By Pheobe Radke
I went into the bathroom for the last time that night, unable to get rid of the intrusive thoughts telling me I needed to pee. When I flicked the switch, the lights came in an instant, flashing my dazed reflection in the mirror. My eyes locked with their opposite pair, both squinting and alarmed at the emergence of light. As the brilliance of the room settled, I could make out my appearance.
You never look the same at 1am. I could see my natural brown hair sprouting from the dyed red and the mascara underneath my eyes, rubbed off by the drudgery of the day, escapable details I usually was blind to. This person that stood in front of me was just my exterior. I could see the oversized T-shirt hanging on my body, my favorite necklace wound around my neck, and the paint marks leftover on my forearm, but everything that made me me was gone. I was experiencing myself from the outside: a shell of who I was.
The bathroom was a perfect white. From the pale walls, ivory tiles, and eggshell towels, it was so pure, so divine. And I stood there as a part of it. I accepted its perfection as my own, reveling in a space I actually had power over. This was a place free from imperfection – a biblical paradise.
That was until I saw a black speck. I peered at the sink and noticed a cockroach emerging at the cusp of the drain. It had crawled from the pipe just as I glanced down, as I happened to be going to the bathroom for the last time. I remember thinking if I had just gone to pee a minute earlier or a minute later, this cockroach could have existed peacefully and gone along with its life. But it's human nature to act, to kill bugs when we see them.
₪₪₪
It wasn’t my first time in a confession booth. I knew what to say when the priest walked in, when to sprinkle in my Amens and the words to the prayers that would wash me of my sins: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. It was my first week at Catholic middle school, where I was surrounded by whispering blonde-haired girls and austere nuns whose disapproving glances I still have etched in my mind. I could never have matched their holy devotion, so I found myself sitting in a small wooden box at the back of the East Chapel, wanting to receive some divine judgment.
The booth was dimly lit by the sunlight creeping from underneath the curtain, illuminating the scratches on the worn wooden floors. I supposed my shoes, new and shiny, would make their marks too. Between the floor panels, I caught sight of a single engraved word: HELL. Intuitively I looked up to the ceiling and found its match: HEAVEN.
I wondered what coming-of-age moment had led a Catholic schoolgirl to scratch these words on the interior of a confession booth, committing a sin before she could purge the others. I remembered being pleased knowing this graffiti wouldn’t be found; this side was only for the sinners, while the other was for the holy.
The sun streaks on the floor flickered as a large shadow approached, the engraved HELL fading and reappearing. I wondered if I made a mistake coming there, but it was too late. The trap had already caught me. I could see the priest’s face through the partition, half-illuminated by the light under his curtain. His nose was more bulbous than most, and a prominent brow shadowed his eyes. Stranger still, he faced me directly through the screen. I continued staring at the floor. I began,“Forgive me, father, for I have sinned,” before my divulgence began.
His voice was soft; I remember that. I also remember the stumbling words I gave him, describing my sins. I remember that old wood smell, how the bench creaked beneath me, and how the room darkened as the sun shifted farther and farther away from the booth. Discomfort slowly turned to distress, but I still sat there, unable to leave the situation I put myself in. His fixation on me was omnipresent, almost too much for me to receive. I could feel his stare on my face and body as I squirmed in that tiny box. He knew the power he held.
Finally, he reached the end of his game, “Recite The Lord’s Prayer.”
“Our father who is in heaven –” I started.
“Again,” he said. I could see his eyes clearly now between the mesh’s pattern. They were a shining blue. I had never seen such beautiful, brutal eyes.
“Again,” he said coolly.
I wondered if this was it. If this was my salvation from being forsaken: to be controlled by a man behind a partition. Was relinquishing my control that much of an ask? I looked up to the ceiling again, to the etched HEAVEN directly above me, and finished, “For the kingdom, the power, the glory is yours now and forever. Amen.”
₪₪₪
I stared at the cockroach and felt no hesitation: As its last hind leg left the drain, I pushed down the stopper. I wondered at that moment if bugs could feel pain as it wriggled and struggled against its trap —not that it mattered. Its abdomen arched over, and its antennas flailed around in panic, a beautiful dance. It thrashed back and forth, attempting to free its leg over and over again. I'm not sure if it was a lack of intelligence or admirable determination, but the bug didn't stop fighting its fate.
Resentful, I turned on the tap as if it was predestined. The lackluster stream of water must have seemed so powerful to that little bug. I could imagine what it would have looked like: a towering waterfall coming straight for you with nothing left to prevent it from completely crushing you. The water would have relentlessly punched my abdomen while it thundered in my ears. The water would have slowly filled around my tiny cockroach body. I would have jerked and danced just as the cockroach had done, even as the water climbed above my head. I would have stared up at this God-like figure, whose blurry face would have been a mighty vision through the water, and screamed, Who are you to do this to me? But I could only squirm.
I heard nothing but the rush of water. Eventually, I turned off the tap when I saw the cockroach had stopped fighting and was floating to the top; its leg had finally broken off. I stared as its black body broke the surface, upturned and dead. Its turmoil had twisted the antennas together, skewed the legs, and broke the wings, making it a shell of what it once was.
And as the water settled, a reflection emerged: My eyes next to the cockroach's, both pairs staring back at me. Oh, how vulnerable they were in that moment, and how great I was.
What a power God holds.