◥ “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. My last confession was-...” lids hush themselves from what scarce light had remained. How long was it, precisely? seven, eight, or ten... maybe thirteen years now? “Forgive me, Father... for my sins are many, and I cannot recount last when I came to give my confessions.” A teen, maybe. Scratching off the scabs and renewing the wounds of the twentieth year, still holding fast to that old number. Or perhaps when he last wept pitifully at sixteen, baring his flushed, dampened cheek to the grate as if the steel could carve out imperfections from the outside in. A deeper breath is taken... Terrence falls silent and reminiscent for older, infected things which still stir his head hot with ill and his blood sick with misery. And yet, none of which is why he has shambled here. In failure of the Italian tongue, with booklet and apps and trial and error, to be told of a singular Priest available to hear him with an accurate word. None else around speaking English, Nor Welsh, nor German, but - Gaelic. His most intimate and sacred dialect to his heart. The Historian swallows his nervousness, and holds no intention of finding out who he’d been given to.
◥ “Italy does not find me welcomed... again. My second confession is my admittance to having no intent of having myself cleansed, forgiven, but that I came here out of desperation. I am homesick. So much so that this is the only reprieve from my lonesomeness... the only familiar thing here, even if my reputation precedes me.” He gives pause, glancing then unto darkness beyond the grate. “...I’m a Historian. I give lectures and my own form of sermon. I have made myself distasteful before to many religious people here for my candidness in schools... both as a child and adult. It was... difficult to find anyone willing to hear me. Or so, I perceive it. I cannot blame them. If anything, it is times as these that I envy their deep faiths and soulful prayers. The last I found solace in that was a long, long time ago...”