Deliver Us from Evil

(Corruption in the Catholic Church)

“In the name of the Father and of the son and of the holy ghost…..amen,” he began. He placed his hands on Charles’ head gently, slowly. Charles watched his father intensely as the clock on the wall ticked incessantly and the smell of yesterday crept sluggishly into the small quiet room. The damp scent of the afternoon rain filled the not so clean air. “Lord forgive me,” he whispered with his finger tracing the sign of the cross on his son’s forehead and his balding head tilted upward, “for I know not what I do.” He reached his free hand into the pocket of his white robe in search of the knife he’d purchased several nights before.

“Father, what are you planning to do?” asked Charles disturbingly innocently. His father did not reply. He could not reply. For in his mind he was gone. He was gone forever. He stealthily obtained the weapon he’d searched so desperately for within his robe pockets and then decided to chant in Latin. Furtively sliding the knife under his sleeve inhibiting the others around from seeing it, he glanced at the minute hand of the old clock that sat alone on the barren wall. It had to be on time. It had to be just right. The rest of his children watched patiently yet anxiously, the type of anxious that ignites the parasympathetic mode of the body from quite alright to fight or flight. What would become of their beloved brother, Charles?

“Agnus Dei,” Charles heard his father murmur softly as if the words were evaporating through his thin lips, piercing the air like sharp needle harboring raindrops. The words were cold, dry and foreign. But they had to be said. They had to be said if he wanted it to be right. Charles disfavored the unmitigated chanting of his father, yet he knew if he protested against those deplorable, haunting words aloud, his fate would be determined right then and there. “Miserere nobis,” his father continued. He angled the concealed knife in the appropriate location in front of his son’s chest. It was still hidden from the view of the others. “Agnus Dei, qui tollis, pecata mundi, miserere nobis.” The room grew still and silent.

Tick

Tock

Tick

Tock

He discontinued his chanting and cautiously glanced around the sullen living room. His children lay petrified and utterly confused face down on the ground. They took small peaks whenever it was safe, but this was how it was supposed to be. Everything was how it was supposed to be. Charles began to breathe long and loud breaths. He began trembling in his chair, noticeable trembling, the type of trembling that cannot be controlled or quelled like shivers in the cold night.

“Father?” he managed to say with an old, forgotten voice, the voice he used to use when he was a child, the voice he used when his father entered his room at night, the voice he used when his mother was alive, the voice he used when he saw her die, her slow and painful death in a situation similar to the one at hand. His father stood before him with his hand on his head malevolently blessing it or benevolently cursing it either way no pint of luck or ounce of hope could cause any positivity to come of the result..

An icy chill invited itself into the perfectly silent room, perfectly silent except for the heavy breaths and the keen, spiteful ticking of the old clock on the not too distant wall. Tears rolled down the eyes of the children and settled amid their frozen lips as the candles that lit up the dim, frigid room began to flicker with disgust as if they represented the eyes of God. The children may have been praying for something, anything. Forgiveness, sorrow, hope, anything, anything but what happened to their mother. The brown walls became gloomy and seemed to melt in the cold forcing the ambience to become dark overcast with yesterday’s sins. Charles began to study his father profoundly, study everything And although his father’s hazel eyes were several inches away from his, the tension stretched much further than a jogged mile. He examined every bend in his father’s torso, every wrinkle on his father’s face, every twitch of his father’s lip, every blink of his eye, every movement, every breath, and then he gradually discovered the knife.

His heart stopped.

He involuntarily turned away as the flush of uncontrollably fear trickled up his back like warm milk up a straw.

“Look up at me,” his father whispered tenderly, lovingly. “Look into the eyes of your father, my son.”

“Father, please . . . .”

“Shhhhh,” hissed his father. Charles was not supposed to do that. He was not going to mess this up. With a frigid warmth his father placed his lips on his forehead softly. “Bless your beloved soul.” Charles could not contest for visions of his mother wailing and screaming flashed through his mind. His brothers and sisters lay there on the carpetless floor of the living room pleading ruthlessly with the lord in order for him to save them from their own father who gathered strength into the fist that coveted the sharp knife. Tears infiltrated the eyes of his apprehensive child. Why is he doing this to me? Charles asked himself. Not a day in his life did charles wrong his father. Not a day in his life did Charles fall short of the glorification of God. Not a day in his life did he sin with out begging the lord for immediate reconciliation. But his father had to do this, for he and Charles had been through too much together. Charles was too beautiful for his own good. His father needed to make things right again, make himself right again.

Tick

Tock

His father mumbled some more dead words in latin as his face grew completely white like a skeleton and did look like a skeleton in the angle he now tilted it. The silence was fatal, the passion and anxiety mixed in with the apprehensive anticipation drowned out the silence and roared over the sound of the clock, the sound of time, the mere existence of time.

“May your blessed soul rest in peace, my son.” And with ample strength he heaved his fist forward allowing the knife to deeply penetrate the meek body of his precious son. Charles cringed his teeth together as he bore the unbearable, excruciating pain.

“Father!” he yelled obstreperously. All the children jolted uncannily with fear, yet no eyes left the ground.

“By the power the lord has vested in me, my child,” his father stated solemnly. Blood trickled down Charles’ chest and settled atop his stomach dampening his innocent base ball shirt. It effused relentlessly and conglomerated onto his father’s hands. “I shed the blood of my child.” Charles’ eyes grew red and veiny as the pain and agony tripled per second and traveled throughout his body rapidly. With the insubstantial strength he had left, he gathered it into his hands and grabbed onto the knife and clutched it tightly his hands next to his fathers’. Holding the knife soothed his excruciation slightly. The tears in his eyes did not quell, they augmented as the blood found its way from their hands to the floor and created a mass red puddle. The color of blood that covered his hands and the hands of his father filled the room with iridescence. The other children cried tears of prayer, tears of fear, tears of sorrow, tears that young children should not yet be acquainted with.

“Father!” Charles yelled tonelessly, weakly.

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hollowed be Thy name.” his father began loudly.

“Father!”

“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.”

“Father!” Charles whimpered faintly. “Father, please."

“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

“Father”, he whispered. “Father . . . . Fath . . . .” His face became pale, kind of bluish, and his breathing ceased. In that millisecond between life and death, he felt he forgave his father and was “saved.”

“For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory,” his father clamored. Charles’ hands detached from the knife and his head rolled back into an awkward, inhuman position. “Forever and ever.” His father then swiftly released the knife from his son’s chest and revealed its presence to the spectators who were now all wide-eyed and gaping. It went smoothly. This was how it had to go. A malevolent smile brushed across his lips. “Amen.”