"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.."
'Father David' had heard it, time and time, again. Theft. Lusting for another man's wife. Violence. Impurity. Cheating on taxes. Cheating on girlfriends. Cheating on boyfriends.
He hadn't been an ordained priest for a year, yet, and still the list kept growing.
He still wasn't sure if this was what he wanted to do, with his life. He was young, (only twenty-eight,) blonde-haired, green-eyed. He kept his perpetually slender body in shape by jogging, six days a week, as well as stretching exercises. He knew that vanity was a sin, but so, too, was the body a temple. Why not keep it in shape, *and* looking good? Not that anybody looked at priests, anymore...no doubt from the fall-out due to the Catholic 'scandal'.
It was early, early in the morning, and, as was his habit, he was wandering the main worship-hall of the small church he and a couple of others had been put in charge of; an average church for an average flock. Dimming half of the candles, he smiled to himself in the semi-darkness...there was something almost sensuous about the play of light and shadow, flickering around the pews, the altar, casting phantoms up on the pipes of the organ that belted its early-morning welcome on Sundays. Shaking his head in an attempt to clean them of such 'wrong' thoughts, he made his way into the small confessional booth towards the back, to try and repress the feeling of being overwhelmed by the vaulted ceilings, the stained glass, the archaically designed walls.
Settling into the seat he took whenever the men and women of his congregation, he tipped his chin into his hands, closing his eyes...and then he heard it. Directly opposite him, behind the screen and black blinder, there was a...sound. A rustling sound., like fabric was being moved. He had no idea as to who could be sitting in his confessional booth well after midnight....he kept the doors of the church unlocked if any of the homeless off of the street needed warmth and shelter in the colder months, or there were parishoners seeking council outside of their sleeping hours....but he hadn't heard anybody come in.
Dropping down and peering through a gap between the thick fabric and the dividing screen, he couldn't believe what he saw: