Ascension by Nicholas Binge EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: Nicholas Binge
- Language: English
- Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Literary Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
TUESDAY, 22nd JANUARY 1991
EVENING
My dearest Harriet,
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
Do you remember those words, Hattie? I don’t believe Ben would have
exposed you to them. He never did take to faith. But when Grandpa used to
take us to church when we were kids, every Sunday he’d point out the little
box in the corner. “That’s where you go to confess,” he said. “That’s where
you find salvation.”
Talking to the priest was never easy. Salvation is not an easy thing for
children to understand. I don’t believe that we’re born sinners, any of us.
We’ve yet to discover what “sin” really is. I remember sitting in the dark of
that little room, searching my heart for some kind of transgression.
“I was mean to my sister at school,” I would say. “I stole some money
from my mum’s purse.”
None of this ever happened, of course—I never really strayed far from
the rules—but I knew enough to know my lines. And though I couldn’t see
his face to check if I was doing it right, he’d give me my Our Fathers and
my Hail Marys and send me on my way. And Dad would smile. I think,
perhaps, that was all I was really after. That little approving smile that
would appear on his face.
As we grew older, it got more difficult. Puberty made me awkward, selfreflective to the point of nausea. The little white lies didn’t come as easily
anymore. Real sins bubbled somewhere underneath the surface, nebulous
and incomprehensible, and I didn’t quite know what to do with them.
Ben stopped going, but I never did.
One day I sat in that cubicle and said nothing. My place in the world had
started to weigh on me and I didn’t know how to hold it. I had no words to
break the holy silence of that little room, until Father Michaels—did you
ever meet him, with the red hair?—he said to me,
“You know, son, I can’t make you speak. You’ve come here every week
since you were a boy and I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say a single
thing that’s true.”
“I . . .” My mind blanked. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Everyone has their own relationship with God. The
confessional is here to help you, as am I, but I’m just a translator.”
“A translator for God?”
He chuckled. “No, my dear boy. None of us are capable of that. A
translator for you. Sometimes a man needs help giving his thoughts life,
giving his words meaning, so that he can confide that meaning with God. I
think, perhaps, your problem is the opposite.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
For More Read Download This Book
EPUB