The door was already open. Outside, the wind.
A living sound, a hiss moaning from the north. But the moment I stepped inside, all fell silent. The fog was low that day. Skin drawn tight, cheeks flushed by the tramontana. Breath, held.
The white wall of the church returned the cold of a distant storm, carried also by the door left ajar. I did not dare to cross the nave. It had been too long since my last confession. I lingered there, at the threshold, as one does before something one fears to profane.
The church did not smell of dust, as I had imagined. It smelled of incense and metal—as though someone had just finished praying with hands stained in blood.
That place did not welcome me. Walking further in, over the chipped floor, I held my breath—and it held its breath with me. As though it knew, as though it was listening, to what, in one way or another, I was about to confess.
I kept my gaze lowered, yet still I heard panting, and the more I walked, the stronger it grew. Then, when not looking was no longer possible—for there was nothing left to cling to—I saw myself. Lying on the altar, dressed in white, the fabric stained with blood. Motionless, yet breathing.
Neither desperate nor serene. Only atrociously alone.
“Father, forgive me, for I have sinned—for I have loved pain. Not out of pride, but because pain brings me closer to you than confession and the silence of prayer ever could.”
The door closed behind me, and something, somewhere, began to pray. “Those who do not suffer lie. Even Christ cried out.”
“Christ, in truth, wept.”
“Exactly. Whoever crosses a consecrated threshold becomes either a witness to the faith—or an accomplice to it.”
I could not answer. There was no accusation in his voice, only a bitter truth.
I did not move from where I knelt; my knees were beginning to ache, my head bowed, resting on my clasped hands.
“I have nothing to be forgiven for.”
He turned. Slowly. His face was hollow, as if the skin had drawn back in fear of a light. One eye fixed on me; the other, dead, turned elsewhere.
“And yet, you are here.”
Somewhere, the wind began again.
✶
Dalia D’Alise (she/her) is an eighteen-year-old writer. She has always had the ability to turn solitude into a fertile ground for growth, and after spending that time in hiding, she has decided it is time to try sharing something from her pen.