A Priest Hearing a Unique Confession

Chinese | Crustacean | Flash | Bucket | Vessel | Notice | Memoir | Brute | Docile | Cucumber

Walls in the shitter are thinner than the eucharist. Just some bargain Chinese plasterboard separating me from the brute in the next stall over. Either he’s pushing out a slurry or dumping a bucket of stew into the bowl.

Grunt, splash, grunt.

The notice tacked on the back of the door warns “DO NOT FLUSH FEMININE PRODUCTS DOWN THE TOILET.” Beneath that, someone scratched “lick my holy vessel” next to a pen drawing of a tongue lapping at a clam. Or an oyster maybe. Crustacean. Mollusk. I don’t know. We don’t eat these things.

Grunt, splash, grunt.

I tamp down the urge to ask for a courtesy flush and wipe myself. The paper comes back clean. Mental note: include that in the memoir.

Grunt, splash, grunt. Hello? Kristy? Pick up if you’re there.

Wait, he’s on the phone? In a flash my ear presses against the paltry layer of gypsum and cucumber-green paint that divides me from the poopocalypse.

Grunt, splash, grunt. Kristy, it’s Jerry. I ate them all, Kristy. Fuuuck.

Splash. Splash.

Mass starts in six minutes, but Lord knows I need to hear the rest. So I sit, docile¸ robe gathered neatly around my sandals, and wait for the reveal.

Grunt, splash, grunt. Kristy, I’m sorry. I ate them all and now we’re fucked.

He’s sobbing now, each snivel and howl punctuated by another round of slop squelching into the toilet.

Splash. Kristy, are you still there?

Splash. Kristy?