by LAYLA K | 1st Place, student short prose contest

The priest had heard many confessions, but never one spoken through the sound of flies, their tiny wings humming with the weight of unseen decay. Time had begun to set over the seaside horizon, night shifting to day, when the buzzing erupted in the priest’s ears. The day had slowly begun to end, the lights dimming as the sun itself did, the pews and stained glass hearing the secrets and confessions for years longer than the priest had been listening. But despite decades of experience, none had raptured his bones quite like this one—the stench of decay sent a shiver through his spine inside the cold confessional as the humming of flies grew. It came to him as he was shifting his movement, preparing to leave the wooden confessional for the day.

“I have worn many names, Father, but the graves I’ve filled all remember me the same.”

The priest’s voice got caught in his throat, a brief hesitation before finding the means to respond: “Confession has ended for the evening.”

“You are here, are you not? And I am someone seeking a chance to confess.”

“What is it you wish to speak?” The priest said, feeling his heartbeat rise, sliding back into the seat he had been in for hours already.

“I would tell you, Father, how many names, but the time that has gone by. I’ve simply forgotten. But you can smell it… can’t you? Smell the names from the graves I’ve filled. That smell never truly fades away, it always lingers… no matter how deep or how far below the ground they may be.”

The air felt thick, almost as if the walls around him were closing in. A shiver ran down his spine again, but not from the cold. No, it was never truly from the cold, was it? Something deeper lingered beneath the surface, something the priest did not want to dig up. Not this time. The priest took a moment to gather himself, knowing he had been entrusted by countless people—some voices familiar, others new, all needing to get something off their chest. It would be the same with this figure (a man?) as it would be for all else, and he was determined to treat it just the same: without judgement, and without criticism. He was about to speak up, give a voice to the one on the other side of the wall before it picked up again—that stench as if something had just died, filling the confessional.

“Who are you?” he managed to choke out. Despite the time, despite the ample opportunity to learn more, dig deeper into this figure, this man… if the figure even was a man. He knew the confessional was meant to remain anonymous, yet in this instance, it felt as if the figure wanted the priest to lean in more to what was and what wasn’t.

“Who are all of us, really? We say things with little meaning, fading into nothingness as time moves forward, only to be forgotten as the Earth continues to spin.”

“Confession is meant to be sacred,” the priest said. “I wish to ask again who you are and what game you think you’re playing here.”

“I am everything, and nothing,” the voice buzzed. “A friend, a stranger, a shadow that lingered just out of the corner of your eye. But a name? A name is not one a person tends to come by. Not a person of my nature, and not a person of yours…in time.”

Another shiver. The priest clenched his fist as the buzzing—God, the buzzing! It was enough to drive a man mad. It grew softer at times, crescendoing as the voice spoke more. And the smell of decay intensified the longer the figure on the other side lingered inside the sacred halls of the church.

“Have… have you come to seek absolution?” the priest said, doing his best to revert back to his original task.

“No, Father. I came to be heard.”

“And I am here to listen.”

“You speak words, yet I don’t believe you mean them. Not fully, anyway.”

Then, suddenly, the air grew warm and the feeling of something crawling lingered on the priest’s hands. It pulled him to look down. A fly lay on his now-unclenched fist. Yet, despite seeing it move—despite feeling the legs crawl across his skin—it remained flat, as if having been squashed dead. Perhaps they were where the smell had been coming from? Conversation lingered on the priest’s tongue.

“You say you’ve filled the graves of many. Is this what you wish to confess?”

“No. That is known. People walk the hallowed grounds knowing that something came and took their loved ones away. I am that something, and I think you have figured that out already… haven’t you? Tell me, Father, do you think I regret?”

Words got caught on his tongue as the air around him grew warmer, almost too warm. He pulled at the collar that sat perfectly around his throat in an attempt to escape the suffocating feeling that floated around him. His senses began to overwhelm him; the feeling of sweat lingering on his forehead, the buzzing and smell of decay lingering on the flies. At least he hoped it was the flies.

“Everyone has regrets,” the priest said, choking on the air. “The extent of that regret depends on the person.”

“Do you have regrets?” the voice buzzed, deep and low.

“As I said, everyone has regrets.”

A deep, throaty chuckle bounced off the walls. “I have met all kinds of people in mankind. But priests…now they’re my favorite.”

In an attempt to switch topics, the priest spoke again: “How many?”

A pause. An exhalation of breath. “How many what, Father?”

“How many graves have you filled?”

“Hundreds…thousands. The centuries all blur into one. I have taken all kinds of people from mankind to their resting place. Mothers, sons, killers.”

“Is that so?” The shakiness of the priest’s voice gave away the fear that lingered behind it, but at this point he felt as if it didn’t matter if he hid the tone anymore. After all, it seemed this figure already knew things that perhaps the priest himself didn’t know.

The thickness, the heat swirled through the confessional. Sweat dripped down his forehead at a more rapid pace and the feeling to loosen the collar of his shirt grew with each spoken word. The buzzing grew louder, but the priest couldn’t hear the voice. A shadow encapsulated the small room that he now felt trapped in. The damned flies swirled above his head. Landing on his thighs, hands—and anywhere else they could find a proper place to land that wasn’t already occupied. The smell of death filled his senses as more and more escaped the figure on the other side and instead came to him.

“It’s always hard at first,” the voice spoke, somehow louder than before. “I always tell people to relax, let the flies come to them… but they hardly ever listen. Do you want to know why I said priests are always the most fun? Because they learn they are just people. They serve no higher power. They are neither rich nor poor. They have no ‘greater purpose’ but are just… living. Everyone is living, but eventually the living comes to an end. But you know that, don’t you? Perhaps you didn’t think it would be this way, but you’ve come to accept it faster than most.”

The priest tried to speak, but the air around him grew thicker and the flies swarmed his vision as the buzzing continued to grow. Flies filled his mouth as he attempted to breathe. A shadow escaped through the lattice, swirling around. It lingered in the air among the flies, a stronger smell of decay than the flies themselves wore. The air pressed down onto him as if the flies were in a desperate attempt to drag him down, down deep into the ground below, the flies taking him with them into the dirt. This was no confession. This soul was not searching for forgiveness.

It was searching for him.

Ω

Layla K is a student at TCC.

Connor Williams is a photographer and writer in New Jersey. When not photographing people, he’s out with his partner exploring the country, finding wondrous stories to tell about the very people and places that make life great.