This is My Flesh:The Last Supper

The mass is held in a beautiful cathedral. The room is filled with gold, rose, blue, and white lights refracted through the stained glass. The hall holds paintings of Christ and his mother, as well as St Peter. The divine mercy to the left of the altar, and the sacred heart to the right. I sit in a pew, a quiet reflection of my sins. A silent point in the mass before the Liturgy of the Eucharist. I pray and focus on Christ and what he’s done. The priest presents the wafer, washes his hands, and prays over the Eucharist and the people. “This is my body, given for you; do this in remembrance of me. This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” The congregation approaches. When it’s my turn to have the priest offer me the wafer, I put my arms over my chest. Showing my faults and humanity, my shame and my sin. An unrepentant grief fills my soul. I walk back to my pew and sit. I stare at the kneeler. Downcast and reflective. The silence is deafening. The gospel reading is Matthew, Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. “And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping.” The priest said. “So you could not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” I reflect on that over and over again. Spinning in my mind. “The flesh is weak.” It is something that separates us from God. It is the very bane of our existence. The notion of being human is what faults us. The weakness to sin. And I above all else have neglected that call. This flesh I am in is overbearing. It’s been draining to be alive. I have neglected myself, and I am suffering because of it. If I can’t feel hope, does it even exist? My thoughts spiral, racing past me fast enough that I can’t process it. My vision narrows. I breathe heavily, and I clasp my head as it throbs. It hurts, my brain aches in my skull. I see spots, then close my eyes. I close them so hard I see red. I take slow shallow breaths. After the panic passes, I look up and see the last of the congregation pass by me. The mass is over. I didn’t even notice.

I head to my apartment. A small, single room shithole. Cheap enough to keep a roof over my head. Or something that can act as a roof. I turn on the single lamp to illuminate the depressing decor. Some old water damage on the ceiling mocks me and my estate. The yellow stains in the drywall have been there for months. It looks like a rash that’s infected the apartment. I stare at it, wondering where my life has gone wrong. Maybe the sudden death of my uncle. He died only a month ago, so the grief is still near. I dwell on it, tears run down my face and the room feels heavy. I slow my breathing, and it feels as if the apartment is synchronized. My room expands and contracts. Tricks of my tired and delirious mind. It feels as though the room around me is filled with grief and depression as well. My heart races and the apartment throbs faster. I close my eyes for a few minutes, take a deep breath, and slowly open them. The ceiling is back in its normal state.

I set my things on the countertop, and open the fridge. The fridge is barren with a box of baking soda, half of a day old pizza, and a six pack of Coors. I grab a beer. The can is cold, but sticky as well. Don’t know how long it’s been in there. I open it and drink it slowly, but the drink is interrupted by a cough. A wet, phlegmy cough. I gag and choke as I cough up the blockage. I heave and yack out something that sits in my mouth and tastes oily and sour. I spit it onto the floor. It’s pink, amorphous, and makes me gag. About the size of a dime. It slowly oozes into the floorboard and stains it. I grab a paper towel and clean it off the floor. I look at it closely, wondering what this could be. Is it blood mixed with mucus? A remnant of something dislodged from my teeth? I have an appointment with my doctor on Thursday, so I’ll bring it up then. I go to bed and stare at the ceiling. Noticing a small pink stain in the ceiling as my eyes close.

I rub my eyes as I wake up. The stain on the ceiling is still there. It grew from the last time I saw it, seeming to have spread to a sizable watermark. Fucking landlord doesn’t fix shit around here. I wake up because of a spasm and violent coughing fit. I grasp my throat, it’s dry and feels raw. I must’ve snored with my mouth open again. Sleep apnea has not been kind to me. I head to my bathroom and take a shower. The water is refreshing as it runs down my back. I’m not very good at taking care of this apartment, there’s a little mill dew around the drain. It stinks. Not bad but it’s noticeable. I lather some shampoo in my hands and rub my scalp. I close my eyes as dead skin and loose hairs go down the drain. I wash my face and wince as I feel a pull in my skin. I continue my shower and then turn off the water once I’m done. I step out and look in the mirror and see a small tear on my chin on the right side. It was a little red. Maybe I cut myself while shaving yesterday. Didn’t seem too out of the ordinary. It stung a little, so I scratched at it, and the itch was soothed. I left it at that. But the skin around it looked strange. It was purple, but no bigger than a dime. Maybe I bruised the skin easily with the scratch? It’s strange but nothing to worry about.A couple days pass and I see the scar become a small bump. Maybe it’s scabbing over.

A week passes and the scar on my face has gotten worse. It has developed into a cyst. So I went to the doctor. It’s grown to the size of a ping pong ball. The skin is red with white sores. The doctor scheduled a surgery in a couple weeks, but that doesn’t do any good for any immediate relief. So he gave me some painkillers to soothe the agony I feel. But this is something that I don’t think painkillers are going to help with. It was hard enough to go to the doctors office, I felt like a disgusting human and people gave me strange looks. They all looked at me. Wondering what that man was doing here and why he was disfigured? Fuck them. I suffer and they look at me like a freak. And I feel like it. As much as I suffer, they make me feel more alien than I already am. I left to seek solitude from the masses.

