asphyxiation salvation

“Cecil the Lion died of auto-erotic asphyxiation,” 

I nod quietly and take in the smell of Drano gel on the man’s breath, listening to the bugs burrowing into his skin and the palpable refusal to itch. 

“That dentist mutilated his corpse to save him the embarrassment,” 

I lean forward and see if I can catch a glimpse of the man calmly confessing sins that aren’t his. The dusty mesh between us functions as it should, allowing me to grant forgiveness without sight. To offer prayers instead of prison time, obscuring a man who would almost certainly spend an eternity being waterboarded with pre-ejaculate lava flowing from Satan’s limp unit. 

Everyone would burn some day, some worse than others. 

He takes a deep breath and it sounds like a pencil sharpener, his insides rattling with a similarly empty enthusiasm, laboring under their modest burden of varying autonomic functions. 

“Crop circles are alien glory holes,” 

“The moon landing footage was from a space themed strip club in Northern Indiana,”  

“Osama Bin Laden was on an episode of MILF hunters,” 

“Jeffrey Epstein was ritualistically sacrificed by Logan Paul,” 

“Area 51 is full of the bastard, half-mech children of Jeff Bezos and his fuckable drones,” 

“Bill Gates puts Oxycontin in chemtrails,” 

“The simulation reset when John Wayne Gacy died,”

“I’ve got pictures and videos to prove it all, they’re yours for forgiveness,” 

I ask what he’s done so that I can prescribe an adequate amount of prayers to heal him and he takes several seconds to respond. I hear the metal of a belt buckle sinking into throat flesh and blood vessels erupting in ecstasy from bulging eyeballs. 

I hear skin on denim. I hear denim on skin. I hear skin on skin. A few dull thrusts that rock the confessional booth indicating pursuit of an elite orgasm to accopmany his revelation. I aimlessly listen, not unfamiliar with the satisfaction of carnal urges under my watchful eyes and thus the eyes of God himself by extension. 

One last sin before being cleansed and repeating the process until death. The walls of the confessional had been sown with the purified seeds of every member of the congregation and they’d said their prayers to eradicate what they had done. 

I ask if he’s still there and if he’s ready for his penance, but he doesn’t respond. I see a shadow obscuring the faint light of the candle on the other end, moving unnaturally in the glow of the holy candle. 

He’s dangling from the ceiling of the confessional with his pants around his ankles, holding the picture of Cecil the Lion, a box of other materials rests next to his pockmarked thighs. Pushing the body aside I look at the items in the box. A yellowing polaroid of Bill Gates snorting Oxycontin. Logan Paul wearing a freshly severed goat head and extracting Epstein’s heart with a pair of Hulk Hands. A VHS with Osama Bin Laden MILF Hunter Impotence scrawled on the peeling white tape. Everything else he mentioned and then some.

Evidence of sins that weren’t his.

I start mass with a homily about Judas dying of auto-erotic asphyxiation and think about the body of the man hanging in the confessional by a braided belt that didn’t fit his stomach but did fit his neck. He’d rot in hell, but for the first time in my life I felt sympathy for a sinner. 

I wondered who had chosen him to be a mule for everything no one wanted. 

I wondered how long the spurs had dug into his dying skin and what had caused him to finally give up. 

Several attendees offer a listless chuckle at the parallel between a man who died by suicide in the confessional moments earlier and the man who betrayed Jesus two thousand years go. 

I extract my solid gold incense burner and light it, watching the photographs and videotapes ignite and fill the room with perverse white smoke, eager to purge sinful thoughts and breaths. I’m coughing too, but I inhale anyway and plunge my solid gold staff into the sky. I pray harder than I have ever prayed, smoke pours freely from my nostrils and mouth, flowing through eyeballs and fingertips.  

I hope that the suffocation can bring them the same chance at redemption as the main hanging in the confessional, I hope it’s not too late for salvation, for redemption, for orgasm. I hope that I can find peace too. Most people exit the church immediately, wanting no part in the smoke, but I stay. 

I’m back in the confessional and I don’t remember how I got here. 

I hear a voice from the other side of the mesh asking “How long has it been since your last confession,” and I’m not sure how to answer.