Confession: A Coalesce Short

Chapel of St. Cecilia

Atlanta, GA

United States of America

2013

Ever since he had moved to Atlanta, Mathieu found that he had been attending mass less than usual. 

It wasn’t a conscious decision on his part; if anything, he genuinely felt bad for missing mass. It was a habit he stuck to when he still lived in San Francisco—hell, it was something he kept doing when he had lived all the way back in France. Attending mass was his own version of quiet time, just as it had been his mother’s. The French responses and prayers remained stuck in his head, with the English almost as much—if not a little jumbled here and there. (Then again, he was still working on his English, so he sort of had a free pass there.) 

He still prayed the rosary from time to time. The white rosary his mother had given way back remained in his pocket, while the habit of praying at least once a week before bed was still ingrained into his heart and memories. He still prayed, at least. He made the time, never quite forgot. There was a Bible in his bedside table that he referred to from time to time. 

Mathieu tried to believe that he was still a good Catholic. His mother would probably agree before giving him a mildly scolding look, scold him gently, and remind him to say nothing like that. Of course he was a good Catholic. He was a good person, after all. 

And he tried to believe that. He really did. 

He stumbled across a chapel for the first time in months during one cold night. Mathieu panted, trembled from head to toe upon rushing inside, and didn’t even bother to check if there was anyone there at all. 

For a moment, he stood in the middle, between the entrance doors and the first line of pews. His eyes flickered up to the sight of the crucified Christ, and he couldn’t help but flinch—a mocking whisper in his head jeered: why the fuck are you even here? In response, all he could do was hold back a choked sob, a cry for help; ended up sinking into one of the pews and kneeling. His hand shook violently as he grasped for the rosary inside his pocket. Mathieu ignored the feeling of the cross harshly digging into his palm and made the sign of the cross with his free hand, immediately whispering the Apostles’ Creed when he could manage to do so. 

The jeering in his head grew louder the harder he prayed. 

Dirty. Shameful. Filthy. Sinner. 

With each insult that passed, he gripped the cross tighter, let the beads dig into his skin as well. For a moment, there was a growing pain but he pushed himself through it, ended up whispering the prayers and still shaking while remaining on his knees. 

Eventually does his lips move wordlessly. Another Hail Mary slid from his lips and into the air; time has done nothing for his nerves. It almost seemed like he was shaking harder the closer he got to the end of the rosary; back in the day, his mother assured him that prayer was calming, relieving. Fast forward many years later and he was experiencing the exact opposite. 

The taunts remained, repeated as if in a cycle. It reached a point where Mathieu, instead of praying the Glory Be, whispered over and over to himself the same four words that echoed in his head. A tear slid down his cheek, as did blood from his palm; but at that point, the physical pain was nothing. 

Guilt, repulsion, disgust—all of that was something else entirely. 

He made the mistake of looking up. The crucified Savior remained, hanging from the cross and eyes cast downwards, a crown of thorns nestled on his head while blood stained different parts of the man’s body. The image of Christ looked at him with eyes closed, looked at him with what his mother would whisper was ‘forgiveness’; but all Mathieu could feel was a guilt so terrible that perhaps the Lord would have to die again in order to save him from his sins. 

(He wished that he was being melodramatic.) 

“I didn’t want to,” he croaked. The cross dug deeper. “I didn’t—I didn’t, it—it wasn’t me, I didn’t—”

It was getting colder and colder as the night drew on, but all Mathieu could feel deep down was a burning, unmaintainable guilt. It licked at his insides, rose to his throat that he wanted it out, wanted almost to throw up. 

Dirty. 

Mathieu tried to forget that there was blood on his hands, dirt on his clothes. 

Shameful.

He tried to ignore that his mother was watching from the heavens with a horrified expression on her face. 

Filthy. 

He tried to block out the guilt, tried not to choke on his words. 

Sinner.

Mathieu’s mind flashed back to a lesson he had learned when he was far younger. Something he had learned back in school, something he had been made to take to heart. He froze; his grip on the rosary slackened slightly and he bowed his head, cursing to himself as the words made themselves known in his conscious. 

“The fifth commandment,” he told to himself in dull, quiet French, “states that ‘thou shalt not kill’.” It seemed to echo all around him in the quiet of the chapel, swirled around his thoughts and settled even harder. Mathieu flinched before continuing in a weaker voice, “And is only acceptable in times of self-defense.” 

It wasn’t self-defense. That was barely self-defense. I wasn’t defending myself. I was acting on Jin-ho’s orders, stayed on the rooftop like he asked, aimed and shot without hesitation. 

I killed a man. I actually killed a man. 

The urge to throw up was there again. He swallowed down the lump in his throat, tried to block out the image of the man toppling over and falling, blood pouring out of his head and staining the ground, pooling around. The man was dead, he had just killed someone; a man with a family, a man with a future, a man with a life ahead of him—

And Mathieu had taken all of that away from him. 

He couldn’t take it. 

There was a confessional many feet away; Mathieu found his next movements to be a blur as he stood up. His hands shook as he walked, tried to calm himself down the closer he got to the confessional. 

It was supposed to be comforting. He just felt intimidated. 

Settling inside, he shut the wooden door, sat on the bench. Tried to calm his breathing despite having his hands shake more and more. Before he could even speak, there came a voice at the other end. 

He couldn’t get out of it. All Mathieu could do was close his eyes, ball his fists, and attempt to remain calm while going through the motions. The process of confession passed in his head. He remembered, somehow, but the words wouldn’t come—

Of course. 

When asked to confess his sins, Mathieu spoke in French. 

—

Ever since working with Jin-ho, Mathieu found that he had been going to confession more than usual. 

He also found that he tended visit with bloodstained hands and regret on his mind.