My English free choice piece for this past Friday. It received several good reviews and a lavishing praise from my English teacher, so it boosted my confidence to post it. Plays with religion, gore, and sex, but most of it in metaphor or in such plain sight that no one can be offended (hopefully). I made a pact with my friend that our free choices would extend two pages, but this one hit three – I got home from school and changed the size so that it was two. I honor my pacts.

Anyway, history over with. Read. Review. It's the nice thing to do.

000

Daughter of Eve

Sin of my sin.

"...Hail Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners..."

Her voice echoed in the desolate room, the cold and empty pews behind her the only companions she had. Her elbows rested on the heated wood of the prie-dieu, the white candles the only source of true warmth. She looked up at the gilded cross hanging from the wall, the beaten body nailed to it and the meaning that it carried for so many people. Her knees were frozen from the cold of the floorboards and the dim morning sunlight slanted through the stained glass windows, throwing translucent pictures across the pale wood.

"Is everything well, daughter of Eve?"

She looked away from where she had fixed her gaze on the cross to the priest before her, away from over her joined fingers. She clutched at the small gold cross at her neck, her eyes bouncing away and then back to him.

"I'm fine, Father."

"Confession cleanses the soul, daughter," he reminded her.

She turned back to the cross, to her focus, and closed her brown eyes. Sins, she thought. You're a sinner. She shuddered and flashes of memories crossed her mind, twisted and switched around, the wreckage of her invaded thoughts crashing together. Inhale the purity, exhale your sins... taste your salty tears and let them stain the holy floor.

The chill of winter mornings spent alone clung to her skin like a mourning veil, the same way it did that morning too many days ago, too many miles ago. She glanced over at the confessional, dark wood and pregnant with evil secrets and unhallowed dreams. How many faces had graced those black walls? How many times had they gone there? How many sins had they confessed? How many times had the Seven Sins embedded themselves into the grain of the wood? How many tears had been shed inside that small space and how many scars had been healed until they were broken open again?

Sins of my sins.

"Hail Mary, full of grace. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed be the fruit of thy womb, Jesus," she whispered, beginning again, closing her eyes. "Hail Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners –," she paused to swallow heavily, "now and in the hour of our death." She wavered and then continued fiercely with her prayers.

Surrounding her like a tempest, her memories raged and her and caused her to fall back on her haunches, away from the prie-dieu, shoulders slumped and head bowed.

"It's so holy, isn't it?" She looked over at him from under her hood and smiled at his words, at the sweet naivete in his features.

"I suppose so." The gold cross hanging from a chain before his chest caught her eye and she touched it lightly, glancing up at him. She could feel his heart beat faster in the empty church, deserted of both preachers and believers.

"Where are we going from here?" he asked. She turned back to the stained glass window she had been inspecting.

"Nice, maybe. It's on the way."

"That sounds nice." She looked over at him and nodded. There was a silence and he set a hand on the small of her back, a move that she didn't expect. Tilting her head down, she waited for the next move: he shifted his position so that he was right behind her and she lifted her head and suppressed a gasp at the feeling...

"Are you sure?" she asked, older and wiser in the ways of the world, even if only by a few years.

His kiss was sweet, slightly experienced, and she responded like a feral animal and down they went, down onto the holy floor behind the statue of the Virgin Mary. Down, down they went, into the spiral of their minds and spirits, gasping and breathing in their incandescent fantasies before falling into dreams.

The dim morning sunlight slanted through the stained glass windows, throwing translucent pictures across the pale wood... and over two deeply-sleeping bodies, one pale, one dark. With the brisk skip of wind of October came the slamming of the church doors and the frightened shrieks of lovers awakened.

It happened in no more than fifteen seconds.

Within those seconds, not even half a minute, the churchgoers and preachers were dead, blood spilled out over the floor, profaning the sanctified ground.

"They just opened fire," she whispered to console herself, rocking back and forth, the tears

spilling from her eyes.

The rapid-fire rounds fired into the church destroyed windows and wood and statues and lives. Blood and screams ricocheted with the bullets into the grey sky and then he covered her body with his, grunting in pain.

"Jonas!" she screamed, the tears spilling forth.

The firing stopped and she could hear the thudding feet leaving the church, laughter... a raid. She didn't care about that.

"Jonas!" she sobbed, her skin stained with his blood.

He smiled up at her dimly. "We sinned, Magdalena," he ground out. "This is His way of punishing us. Confess. Maybe you will be spared His wrath."

"Jonas!"

"Jonas." She covered her face with her hands before looking up and to her right. The confessional loomed there, as if the incident ten years ago had never happened. She inhaled and stood up, arranging her skirts and stalked towards that dark booth. Pulling herself in and shutting the door, she rapped on the window and sighed.

"Tell me your troubles, child," the priest said kindly.

"Bless me, Father," the atheist whispered, "for I have sinned."

-Finis-