Screen Time

Flash fiction, 1k words, Second Place Winner Talebones Weekly Flash Fiction Contest

The Confession, Giuseppe Molteni, 1838

It was Saturday morning, and the canon was tired, and he didn’t feel like sitting in the box until he had his coffee which always fortified him and sobered him in his selfish sleepiness. So, he sat on the front porch of the rectory in a wicker basket chair made of the same stuff that the box screen was and he drank deeply of the hot cup in his hands, and he invited the Spirit over for coffee in his heart and the Spirit came and drank deeply too and he felt comforted for it. And he said to the Spirit, 

“Good morning, Spirit.” 

And the Spirit said something back that was very personal and that made the thick black hair on the bare forearms of the canon stand up straight. It made him uncomfortable so that he shifted his bottom on the wicker basket seat for a minute or two while he thought of something to say back. But his flesh was weak, and after a time of discomfort in body and soul the canon went inside to use the restroom and to grab his Office and quick and easy stole and to walk across the street to the big ugly church. On his way out of the rectory he saw the other canon, so he stopped to say hello and they talked business about a hospital visit for Mrs. DiSalvo and then the Knights of Columbus banquet hall which had a new clay bocce court that they wanted blessed. Then the canon’s phone alarm went off and beeped at him so much that he said goodbye and really went to cross the street to the big ugly church. 

He didn’t look at the big ugly church as he stood on the far side of the street. He looked at the sidewalk, at the sky, at his phone. The big ugly church was so ugly that its ugliness alone often kept the canon at the rectory up until the time that he needed to be in the box so that there was already a long line inside the big ugly church waiting for him as he walked by dispassionately to go inside the box. 

Thank God, the box was beautiful. 

The box was the last artefact from the small, beautiful church before it was burnt down and replaced by the big ugly church. It was carved by local carpenters in the 1890s in a neogothic style, using hand tools and shapers and planes. It had little angels carved into the thin pillars which decorated the corners and little friezes of the apostles dotted around the top and base. It had velvet curtains and hard walnut kneelers with no cushion on the tops of them! It was double-doored so that the priest could sit in the middle between two penitents at a time. The box smelt like old faith, like old men who sat in the box before phones and cars, and before modern plagues like pornography and contraception swept through the church. 

Thinking about the ancient old box was always just enough to get the canon to go inside the big ugly church. He could sit in it, like a grudge in the heart, and when he sat in that box he could remain there for a long time because he hated the big ugly church more than he liked the ancient old box. Getting inside the box was just as hard as exiting, but once he was there, the canon knew, he could remain indefinitely. Parishioners thought he was a very holy man for all his sitting in the box so long.

So, he crossed the street. And as he did, he looked down at his phone to keep from looking at the big ugly church, and as he looked down at his phone he was hit by a pickup truck. 

It was a big ugly pickup that hit him outside the big ugly church. And a big ugly man jumped out of the big ugly pickup and with his big ugly hands he slammed the door behind him and then lolloped over to the canon and rolled the canon over to see if he was alright. 

The canon was bloodied badly, and his phone screen in his left hand was shattered, and as he spoke his voice shook and his chest quaked.  

And the big ugly man held the canon in his big ugly hands and said, 

“God bless my soul! I’m so sorry, Father, I didn’t see you! I was looking at my phone!” 

And the canon would have said something about the imprudence of being on the phone instead of paying attention to the road, but he had a very bad headache and he felt very weak, and he was also ashamed that he was on the phone himself.  

“I also.” The canon groaned.  

Then the big ugly man wept big ugly tears and his big ugly face became even uglier as he wept heavily like a man weeps, big and ugly and heavy and heaving. And the canon on the road said an act of contrition in his heart as the canon in the rectory ran out to the road with a quick and easy stole flapping around his still uncollared neck.

Then the canon on the road said to the Spirit in his heart, “Good morning, Spirit.” 

And the Spirit said something back that was very personal and that made the thick black hair on the bloodied forearms of the canon stand up straight. It made him uncomfortable so that he shifted his eyes to force himself to look at the face of the big ugly man and then at the façade of the big ugly church. And as he looked across the street he could see the ancient beautiful box inside the big ugly church as if the walls had melted away, or a sort of veil had been moved aside. He saw himself in his mind’s eye being held by the big ugly man while the other canon from the rectory stood over him whispering absolutions. He thought about the heart inside that big ugly man. And then the canon on the road understood just a little bit better the Spirit’s position in an argument that he had been having with the Spirit for some time up until that morning.