Trials and Penitence

Speak now.

The command comes gently as the poison rolls down his throat. Some faint memory pools in his mind, whispering the remaining words, solid as ice, faint as steam.

Or forever hold your peace.

Forever. It never used to mean forever, really and truly forever, no go-backs, no redos, no second chances. Say what you want now or may the grave hold your words, cloistered away in your cold chest, buried so deep that not even the rot and maggots will be able to free it. The poison is a padlock, and he could hear the gears twisting out of alignment.

He shouldn't be afraid. Only the guilty fear. Only the guilty have reason to fear. But the terror still roiled around his nervous system, fraying the edges of the nerves as the poison blurred his thoughts and his vision. What if he was guilty. Was it possible that he had done wrong without meaning? Was it possible that he had sinned without knowing? Of course it was possible. But had he? Would he ever know? The silence worked both ways. Speak now. Realize now. Or forever be stuck in the silence. 

There was no peace in the silence. As his tongue seized, he held nothing. How he longed to shout his confession. Possible sins brimmed on his tongue with the taste of poison. What was truly poisoning him? The contents of the golden chalice from which he'd willingly drank or the quiet crimes he'd committed? Both? Neither? Did it matter? He was poisoned. He was guilty. 

He should speak. He should beg forgiveness. Wasn't that what one did? Didn't that help? Would it stop the poison, if only he were sorry enough, wouldn't he be forgiven? The smallest part of his mind, a single neuron still fighting the poison, remembered that. 

Ask and you shall receive.

Beg and you shall be forgiven. 

Sin and you shall be punished.

These were the rules. Everyone knew the rules. Everyone had to follow them, those who didn't were guilty, those who were guilty were held accountable. There was only one way to repent, only one way to no longer be guilty. Die with honor, dignity, purity. As clean as the day of birth. Be clean or be cleaned. The ultimate leveling ground. However one came in, all left the same, alive or dead, all were clean now, all were cleansed. 

Speak now. 

Scream now. 

Beg now. 

Prayers were on his lips, prayers and salt and poison and guilt, only guilt, only guilt mattered. The guilt was thick, a noxious cloud. Wash me clean. Wash away the fog. His mind was a fog now. Nothing left but guilt. Nothing left but sin. 

He would be cleansed. He would be cured. If only he were sorry enough. But could he be truly sorry? Could he be truly repentant if he only repented when the alternative was this? He wasn't truly sorry. He was weak. He should accept his suffering. Accept his punishment. He was guilty. He had sinned. He would be punished. He should accept it with dignity. That was how he would repent. No begging. No pittance. He had sinned. He would not grovel for a blind eye when he didn't deserve one. 

Only those who don't need forgiveness deserve it. The remainder must make due with the scraps of good will scattered from the table of saints. Breadcrumbs and dribbling of wine. Tiny mouse. Scrawny rat. Go to the corners to nibble on the cheese allotted you. Cheese coated in wax tainted with poison. Offerings for the truly good. Death to anything less.

Were there any clean rats? Or were they all like him? Eating the cheese as commanded, dying slowly as demanded. Rats leaving offerings to the masters of the house, don't kill us please. Masters leave their offering in return. Trial. Trial. Death. Such is the way of rats and gods. Die and die and die by fire.

There was fire in him now, burning through his veins and his bones, trapped in his skin as it burned holes through him, rivers of lava coursing where blood should be. He choked on lava that tasted of iron and salt, spilling over words frozen on his lips, turning them to stone. The weight pulled down his mouth. Prayers turned to screams turned to shrieks. Leaden shrieks that fell from his gaping jaw, clattering to the ground like coins. Each coin paid a debt. One coin for one sin. One shriek for one sin. He kept shrieking. A lifetime of silent sins pouring out of him all at once. No composure left to him. No penance left to pray for. 

Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. 

In life, he was cleansed in water. In death, he is cleansed by death, by shrieks, by the fire that pulsed in the tides of his heart, volcanic, sending shattering seismic currents over him as his muscles burned away, exposing the tar coated sin buried deep in his chest. It was a hot, dense ball, the size of his heart. Maybe it was his heart. All that was left of it. Corrupted and charred. Was the fire cleaning it or coming from it? Did it matter? There was fire. There was sin. He was guilty. He was dying. 

He was already dead. He knew it. When all the evil was burned away, there wasn't enough to live. There wasn't enough clean left to exist without the life force the sun provided. An IV of evil, as if piety were the disease, finally won over his body, killing him without enough evil left to fight.

Penance was over. Had it been enough? Had he lasted long enough for all the evil to leave him? Was he saved? In the end, when all that was left was the hollow shell of blackened bone and ashes, did any tar still cling to him, as desperate as he had been, clinging stubbornly to some semblance of life? When he lay still on the ground, did guilt leak from him, blood soaked and suddenly pointless and worthless, staining the ground beneath him, painting the stone with a mural of his crimes? 

When all is said and all is dead, had he screamed loud enough? Had he spoken soon enough?