{note from author: I’m not sure which catagory this would fit in.}
“Forgive me father, for I have sinned.”
His words hung in the air like incense in an airless chamber, the glow of candlelight barely denting the darkness of the confessional. There was an extended pause, then figureing the priest waited for him to carry on, he cleared his throat.
“In all honesty, I’ve never honestly confessed before.” He waited for some sort of sign that the present heard him. He was treated to a faint wheeze of acknowledgement.
“Father, I’ve done so many bad things over the course of my life. I don’t know where to even begin. My parents loved me best, you see. Not because I was the best son, but because I was the son that had that…edge…that hard razor edge. They were both lawyers, you see. I spent many a breakfast with my head down, pretending to concentrate on my cheerios but listening to them discuss the law over coffee and dry toast. They weren’t overly affectionate, in fact, their anger could be quite terrifying.
I learned the art of redirection very early on. As soon as my little brother was old enough to walk and get into places he shouldn’t be, I became a radiant angel in the eyes of my parents. I was several years older and my precious baby brother wanted nothing but to follow in my footsteps. Of course, I let him.
When I spilled pain in the driveway, I sat him in the middle of it, wrapping his chubby fingers around the can. I then snatched him out of the mess, screaming about what a horrible boy he was, then ran to my parents with the story. Or when I scratched up my father’s beamer with a set of spare house keys. Or when I flushed all of my mother’s sleeping pills down the toilet. It wasn’t me, you see, it was my little brother.
Some days my little brother would get so badly beaten, I’d have to cover my ears and squeese my eyes shut. Sometimes my parents would put him in the hall closet and lock the door.
Some nights I would take money out my mother’s purse, or some of he pills to sell at school. I’d drink some of my father’s expensive whiskeys, but I’d always make sure my little brother drank more. Enough to make him sick. While my parents were berating him as he wretched in the toilet, I would sleep the sleep of the innocent down the hall.
However, father, my luck did run out eventually. It was when I was teaching my little brother how to shoot up my father’s heroin that we got caught. The cat had been missing for weeks and mother had dug up a few bits and peices of him, wrapped up in my little brother’s favourite shirt. After that, they were watching us. Maybe they had suspected for some time, I don’t know. Father set up his camera in the livingroom, and taped it as I injected my brother.
But my little brother didn’t take it so well, and as I tried to quiet him, father’s heavy hand fell on me. He held the remote for the tv in his hand and made me watch myself drugging my poor little brother. Father had a wild look in his eyes as he beat me for the first time since I was a very small child. He beat me so badly, Father. But finally he stopped and then…and then…he left us…I guess…”
The only sound within the small confessional was a rattling wheeze.
TAKEN FROM THE POLICE REPORT
The bodies of the two teenage boys were found within the hall closet. The body of the wife was in the garden, one gunshot wound to the back. The body of the man was found in the livingroom, one gunshot wound to the head. Suspected time of death of the parents, 2 weeks prior discovery by neighbour. Suspected time of death of teenage boy#1, 6 months prior. Suspected time of death of teenage boy #2, 5 months proir. Boy #1 showed signs of being chewed or gnawed upon. It is believed that boy #2 lived off of the flesh of boy #1 for several weeks before and after boy #1’s death.