Author's Note: This story is based on my personal thoughts and feelings about a certain organised religion. It's a bit random. I don't mind flames, but please do not try to tell me I am wrong, as it is an OPINION. And don't try to convert me, either. Or I'll write you a long email and try to convert you back.

Another Breath Lost

The water was there. I remember the water, sitting in the bowl in front of my eyes, showing me my own reflection. I didn't like the image I saw staring back at me; a haggard young girl who could have been pretty once. Now the girl in the water looked much too tired to ever gain that loveliness back. Her youth had been sacrificed, that much was obvious. But for what, no one would ever be able to tell.

The church I was in was quiet and serene. The evening sunlight drifted through the stained glass bodies of patron saints that I had never heard of, casting strange coloured shadows on the aisle floors. The air smelled of heavy incense mingled with perfumes that you often find elderly women wearing. Yes, I could see it. The sermon that evening must have been full of the elderly, their sagging skin hanging loosely over brittle bones. I could imagine their tired eyes staring up at the priest with hope, their wrinkled hands fervently crossing themselves, and their thin lips muttering prayers underneath their breath.

I walked down the central aisle, marveling at all of the misplaced beauty that the church held. There was something unfair about the way the candles flickered and cast long shadows on the ground, the way the sunlight filtered through those majestic windows, the way the whole place was caught inside this timeless mysticism that seemed only to affect the inside of the building. There was something terribly unjust in all of the spell binding beauty of the place.

I continued my slightly subdued walk down the long aisle, pausing occasionally to pick up a dropped hymnbook and flip through its golden edged pages. The words were clear enough, written even in my vernacular, and yet there was something about them I couldn't quite grasp. Some air of mystique that befuddled my mind. I understood each word well enough, but when they were put together there was something not at all comprehensible about them. The whole book seemed to be in gibberish to me. Mystified, I placed the leather bound book down and turned my attentions elsewhere.

In the very front of the church, kneeling in one of the pews, was a young man with his head bent and his lips moving ardently in an unknown prayer. He was garbed plainly as any simple man would be, and his sweating hands were clasped together in front of him. I stopped where I was and watched him as he crossed himself and slowly stood. He moved out of the pew, kneeling and crossing himself again, and made his way toward me. His eyes were red and swollen, and his face was dark as though he was hung over. He had been crying, that much was clear.

"Hello," he said gruffly as he passed me, and I turned to watch him walk out of the church, his coat in his hands.

"Wait!" I called when he had gotten half way to the doors. My voice echoed unnaturally in the arched ceiling, bouncing off of the walls and returning to the air. He turned, puzzled and visibly irritated, but walked the distance back. Sometimes he would slow, as if he was going to change his mind, but he met me where I had stayed standing.

"Yes?" his voice was thick, misery hanging in the back of his throat waiting to be released.

"I was just wondering," I said cautiously, aware that my question could be taken in the worst of terms, "Why is it that you come here?"

He looked slightly taken aback and even perplexed when he gave me his answer. "To pray, of course. And to be closer to God, and to learn." Even in his voice, you could hear the importance of the word "god". "Isn't that what you come here for?"

I shook my head slowly, a smile spreading on my lips. Silently, and more bewildered than ever, he turned and walked back down towards the doors. I let him go. He had given the same answers as every other person I had asked gave. I turned back to the front of the church, dissatisfaction leaping at my heart. How was I to do what I wished to do if no one would provide me with a full answer? I raised my eyes to the crucifix hanging behind the altar. Jesus stared down at me with mournful eyes, a contradicting and almost benign smile on his face. His pale hands and feet were nailed to the cross and the crown of thorns was sitting resolutely on his head. It seemed almost impossible that he should be hung that way, with no blood pouring out of his body, and the dying skin in his hands able to support the weight of his bones. It seemed to me more of a joke than a symbol, as if whoever had begun to make the crucifixes was playing games with people by making the representation unrealistic. But no, it made sense in it's own way. Blood was too real for the people who worshipped here. Blood was too primal, too pagan for their pristine statues and murmured hymns.

I made my way to the altar slowly. When I reached the small steps in front of it, I did not kneel and cross myself as I had seen so many do before. There would be no meaningless symbolism, no pointless worshipping from me. Instead I removed the black shawl that I had been wearing and let it fall to the ground, exposing my pale, thin, and scar-ridden arms. I slipped off my shoes and let my feet come in contact with the cold floor, wondering if those who had walked there before me in the name of faith had ever felt its icy touch. I walked the few steps up, pausing briefly by the statue of Mary, the only woman held in any esteem but only because she gave birth as a virgin. The more I thought about it, the more I hated it. Women were always evil because of their flesh, their longing, their passion, and their love. They were evil because of the very things that made them human. And along comes this girl that was raped by god, without him ever actually touching her, and she becomes more than a saint. What was it about these people that made them hate women so? What was it that wanted them as subdued little does, with doleful eyes, never expressing any interest in being human? What was it inside of these worshippers that convinced them that women were in the wrong? But, most of all, what made them think that giving birth was a shameful and appalling thing, almost as shameful as sex itself?

I gently touched the statue's arm, sending out my sympathies to the girl that had been raped by god, and passed on quietly. By then the sun had set, and the waxing moon's ethereal glow danced in the bodies of the stained glass saints, casting glittering patterns onto the floor. The candles were losing their light rapidly, the shadows they created becoming smaller and smaller. Soon I was left with only the moon and the saints that it shined down on. The darkness had become a comfort to me; I could no longer see the statues and paintings that would upset me so.

I removed the white cloth from the table, revealing a polished wood that shone eerily, and let it fall to the floor in a little bundle. There was no stopping I now that the sun had fallen back into the sleepy hills and the moon had claimed the sky again. I was going to do what I had set out to do, despite my lack of answers.

I climbed up on the table carefully and turned to face the crucifix once again. The face of the so-called savior was bathed in the light of the moon, the very same light that so many "blasphemers" had danced in on Beltane and Samhain. His once benign smile now seemed mocking and cruel. Yes, this was the Jesus that I knew. This was the cold-hearted man that I recognised. I pulled my dagger from it's sheath hidden in my left boot, and raised my other arm to the face of the crucifix. Slowly and purposefully I dragged the cool blade across my skin and felt my blood, so warm, trickle down my arm and onto the table below me.

"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" I whispered to the statue, "This is what you were asking for all along, wasn't it? My undying love and affection? My blood?" I heard my voice begin to rise. "This is what you wanted, isn't it?!" I slid the blade across my skin a second time, and a third, slicing through one arm and then the other. The blood was pouring like oil down my arms and spilled off the table and onto the floor. I was starting to feel dizzy, but I would not be deterred so easily. "This is what you asked for, and here it is!" By then I was shouting, my voice filling the empty arches and silent balconies. "We're the same, you and I! Both bleeding for the sake of something that doesn't exist! Take my blood! You asked for it!" I grew weaker by the second and I heard rather than felt the dagger drop to the floor with a clatter. "You asked for it, and here it is!" I held up my bleeding arms, watching with a sadistic delight as the moonlight played in the red liquid. I turned to face the crucifix again. "Take it!" My voice was down to a harsh whisper. "Take it. I don't want it anymore." And with those last words, I slid to the floor, lying in a pool of my own blood, my hands stretched towards the moon washed saints whose names I never knew.