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The feeling rises out of the black and into the grey where the dead thoughts lie.
"Take me to your bleeder," a voice squeals in Fred's ear as he dons his gown, but he's the only one who hears it.
Today, mass is being held in an underground station long since abandoned. The air is thick. The sound echoes.
He exits the grimy alcove—a makeshift sacristy—and walks to the overturned garbage can, limping slightly from the toilet tissue stuffed in the heels of his shoes. He stands quietly before the crowd, which has congregated like spectators at a public execution.
Fred begins.
"We are gathered here today for the marriage of faith and sin."
Again, the voice. He bows his head.
His sermons are brief: a moment of silence, the taking of bread and wine, followed by an offering of goodwill.
During the silence, Fred confesses his own sins (all except one), then breaks the first wafer in two and places the pieces on a silver plate—a jagged lid cut from a large metal coffee can.
The pieces represent two sides of the same skin—Fred's skin—one side dry and flaking, the other wet with promise. Small discs removed from the soles of Fred's feet with a razorblade the night before and dried in an oven.
He takes communion. He chews and swallows with a pleasant sense of déjà vu. Next, he holds high the golden chalice (a plastic, amber-coloured picnic tumbler), careful not to reveal the cuts along his arms and wrists. He drinks.
His body absorbs the fluid like an underground spring.
It is now their turn.
One by one they shamble forward, bow their heads and eat the thinly sliced meat of faith. Some crudely cross themselves, others merely grunt.
They drink, and though the taste is salty and the consistency thick like a mix of tomato juice and olive oil, they believe and are not the least bit surprised it stains their teeth red for days afterward.
And when the wafer gives them stomach cramps, it must be punishment for a sin left unconfessed.
Fred greets their hands before they re-enter the darkness from which they came. He can already feel them changing just beneath the skin, the way he changed the day the feeling rose out of the black and into the grey where the dead thoughts lie.
When the last has disappeared, Fred leaves for home.
He navigates a maze of tunnels and then climbs a cluttered stairway back into the grey light of dawn. He walks the empty streets of the city until he reaches the hospital and arrives home: the hospital chapel, now a makeshift laboratory.
Here he will rest. He will heal. He will wonder over and over again why him? And he will answer the call when the voice that squeals inside his head demands it. He will apply blade to flesh, offering himself in an all-consuming need to spread the word.
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