I missed my doctor appointment. It was difficult to get out of bed today. My sheets are now ruined because my skin stained them. It secreted something that made me stick to the sheets. It felt like I was in a fly trap. I pulled myself off the sheets slowly, a strange yellow stain shaped like me was what remained on the sheets. I looked to see speckles of blood and flesh. I took a shower again to wash off the stickiness. The mass has developed some friends. I’ve gained two more polyps around the original mass. I’m afraid it’s cancerous or viral. I go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. The mass is growing, it spreads and looks like an abnormal malignancy. Polyps and cysts formed all over my face of various sizes. It’s an appalling sight and I can’t leave my domicile. I dig into my face, my fingers sank into the white flakey growths on my cheek. I scratched at it, peeling away the dead excess of skin. The growth deflating as my fingernail penetrated the barrier. An orange fluid, a mix of puss and blood, oozed out of the wound. I balled my hand into a fist around the mass, and tore it slowly off my face. The mass sat in my hand. Strings of fluid dangling off my cheek. I looked down at the mass and retched. Seeing the flesh sit in a wet clump, smelling the rot was terrible. It looked like an alien infection. I stared in the mirror, my cheek was now scarred. A sunken mass of exposed flesh, blood, and the other fluid was what remained. Still dripping and wet. I threw the mass into the nearby trash bin and washed my hands of the fluids. Splashing water onto my face, cleaning the wound with a cloth. The wound oozed an orange fluid, seeping from the skin. I splashed some water onto it to get rid of the excess fluids. I found a square of gauze and taped it over my cheek, the orange fluids staining the cotton.

The next morning I tried eating breakfast but it was difficult. My jaw and cheek ached as I chewed. Every time I bit down there was some give to my teeth. My mouth felt like a stapler. Every time I chewed my mouth sprang back, as if my teeth were made of rubber or foam. I could feel my mouth froth from an excess of saliva and I swallowed. I could feel my esophagus expand and contract around the mass of food that went down to my stomach. I tried to force down the rest of my breakfast but every time I chewed and swallowed it was uncomfortable. It felt like I couldn’t chew, like my teeth, while they felt like they were still there, were incapable of breaking down solid food. Eventually I gagged and ran to the trash can and spat out the food. At least that’s what I tried to do. I held my head over the trash can, my mouth agape, as the brown mush fell out. But I noticed something else in there that was strange. Pieces of white. My eyes widened in horror as I saw what was in there. I ran to the mirror in my bathroom and looked in the mirror as I opened my mouth wide. Five of my back molars were gone. I panicked and screamed at the realization. What the fuck just happened to me? How was this possible? I never noticed any decay or wear in my teeth. Not to the point where they would fucking fall out. I panicked. Spiraled. I was hyperventilating. I curled up into a ball and sobbed. I didn’t understand what was happening. It felt like my body thought my entire existence was cancerous, and was trying to kill me. I ache I hurt, it’s destroying me and I don’t know what to do. I have no time left.

The only thing I think that I can do is to go to the church for solace. I don’t know how long I have, but I must try to do something there. Maybe it has an answer I can find. I shamble in there and sit in the back pew. It’s the afternoon on a Friday so nobody is here. I sit in the hall and pray. “Our father whom art in heaven hallowed be thy name.” I recite the Lord’s Prayer, it brings comfort in this hard time. I hold out my arms and try to offer myself in this moment. It’s all I have. Even if my offering feels shameful. What has become of my faith? What is it? Why is it gone? Why am I separated from him? What salvation is there if I have no hope? Is a loss of hope a spelling of damnation? If so why? Why has Christ turned away from me? Why has he profaned my body? Why have I become like this? Am I even human anymore? Or am I but a new creature? A devolved form. Something lesser than human. A form less than man but greater or equal to an animal. Am I a slave to man? A slave to my flesh? Why has Christ damned me to this hell? Has he done this to me? Has he profaned my body? As I have profaned it? Is this punishment? If so this is surely worse than hell. And if God has profaned my body. Then I shall profane his. I go along the pews to the back, and I find unconsecrated hosts. Hundreds of them. Surely they aren’t Christ’s actual body, but I surely can satiate something with this. I grab them and consume them like a glutinous animal. I shove handfuls and handfuls of the hosts into my mouth, barely chewing and shoving them down. I use my gums and tongue to work his body down my throat. Surely this will save me. Surely this is salvation. This is his flesh isn’t it? It’ll surely make my flesh whole. I scarf and choke down the wafers, taking them in by the hundreds, until I choke and spit up mush. I grab the mush and shove it all back into my mouth with the other wafers. I choke and gag. I eat them with a gluttony unknown to man. This is surely my salvation. This is surely my salvation. I choke it down, I retch and eat the vomit, not wanting to waste a morsel. I must save myself. I must save myself. I must have my dying flesh be saved by his. This is my flesh. Take and eat. This is my flesh. Take and eat. This is my flesh. Take and eat. Nothing is happening. Nothing is changing. Fuck this. I throw the bowls that hold the wafers and turn around to head out of the church. Christ has profaned my flesh. And I have his. If I die and I am not with him. I will not weep and gnash. I will be free. My body will be free in death. Dead and rotting. Just how it should be. This accursed, rotted flesh. I stand in the hall, a mass of melted flesh, my bones exposed. I’m cold, the air stings against my nerves that are exposed. I lie in the middle of the floor, waiting for something to happen. All of a sudden I feel warmth. A white light appears, and I think I see Christ calling me home. Tears fill my eyes, and I finally let go. I see only black now, hoping to someday open my eyes and see my God.