The Bad Priest

The Bad Priest In Lyons (I think it was Easter, 1438), I was a priest and somehow can recall the dim church, the heavy clouds of frankincense and the knights and the peasants lined up for communion. I chanted the magic words and did the magic gestures but instead of the wine becoming the blood of our Blessed Lord, it changed into piss. I was not ready for this. Inside the chalice, the reflection of my own most hideous face - I poured my face onto the floor and a thousand rats writhing in a sea of worms destroyed my last pretense of piety. The congregation – the whores no less than the assassins – knew that I was one of them and could no longer hide the fact. The stained glass windows crackled and shattered, the church crumpled into rubble; and we all shrieked as the earth quaked and God was deaf: to the sobs of the amputees. For the unforgivable crime of sacrilege the ecclesiastical tribunal interrogated me under the direction of the Bishop. Those Dominican friars, those Domine Canes (bloodhounds of the Lord), figured I'd sold my soul to the adversary and when they put me on the rack and hung me up backwards and hammered each ankle and elbow in turn, I saw that they must be right, for they showed such tender concern for the state of my soul. I confessed but still had to be tortured again, in order to confirm the first one. The Dominicans wanted to burn my genitals to get to the names of family members who might be party to this conspiracy, but in his mercy the Bishop forbade them. I had to prepare myself for being burned at the stake: There would be no merciful strangling instead. I could pray for the grace of God, but I knew I wouldn’t get it. I could not even look forward to oblivion as I regarded that yellow shirt printed with the Devil's signs that I'd have to wear on that morning of shame and buckets of ****. My friends will ask for my forgiveness as they set the straw afire. Will I be a Christian then?