Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

“I hope his absence isn’t going to adversely affect your case. I don’t think anybody else was here that night that could help you.”

“Thanks, that’s all right. The case is basically over anyway. I was just looking into a final thing really.”

“Confession?”

“No, there was no confession. That’s about the only thing they didn’t have but really there’s not much need for a confession when they catch you in the van.”

“No, I was referring to your situation. Would you like to take confession?”

“Confession?”

“Yes, Penance or Reconciliation, it’s a sacrament, you are Catholic aren’t you?”

“Yes, I mean no, I don’t really believe, I mean, I don’t think that—”

“Well there’s no harm in talking right? You look like you might want to talk.”

“No, I hate talking.”

“Well I’m here for the next hour if you change your mind.”

“You mean you’re here for just that purpose?”

“Yes, we offer the sacrament twice a week for a two-hour period.”

“I see. But isn’t there some kind of specially-designed booth? I seem to recall a little bootheroo.”

“There is, over there.”

“Truth is I don’t even remember the, like, preamble you say just before you disclose the sins and all that. I mean there’s a thing you say right?”

“There is, but you can also just go in and talk about whatever you’d like to talk about.”

“All right,” I said, and the words had barely escaped my mouth, and my instant regret registered, when he got up and walked towards the booth. I followed him but when he went into his little curtained portion I contemplated making a break for it. After all, I thought, I hadn’t even given him my name and chances were overwhelming I would never see him again. Instead I pulled the curtain to the side, heard a whirring sound, and gingerly entered the enclosure. I knelt on the little ledge they had there for that purpose and planted my chin on my right hand. There was a pleasant because only slightly translucent little screen separating us that I was highly grateful for. But then the priest slid that screen over revealing a lesser, far thinner, screen in its place. I guess it was better than nothing but I was tempted to slide the other one right back. He didn’t say anything so I figured I had to start.

“Hi Father?” I wondered. “As you know, I have sinned since my last confession, which was a few months ago.” That was a lie. “Actually that’s not true. I made a mistake. It’s been more than a few months. A lot longer.”

“…”

“Also I didn’t really make a mistake. When I said it had been a few months just now? That wasn’t so much a mistake as it was an out and out lie. Both were lies in fact. You understand? When I said it had been a few months since my last confession, that was a lie. It wasn’t true. Therefore when I later said I had made a mistake, you know when I said it had only been a few months, that was also a lie. Of course, the one lie led me to tell the second lie out of sheer embarrassment so I suppose the argument could be made that it’s all just one lie with maybe two subcomponents although I will not now make that argument. Anyway now that I got that out of the way I suppose I’ll start listing my sins, which as I recall is the way I’m supposed to proceed.”

“…”

“I think I’m going to proceed in chronological order since that seems the best way to achieve completeness and I want to cover everything. Of course it’s unlikely that I will remember everything, human memory being what it is. The question, I guess, then becomes whether something that I did in the past but cannot now remember is even relevant in this context. Whether it can even be said to have been done by me actually. You see what I’m driving at right? Locke?”

“…”

“I mean, taking the extreme example, imagine I previously slaughtered someone in cold blood but now have no recollection of it whatsoever. It doesn’t seem that that action can then do me any harm now. I mean in terms of weighing on my conscience and guilt and all that, you know? What the hell is a conscience anyway? Sorry I mean heck. Why do I know, with seeming certainty, that I would feel like absolute crap if I did slaughter that dude yet I also know with similar certainty that the social conditioning explanation that will almost certainly be offered up fails to apply in my case in many other situations where you would expect it to? I mean that makes perfect sense doesn’t it?”

“…”

“Listen I’m no expert at this but aren’t you supposed to have a speaking part?”

“Perhaps, son, you should begin by simply listing your sins.”

“Right, what constitutes a sin though? Never mind, I’ll just start. I am going to go in chronological order. Reverse chronological actually so I can get the ball rolling with sins that are like still fresh in my mind. I was going to talk about something that happened this morning but I now realize that lying is a sin. I mean that’s pretty well established right? After all lying is one of the ten commandments isn’t it? Not lying of course being the requirement. Thou mustn’t bear false witness and all that. Well if lying is a sin then I guess my most recent sin was the lie I told at the outset of this confession. The one I’ve admitted to. All of which might make me the first person ever to commit a sin in the very process of seeking forgiveness for earlier sins. Or not, who knows?”

“…”

“Strange kind of sin lying though. Let’s say a lie is a declaration the declarant knows is not true, why is the creation of one a sin exactly? What the hell, heck, is so sinful about telling a lie? Take my earlier lie as an example. So I said something that didn’t accurately reflect truth, whatever that is. So what? How exactly is morality implicated? So these words that were uttered didn’t happen to correspond with truth. Big deal. Is truth so paramount that a violation of it in any form is a sin ? If that’s the case then what is it about truth that makes this so? If it’s a sin because God says so then why is God so hung up on truth? Is truth so important because without it, and without reliance on basic conformance with it, human interaction becomes hopelessly complicated and unsatisfying? Well that seems a concern more apt to contract law or social utilitarianism than to the lofty realm of morality. On the subject of the lofty, does God always expound the truth in its purest form? If so, and there’s never artifice or ambiguity of any kind involved, then we need only look around to see what God thinks of us and it isn’t good. Or maybe truth itself is God or a major aspect of God and therefore a violation of truth is the equivalent of a direct slap to God’s face? Frankly I find those kind of anthropomorphic views of God to be the most annoying kind of bullshit, I mean bullcrap, and basically highly silly and arbitrary. And that’s how I view your proscription against lying. I can’t get too worked up about it is what I’m saying. Especially when, as here, it’s clear no one was hurt by the declaration. And while I can certainly mentally concoct a situation where a lie would be grossly wrong I can also easily envision the opposite. The result is that the whole thing ends up seeming almost pedantic and superstitious you know?”

“…”

“Which I guess brings me to the heart of the matter namely this. You could argue that when I do finally get around to it and recount my sins, that the telling itself will be a form of lying. You see the problem is I’m not really a true believer, I don’t think. I don’t truly believe in the things you’re offering me right now. Don’t believe they truly and accurately represent the world we live in. Not that I’ve given it an overwhelming amount of thought either. But I also didn’t give it much thought earlier in my far younger life when I did believe in all you expound. That didn’t seem like much of a conscious decision either. My environment back then just seemed to actively gravitate me towards those beliefs just as I now find myself pulled towards the opposite belief. The belief that there is no God et cetera and that this is all just a somewhat unhappy accident that lends itself to people seeking solace in things like a belief in God. But I can’t stress enough what a gradual undramatic process this has been. It’s not like I did have a strong belief in God until the day my best buddy had his balls blown off in Korea and died in my arms and I decided that such a thing would never occur in a world ruled by God, it’s nothing like that. It’s also not a case where I’m making a conscious decision that I’m going to attempt to define myself by this belief or non-belief. It’s more like a continual weakening that turns into a disappearance.”