Beholder (one of two)

"He looks to me and he says..."

The voice is grizzled, crackling. It sounds like a pack a day for thirty-five years, and a pack and a half for the last five. He gives a phlegmy cough, partially due to the habit he built in the sixties, but also because he's embarrassed. His hands shake just a bit, too, because he needs a Salem, but it's more than that. He's afraid.

Even after all this time, he's a bundle of nervous energy.

"Go on. What does he say?"

A man sits in a black suit, relaxed. He leans back in his leather desk chair, white collar gleaming in the soft light of the rectory office.

"Padre, you don't mind me saying so, it's a bit stuffy in here."

"Thermostat is set at sixty-three. You need to talk this through."

Fingernails yellowed from smoke, palms cracked from honest work, the older man clears his throat as he looks down at his fingers.

Finally, he says, "You know, I'd be happy to take a look at the condenser for you. It feels like it ain't quite working right. Maybe it's just the air filters. I have a few of those out on the truck..."

The parish priest smiles. He leans forward, placing his elbows on the cheap blotter that covers his desk. Notes plaster the days of the month, with ideas for sermons scribbled in pencil and pen. He affects his best calming tone.

"Look. I know the supernatural isn't something that's supposed to happen, but it does happen."

"Careful, padre. You won't want the bishop catching wind of that sort of talk." Nervous laughter. More examining of fingernails.

"It's been decades. I can see it eating you more and more every day in the last twelve years I've known you."

The man nods.

"I'm getting closer, padre. I'm sixty-eight next week. Never thought I'd make it this far. The cough is worse. I still smoke. I play with my grandkids, and I know I'm a goner any day now. Some things just are. Even if I stop smoking, even if I give up the cheeseburgers, what then? Another three years? Maybe four? For what?"

The priest sits back, waiting. Letting the man talk.

"I'm sure it was him, padre. I know it was. I can still feel his hands on my face. I'd think they'd be hot. But they were like ice."

He shivers, all thoughts of the room being too warm having fled with his giving voice to memory.

Silence fills the office.

"He looks me in the eye, and he turns my chin to face him. It's like he wants to kiss me. He says to me, 'Would you believe I still have wings?' and he laughs like it's the biggest joke in the universe. Him, all covered in blood and bits and pieces of people. Just me, standing there, in some shit hole village in some shit hole corner of a shit hole continent, ten thousand miles away from everyone I love and everything I ever wanted."

"And then what?"

"He showed me."

"Was it terrible?"

"That's the thing, padre. He was beautiful. I wept, because something so horrible was so God Damned, and just so fucking pretty. I think that's what's made me all twisted up inside. I should hate him. I should be sickened, but all I can think is one thing. How? How can such evil still look so beautiful?"