1929, Alabama
It is Christmas Eve and Edward is listening to a lecture on mercy.
Not because he needs to but because he cannot, and will not, take out his quarry before the forty three people sitting between them from where he sits in the furthest back pew corner in St. Catherine's Church. The orator is a man so despicable half his congregation, patrons of all ages and both genders, think him more hypocritical, more a demon than a vessel of God's Holy Word, for each sound that is coming out of his mouth.
What they cannot hear is that behind his every new sentence is a prayer. He is praying to his God with their faces, and far worse imagined disgust in him, begging for help on this night. He talks of charity, then compassion, love and finally draws upon forgiveness.
And in this second his find Edward, who for a moment wonders if the man's stricken expression is the whisper of seeing his death coming to him, that this is fate letting captive beg the captor for one last reprieve to breath before the blood will flow, before the whispered thought beautiful boy invades in the voice of the prayer.
As Edward's snarl snaps under his breath, face hardening, the man looks away choking on his own disgust. He was heard by the person closest to him, but he ducked his head and kneeled before she could catch sight of his eyes.
The man's prayer circles back, louder, stronger, screamed into the silence of the church as the congregation waits through what they imagine is acted histrionics, and with a shuddering breath he returns to it again. His speech out loud. The one which has wandered far off the path of the notes he had written out so clearly. He breaths in and paused, stopping, and facing them and starts again. Forgiveness.
How it is about being bigger than that which beats you down, no matter how small it makes you feel or how battered you have been by it. Turning the other cheek in Christ's name, who is born this night. How forgiveness has nothing to do with who is right and who is wrong, but with simply understanding with compassion. Begging them all to look into their hearts, to the heart of their own petty darkness’s, and to both find forgiveness and name those they need forgiveness of that they might release both to hands of God.
They reflected and advent services goes on as they should, the older rector taking back the floor.
Edward stayed on his knees, ruby eyes watching through bronze hair, the man's collapse into a chair.
Forgiveness was neither owed nor granted to the damned.
Yet he sat watching, sat listening to the prayer which had not ended with the speech.
Contemplated on knees and loose stitches of an overrobe, on the lighting of the fourth candle, on the offering and the blessing. Contemplated on the guilt on a dozen faces, all his infamies playing before Edward's eyes in clarified glory. A man aware of his fall from all that was graceful and good, who indulged and was tempted and tempered still, and yet begging an unanswering voice.
Tired of the conflicted man, but unwilling to be disrupt the service with standing, Edward moved his contemplation to the suspended cross, draped with decor. The last time he had studied a cross for long, when it wasn't a painting or a relic was in London. The burglary of the Guildhall and the return of stolen family property.
Family. He was not that anymore, was he?
A forgotten memory. The plucked free wrinkle.
A smattering of nine minutes in a collection of centuries.
They had each other and needed no other to weather any storm.
The prayer circles through all of his thoughts.
A refrain for mercy and forgiveness from a man who does not believe he will receive even the gift of being answered. But he does believe that he will be heard. That his words go up to his God. That even fallen from the path this God is listening. The prayers of sinners and stricken can always be heard.
Would it seem miraculous in anyone other than the fully damned? And is he?
His self awareness burgeons on its own being, unlike all the ones before him.
The service ends and the people straggle out, heavy laden and ready to sleep, to wake.
Edward stays kneeling. Untired, untried. Watching the praying man undress, and turn on his car.
He stares still, with glittering red eyes, at the suspended cross --
What is mercy? Who is evil?
When was forgiveness needed?
Whose forgiveness does he need?
Whose forgiveness needs granting?
-- and as the car drives away, Edward closes his eyes.
He does not believe and he does not have anyone to pray to. He does not have or belong to anyone. His hands have far more blood on them than his quarry. Forgiveness was neither owed nor granted to the damned. His forehead leaned against the pew back, a perfectly still marbel statue in the flickering candle light.
Not because he needs to but because he cannot, and will not, take out his quarry before the forty three people sitting between them from where he sits in the furthest back pew corner in St. Catherine's Church. The orator is a man so despicable half his congregation, patrons of all ages and both genders, think him more hypocritical, more a demon than a vessel of God's Holy Word, for each sound that is coming out of his mouth.
What they cannot hear is that behind his every new sentence is a prayer. He is praying to his God with their faces, and far worse imagined disgust in him, begging for help on this night. He talks of charity, then compassion, love and finally draws upon forgiveness.
And in this second his find Edward, who for a moment wonders if the man's stricken expression is the whisper of seeing his death coming to him, that this is fate letting captive beg the captor for one last reprieve to breath before the blood will flow, before the whispered thought beautiful boy invades in the voice of the prayer.
As Edward's snarl snaps under his breath, face hardening, the man looks away choking on his own disgust. He was heard by the person closest to him, but he ducked his head and kneeled before she could catch sight of his eyes.
The man's prayer circles back, louder, stronger, screamed into the silence of the church as the congregation waits through what they imagine is acted histrionics, and with a shuddering breath he returns to it again. His speech out loud. The one which has wandered far off the path of the notes he had written out so clearly. He breaths in and paused, stopping, and facing them and starts again. Forgiveness.
How it is about being bigger than that which beats you down, no matter how small it makes you feel or how battered you have been by it. Turning the other cheek in Christ's name, who is born this night. How forgiveness has nothing to do with who is right and who is wrong, but with simply understanding with compassion. Begging them all to look into their hearts, to the heart of their own petty darkness’s, and to both find forgiveness and name those they need forgiveness of that they might release both to hands of God.
They reflected and advent services goes on as they should, the older rector taking back the floor.
Edward stayed on his knees, ruby eyes watching through bronze hair, the man's collapse into a chair.
Forgiveness was neither owed nor granted to the damned.
Yet he sat watching, sat listening to the prayer which had not ended with the speech.
Contemplated on knees and loose stitches of an overrobe, on the lighting of the fourth candle, on the offering and the blessing. Contemplated on the guilt on a dozen faces, all his infamies playing before Edward's eyes in clarified glory. A man aware of his fall from all that was graceful and good, who indulged and was tempted and tempered still, and yet begging an unanswering voice.
Tired of the conflicted man, but unwilling to be disrupt the service with standing, Edward moved his contemplation to the suspended cross, draped with decor. The last time he had studied a cross for long, when it wasn't a painting or a relic was in London. The burglary of the Guildhall and the return of stolen family property.
Family. He was not that anymore, was he?
A forgotten memory. The plucked free wrinkle.
A smattering of nine minutes in a collection of centuries.
They had each other and needed no other to weather any storm.
The prayer circles through all of his thoughts.
A refrain for mercy and forgiveness from a man who does not believe he will receive even the gift of being answered. But he does believe that he will be heard. That his words go up to his God. That even fallen from the path this God is listening. The prayers of sinners and stricken can always be heard.
Would it seem miraculous in anyone other than the fully damned? And is he?
His self awareness burgeons on its own being, unlike all the ones before him.
The service ends and the people straggle out, heavy laden and ready to sleep, to wake.
Edward stays kneeling. Untired, untried. Watching the praying man undress, and turn on his car.
He stares still, with glittering red eyes, at the suspended cross --
What is mercy? Who is evil?
When was forgiveness needed?
Whose forgiveness does he need?
Whose forgiveness needs granting?
-- and as the car drives away, Edward closes his eyes.
He does not believe and he does not have anyone to pray to. He does not have or belong to anyone. His hands have far more blood on them than his quarry. Forgiveness was neither owed nor granted to the damned. His forehead leaned against the pew back, a perfectly still marbel statue in the flickering candle light.