forgiveness (book one)

wisdom

ix.

wisdom

If asked later on, I could never quite explain what possessed me to return to church the following Sunday.

I hadn't wanted to. Walking back to that old, white-washed church had been the last place I'd wanted to revisit, but something inside me had been unable to remain complacent staying within the depths of my dirty sheets and mattress that morning. The conversation I'd had with the old man last week had haunted me throughout every day that followed, and I couldn't seem to stop replaying every word he had said to me. I ran through the event at the wooden bench outside the church for hours on end, unable to escape the way that old man had seemed to know every single inner working of my mind.

I didn't even understand my own mind. How could he dig inside it so easily, when he was – and always would be – a complete stranger to me?

The weather was less gloomy than the previous Sunday, with a brighter sun and only a few streaks of cream-colored clouds spread across the pale blue sky. There was an annoying number of sparrows flitting about through the budding branches above me, their normally faint whistling now piercing loudly against my eardrums. The effects of Saturday morning's hangover were still affecting me a full 24 hours later, and every sound seemed to be magnified inside my skull by several decibels.

For the life of me, I could not convince myself to turn around on the sidewalk and return the way I had come. My mud-streaked sneakers were determinately pointed towards the direction of the church as I trudged my way down the busy street, despite how desperate the rest of my body was to return home and curl into a ball of nothing in my bed.

Nothing mattered to me anymore, anyway. If the tiniest sliver of me wanted answers for what had happened last Sunday, then I had nothing better to do than to revisit the place where it had first begun.

The old man was seated at the exact same bench where I had left him a week ago. He was leaned back against the weathered wood of the seat, peaceful and unmoving as I approached. I could hear a voice from within the church behind him, deep and strong and commanding as it echoed against the bare walls. Mass was well under way, and it seemed the pastor was already beginning his sermon. Yet the old man was outside, an empty space beside him on the bench, as though he hadn't come here for the church service at all.

I suppose I hadn't quite returned for the service itself, either.

He only glanced upwards when I was less than two feet from the edge of the bench. His thin lips split into a grin, revealing grey rows of intermittently cracked teeth. My feet were planted firmly at the very edge of the sidewalk, blades of the grass that separated the concrete from the bench brushing against the toes of my shoes.

"Well, look who decided to show up," the man said. "You're late."

I fixed him with a harsh glare, but the usual anger that broiled inside my stomach whenever someone spoke to me that way was absent, at least for the moment. With arms that were firmly crossed over my chest, I told him stiffly, "I only came back to ask you a question."

"Just one? I'm disappointed, mate."

The sound of the church's organ resonated out through the stained glass windows, a sweet yet haunting note that made the old man's eyes drift shut for half a second. When he reopened them, I was still standing firmly in the sidewalk, and he raised one eyebrow that was made up of thin strands of fine white hair. "Sit down, would you? Those legs won't be young forever."