V. Catharsis

I couldn't believe I was here. I hadn't been to a church since I was a young child, when boredom and distraction fueled my contempt for religious commitment. Promises I'd made to myself to never return to one were forgotten as I wrenched open the heavy wooden doors and paraded inside, feeling more like a movie fragment than a figment of reality. The place was empty; why was it empty? Unlike a movie, I didn't have a script and I didn't know what I was going to say. The bruise on my chest was searing with pain, and I limped over to a confessional booth and sat in the solitairy seat it contained. My eyes turned to the screen beside me, wondering if there was someone else on the other side.

"Tell me what you're doing here," came an outside voice, letting me know I wasn't alone after all.

"Claiming sanctuary." I hesitated. "They used to do that in the old days, didn't they? You could always be safe in a church. No one does that anymore. It's like it's no longer considered sacred."

"Times have changed. It's very likely people change along with it."

They adapt. They evolve. If there were another Spanish Inquisition, there'd be no survivors. You become the very thing you detest in your quest to eliminate it. "There's some kind of demon within me. I want to be rid of it."

Here's me becoming a martyr, pouring out my soul. "It wants nothing more than to torture me and watch me suffer."

How's this for desperation? "I don't know what else to do."

And what about this gem? "I figure an exorcism couldn't hurt."

And then came the response, the jeering response called out from the crowd as I burned at the stake. "An exorcism, I can't arrange. There are some clergy that can perform one, but I don't believe in it. The strength to defeat the said demon is already within you. You just have to face up to it. I can sense you are full of fear; you cannot face this monster with so much fear in your heart." I had the impression this guy had no idea what he was talking about. "Take what I've said into consideration, and peace be with you."

"Yeah," came my uncreative, dry response. The things I would have said if my head were on straight...

"God bless you."

As if he knew I hated whenever someone said that. Spiteful is what most people would call it. But not I, no, it was more like rage. I could have poured turpentine on the walls of the Sistine Chapel, crashed an army tank through the mighty pillars of the Vatican. Instead, all I had to work with was a large basin of holy water. An idea came to me then, and with a heave I lifted the whole basin and toted it home, with it sloshing around and being extremely uncooperative in the hands of its captor.

When I got home I dumped it all into my bathtub, the water that was endowed with its power only by the human mind. There were too many things out there like that, money and love, for example, and I wanted to pour all those things into this tub and pull the drain. But with odds like mine, there'd probably be a slick ball of hair caught in the drain, making it overflow and drowning me in religion, romance, and avarice. You try to kill something that strong and it comes back at you tenfold.

These were my final thoughts as I emptied five sleeping pills from their bottle and downed them. My delusions as I folded myself into the tub, fully clothed because it was cold, and closed my eyes. Even in my sorry state I had little peeves that only made me want the onset of sleep more. My wish was granted right when I noticed my fingers staring to prune.

Even in my dreams we were submerged in the holy water. When I stood up I was still waist-deep in water, and it streched out as far as I could see. It was like a shallow ocean, and it calmed me down. From here I could smell the rain. Regardless of where it was coming from, a part of my mind had decided to trigger my favourite scent at this crucial moment. I wanted the alp here, and as soon as I wanted it he came cutting through the water as if he were built with an engine, shreds of skin peeling off his legs as he advanced. I had the faintest hope that the water was destroying him.

But he was still smiling, still looked well fed. I felt braver, suddenly. "How're you feeling?" I asked with more sarcasm than I intended.

It's legs buckled from under him, and he fell to his knees, the water coming up to his neck.

"It's over," I said. "I've got you beat. There's nothing you can do." The voice came back and told me not to jump to conclusions. Don't you see, it says to me, alone I am nothing, but with you I am all-powerful.

I had my own pet parasite.

For all you know, the alp's voice echoed, I may not even be real. I could just be a figment of your imagination, have you considered that? Think about it. A lonely, single man with nothing better to live for invents his own demon just to feel that there is the slightest chance of good in his life, that things can be worse, and are worse in the world he's formed in his dry, sickly mind! To be completely honest, you never could face up to your own sorry existence.

His words formed on my lips as soon as they entered my head: Then again, what could I know? I should be just as crazy as you.

Not only was I the host, but I was insane. Rational thought eluded me, like an elaborate game of hide-and-seek.

I was so tired of being wrong, I was ready to give up.

I could think of one more solution. One last thing that could, and definitely would, kill the alp. I would know, because he was very likely a part of me, if not of my imagination, then the virus that couldn't live without a body to sustain it. As the monster caught on to my reasoning, his face twisted into something awful. His skin had dissolved in the holy water, leaving shreds of gray muscle exposed like rancid meat. If the water on the outside couldn't penetrate his defenses, maybe it still could if it came inside. Somewhere in the distant outside world, a lost and lonely man's mouth parted wide open as he slept in his tub, letting in his last resort. Swallow, choke, just keep the water down. On the inside, I was smiling, nearly laughing, as the alp too began to gag and choke.

I lay down, sinking to the bottom of my mind's ocean abyss, listening to the rush of water battering my eardrums, and somehow still holding the sweet, subtle scent of rainwater in my nose. Even though my lungs were being crushed or ripped open, I couldn't tell which, I felt happier than ever. My pulse was slowing, my brain was short-circuiting, and my eyes started to buldge, but all I could see was the sun, a bright halo of irritatingly bright glitter expanding from beyond the water's surface. And I sunk further still. It was beautiful, to watch the sun and forget my awful days spent sulking under it, to finally appreciate it for what it was. It was beautiful, I realized, and nothing less.

A sense of humour was overrated. Good looks, intelligence, overrated. My apartment and my job and my bank account didn't matter. I could lose all of it in this instant and I would not care at all. Eventually, it would all go away even if I lived to be two hundred. As time went on, these things would fade, but this feeling would stay in my mind even if I had no one to ever share it with. My accomplishment would become my nourishment. I'd be nothing, they could burn me or bury me as an anonymous person, but what I held right now in my lungs was everything I'd ever needed to prove to myself.

Euphoric is what most people would call it.

Though there isn't a word out there for what I was feeling then.