a
bovine-sized colic funnel in his anus. Pubescent lads and gals of
every race take turns, from a platform above, dropping a vole into
that funnel while alternating, "Dolor
vobiscum"
with "Adulescens
mus, per quam serpens resurgemus."
As each does, Weissmann
disgorges, gagging, yet another vole from his mouth, each vole coated
from the pastor's gastrointestinal slime and stench.
The
colony of violated voles trumps to a ground spring where they groom
themselves clean. Father O’Rourke appears, becomes a dog, and
gently fetches a clean vole in his muzzle to those youths to have
another run through Weissmann.
"Tu,
Flynn, sospettavi che Weissmann predicava agli adolescenti...,"
Atropos rants while English subtitles flash, "You, Flynn,
suspected Weissmann
preyed
on adolescents preparing for their confirmation. You heard their
schoolage confessions that they, the innocent victims, had sinned
with one like him. You did nothing but grant those innocents
absolution. You kept silent. You hid behind the seal of the
confessional. You sinned by omission. You never alerted civil
authorities."
My
body's mouth disclaims, "Not my job, not back then. I stuck to
the ethics of the times: to never speak ill of another priest, of a
fellow Republican. We priests were like doctors who never spoke ill
of another's treatment though his patient died. In those times I
harmed none."
My
body’s eyes turn to the children. No longer vivacious they’re
emaciated, gaunt from the psychological damage from having been
abused.
"All'inferno
con te,"
judges
Atropos.
My body's lips accept with, "Sorella,
si."
My self registers the wind strengthening to gale force.
Clotho
and Lækisis
are holding my body as Atropos, fangs bared, bites my body's neck on
the other side before she backs a half-step. My
self
watches my eyes eyeing her aquablues turning to black through the
exsanguinating fountain that is gushing with an impetus and velocity
superior to any recorded on celluloid those eyes ever saw. Persky's
voice calls out, "Dig it: Les
Frères
are swinging now."
"...Thar
sub blows! Sub's hour's grim.
Leaks
it. Sinks it. End we our hymn:
Demons
hell-bound, devour him."
Clotho
and Lækisis
let my body fall without ceremony, the
wind subsides, and the bats alight onto my body's neck. They feast on
blood.
Persky
reappears, lit by a baby spotlight, piping, "Witchdoctor, you're
the living end! We're gonna take it down now real slow. Remember your
waitstaff generously cashing out. Ta‑ta." The baby spot
goes dark.
Within
the deepening darkness my
self takes in
the ring-a-ding singers and Persky's crooner's baritone reprising the
Dies
Irae
melody at chant tempo:
"Flynn
shan't e'er more from supine rise.
Black
pools, sister's Apennine eyes,
Drowns
he in, Flynn's fate condign. Dies."
My
conscious self beholds the scene fade to a bottom-of-the-sea
blackness as all voices fade too to silence.
The
brightest, whitest sphere of light — whiter than any ever known —
appears and shines brighter than the sun, even, but without giving
hurt. My self wonders, "What's that?" then knows fear, then
dread, then digs the dire situational awareness with, "My god!"
ooo
Flynn's
nightmare dissolved into corporeal unconsciousness unrelieved unto
time everlasting. Flynn’s colon and bladder sphincters released,
the catheter having become previously dislodged. His prostate seeped.
⚫
None
ever did but had any examined she would have found the smartphone's
recorded file to have contained only, "Tess tess esting 1 2 3,"
because Flynn had failed — not for the first time — to press the
designated icon.
*
* *
Flynn's bag had designated compartments for: A 1-1/2" dia.
24K gold-plated pyx [5 host capacity]; a leather burse with 36"
strap; the aforementioned 4" length, 1/2" dia. dual-ended
combination oelum
infirmorum
[OI] phial [stock] & holy water sprinkler*; the aforementioned
cotton jar & pewter box; a 3" high crucifix and detachable
crosstree pedestal; a pair of 3" beeswax candles that fit the
pedestal; a place for matches or a cigarette lighter; his reversible
stole [white/purple] measuring 42"x1-1/2"; a supplemental
kit for celebrating Mass in the field [24K gold-plated 1.5 oz.
chalice & 2" dia. paten & 2" dia. ciborium {21
host capacity}, two 1 oz. cruets with stainless steel screw tops
labeled "V" & "A,"** an abbreviated Roman
Missal, a reliquary that could contain the 3rd-class relic of Saint
Katherine of Alexandria, & reduced-size Mass linens]; the
aforementioned Ordo;
a black rosary for Flynn & six white extras to be given to
grieving family members without; a pitch-pipe; a doz. leaflet copies
of Glory
of Rome: 5 Hymns Every Catholic Should Know;
a deck of holy cards to distribute to pre-pubescent children
depicting St. Maria Goretti [for girls] & St. Aloysius Gonzaga
[for boys]; six scapulars for the Devotion
to the Sacred Heart
to distribute to postpubertal girls or to the senescent; a doz.
leaflet copies of Prayers
To Know One's Vocation
to distribute to postpubertal boys; a doz. Miraculous Medals to
distribute to the infirm; & assorted business cards of prominent
parish members or diocesan newspaper advertisers whose services
might be endorsed to the laity in their times of need: morticians,
the Catholic cemetery, organists, florists, caterers, bakers, the
Knights of Columbus hall, infant baptismal gowns, First Communion
suit &
dress
rental, parochial school uniform suppliers, tuxedo rental, dance
bands, wholesale beer distributors, limousine services, bankers,
insurance brokers, & car salesmen.
© Wilson Varga 2018, 2020 All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Illustrations herein are reproduced under "Fair Use" for non-commercial purpose."
