The last was a man who sat behind the screen and said nothing for nearly seven minutes.
I waited.
Silence had weight.Most people tried to fill it.The ones who didn’t were either broken or dangerous.Sometimes both.
Finally, he said, “I have thought about killing someone.”
My fingers rested on my knee, suddenly clammy.
I was unable to move.
“Thinking is not the same as doing,” I reminded him.
“It felt good.”
There it was.That small, ugly confession beneath the confession.The truth people feared most was rarely the sin itself.It was the pleasure they took in sinning.
“What did?”I asked.
“Imagining it.”His breath scraped through the screen.“His face.My hands.The quiet after.”
I closed my eyes.For a moment, I was somewhere else.
A different room.A different man.My mouth trying to form a prayer.My hand around a throat.The quiet after.
I opened my eyes.
“You came here before you did it,” I said.“That matters.”
“Does it?”
“Yes.”
“Will God stop me?”
“No.”
He inhaled sharply.
I leaned closer to the screen, lowering my voice.“God gives you a conscience.He does not chain your hands.If you want chains, go to the police.If you want absolution, start with the truth.Who is he?”
There was a pause.
“My brother.”
I listened until the whole rotten story spilled out.It was one of debt and inheritance.The story of their father’s land.A lifetime of small cruelties stacked into one murderous thought.
When he left, I felt he was pale and shaking.But he would have left lighter, and perhaps less likely to place his hands around his brother’s neck before supper.
I remained in the confessional after he had gone.
The wood smelled old.Warm.Stained with sweat and whispered shame.
I pressed my thumb against the inside of my wrist and counted my pulse until it slowed.
One.
Two.
