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Memory Divine

Posted on May 5, 2007
Filed Under The Stories |

Mind your own business padri! This has nothing to do with you!

The fog lifted as if black fluid was being drained from clear water. Even when he could see, nothing was clear. Solid objects were defined by fluid, undulating lines. He didn’t know where he was but he was sitting down. The thumb and forefinger of his right hand felt pressure, from something small, round and hard. He struggled to focus. It was a bead, specifically a rosary bead.

Our father

Who art in heaven

Hallowed be thy name…

He knew the words, he knew they corresponded with a position on the rosary. He didn’t know why the words had automatically begun ringing through his head the moment he became aware of holding a rosary. It was like someone had released the pause button on a cassette tape and a new song had begun playing.

He looked around the room.

Coat hanger.

He knew the word.

Cupboard.

He knew the word.

His free hand touched metal and rubber. He looked. Light glinted off shiny steel. It took a moment but the word came to him.

Wheelchair.

He didn’t know why he needed it.

Something nuzzled against his cheek so he tucked his head back and tried to focus on it. It was a tube. He blew into it without wondering why and the chair moved forward.

That wasn’t right. He had feeling in his hands.

He didn’t need the tube.

Door.

He tucked the rosary into a cassock pocket. Tried to stand up.

Failed.

He rolled forward towards the door. Opened it and rolled out into the mid-morning sunshine. A wizened old man in grey trousers and a pink shirt wandered towards him, en route to the main road.

The man smiled, “Good morning Fr. Francis.”

He nodded and remembered to smile but the man’s face didn’t come with a name.

Two young women were seated in the shade of the only trees on the grounds. Their voices carried towards him just fine and it was clear they didn’t realise he could hear them.

“That’s Fr. Francis,” one of them said.

“What happened? He was always like that?” the other one wanted to know.

“No. Nobody knows. They just found him like on the road. Blood was everywhere,” the first one explained.

“But he’s using his hands.”

“Ya. So?”

“That tube is for quads right? People with no use of hands or legs?”

The first woman laughed, “Yeah he got that wheelchair because he likes to carry the kids around. He holds them tight with both hands and controls the chair with the tube.”

The second woman made that clicking sound so often associated with injustice, “So sad.”

He had heard enough, enough to make him head back towards the room. He spun the chair around.

Why couldn’t he remember any of this?

The inside of the room was much cooler. He had broken a sweat from barely any time spent on the outside. The cool darkness was welcome after the blinding whiteness of daylight.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the lack of light. He noticed the stick by the door, picked it up and used it to switch on a light. The brightness helped. He knew the names for the objects in the room but he didn’t recognise them as belonging to him.

On the desk, he knew what a computer was but he didn’t know what he used one for.

The not knowing was causing him to sweat again.

He looked up.

Ceiling fan.

He went back to the switch box and pushed a couple of switches until the fan started spinning with a couple of clicks and a low hum. He rolled himself directly under the appliance, luxuriated in the air on his damp face.

Back at the desk he tried one of the drawers. Locked.

He tried the second one.

It opened towards him and the blood drained from his face. His fingers were suddenly as nerveless as his legs. He stared; unable to comprehend what he was seeing.

Why does a priest need a gun?

He slid the drawer shut, gingerly; as if any sudden movements would set the gun off. He rolled away from the desk and fished in his pocket for the rosary.

Hail Mary

Full of grace…

He blacked out.

Wondering how this story was written? Click here for a short explanation

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