A hidden humming, passing shadows, from solid surfaces, smoke rising from scented candles, plates containing poor-quality food, as if it were a junkyard from which you pick the things you find useful.
Ignorant gazes gathered toward the table and looking at the corpse, humble before a future they will have a share in, so they became fearful.
Heads bowed in respect to bones and flesh that will, after days, rot away.
With heavy steps and the echo of criticizing voices, I walk with a humiliated soul and shattered feelings, toward the filled plates, staring at them with regret. I do not wish to eat them, but without them, I will be a lifeless corpse.
The priest, with a rounded head and thick eyebrows and an almost poor-looking gaze, stared in disgust, pointing with his thick fingers for me to sit and eat from the plates of that charity, for the soul of someone who has now become nothing but a pile of lifeless muscles.
I stretched my thin hand to the almost antique dishes, picked from them a damp piece of bread, and began to eat it gently, as if I were a sultan who sat on his throne with difficulty.
Has chewing food today become this hard, or has it always been like this?
Bite after bite, the moisture in the piece makes it disgusting, but I have no worry with it compared to the worries ahead.
I close my eyes so I might not see them this time, but when has closing the eyelids ever given a steady peace?.
It gives us some silent moments, but they soon fade after you open them out of curiosity to see the picture clearly.
The ominous shadows slip quickly between the aisles of the church and creep among the charity plates in a terrifying way, as if they were rains flooding already sunken lands, drowning their anchored ships. And as soon as I chew the food, they begin conversing in their shifting shapes, taking the forms of animals as molds for their hideous bodies.
The new one loops with the previous ones, wrestling, merging, until they form a monstrous being - a rat with breaking fangs and claws, with a long neck and limbs, and wide electrified hairs hanging down, as if struck by cursed lightning.
Demonic wide eyes with bulging blood vessels, staring with their vile smiles and their dark colors, producing irritating sounds, wishing from life to be nothing but a crushed insect or drowned birds.
As if they were sharp forks being scraped by someone on shiny plates, buzzing in my ear every minute, increasing whenever the number of eaten plates increases. The number until today was four, but now I have added worse to the bad friends - they became six, and their number increased the heaviness of the darkness, and their buzzing added to my loneliness a tightness.
In a church hall lit only by a few burning candles, with a few sisters and a priest standing, staring at me and the corpse before me, to rush my simple meal and shorten it by force, waiting for me to finish. And when I finished eating, the monk grabbed my shoulder and said threateningly:
"Leave now, your task is done. I will call you when I need you again, and as I told you before - what happens here stays here."
With trembling fingertips covered in small scratches and ancient dust, messy hair with dirty strands, and smells of filth formed from leftover garbage and dried waste, I stood up with difficulty and began to leave, with the bones of my body bound to someday become exposed.
Hunger had turned me into a tree with dry branches, and the moaning of creatures had made my weary eyes first a friend to blackness, then its lover.
Chapped lips and clothes of many torn layers.
I left that church with its old walls and columns, its entrances once adorned with angels now looking like fierce devils.
The murmurs I heard while leaving were annoying, for one of the sisters said with pity:
"They are truly poor; I hope the Lord has mercy on them in their slow death - eaters of sins, what a lowly task."
What miserable words she spoke with such care to her companion, while in truth she was just deceitful - for when she asked her for a favor, she fled quickly.
No sooner had I escaped that suffocating atmosphere than my small limbs touched the threshold of freedom's land.
The cold air shook my breath with its reassuring palms, and its gentle wind refreshed my lungs, tense from the tight atmosphere of the church and its cursed incense. The air from my breath warmed my miserable cheeks.
A light fog covered the city, making it look like a pure white dancer dressed in gowns of transparent silky fabrics. I looked at the night sky, where the moon played hide and seek with the clouds, lighting the desolate roads through a few gaps between its thick clouds.
They fight over any morsel of food, whether it's rotten or dry.
Its walls are crumbling, like the worm-eaten wood of old trees.
The ground is muddy, almost like sealed sewers.
The air is choked with the stench of sweat mixed with cheap alcohol.
The houses are small, some made of tents, others of broken wooden walls, and the stares are like those of predatory beasts.
I walk through them with full confidence-this place was never meant for the weak or the feeble.
In truth, this confidence I carry is merely the last means I have to survive in these alleys.
I reached a small tent at the end of a dead-end alley.
That little space is my private property for now.
I stepped inside to inhale that scent-
the fragrance of dried violets I had gathered last spring, scattering them on the tent floor and hanging most of them in a bag at the center.
Their scent had mostly faded, but a trace still lingered.
I covered the tent's floor with a torn rug I had found a week ago in one of the garbage bins-just like the rest of my home's belongings.
How did I end up like this?
Simply put, it has always been this way.
I was born in one of these alleys with no known father, only a drunken mother who was responsible for me until her death five years ago.
Life was easier without her at first; begging with a small face at the age of five stirred pity in passersby.
But as I grew, I stopped attracting much attention-let alone affection.
After that, I began searching for my meals in the trash.
But this winter was unforgiving; I almost starved to death a month ago...
until... until that priest came-
the one who saved me, or rather, delayed my death and gave me a miserable ending.
If only I hadn't followed him that day.
"Sin-eaters."
That's what I heard back then, the first time I entered the church, when they placed that shiny plate in front of a corpse.
I couldn't hold myself back and devoured the food with a ferocity.
But as soon as I finished, those creatures began to appear.
People call them the sin, yet they cannot see or hear them-
they only know about them from those who have eaten the sins.
After it appeared, I fled in terror for many days.
The creature never left me, yet it never harmed me either;
it annoyed me with its screeching and harmed those around me.
I finally stopped running when someone decided to help-
he explained what had happened and why.
In his weak, gentle voice, he told me:
"There's an old tradition, still practiced on rare occasions to this day,
where food is placed on or near those who have just passed away.
A child is brought to eat from those plates-outwardly as charity for the deceased-
but in truth, the child is eating the dead person's sin.
The sin does not transfer into them,
but instead takes form as those frightening monsters that cling to them.
They don't harm their host, but they never let them rest or sleep,
and they torment the people around the sin-eater until they drive them away.
In the end, the person dies-mad, terrified, murdered, and alone.
Their number grows, and their noise grows louder,
with every plate of food consumed."
What vile acts.
If I had known, I would have never gone near it and would have preferred to die hungry that day.
But now, I no longer have that choice.
The instinct to survive stops me from killing myself or starving to death.
Hunger is a blasphemer-it devours you from the inside, piece by piece, until you no longer recognize yourself.
It's a curse that makes people flee from me.
I admit, though, it makes life easier-
when people know what I've done, they keep their distance,
treating me with caution,
as if I were a contagious disease.
I lay down on that old rug expecting a deep sleep, but what does sleep taste like exactly? A gentle lullaby that soothes the body and makes it fly in a world that will never exist, light as a feather ,you feeling nothing until you wake up again. This was sleep, yes, I remember it well, but I haven't encountered it for a while, and how dare I do something forbidden to these creatures? As soon as my body was at peace, I felt their quick footsteps, which overlapped until they entered the tent like raging fires burning meat, excited. They continued creeping towards me until their annoying sounds buzzed in my ears, depriving me of the most beautiful blessing.
They fell silent for a while, but soon returned. I still afraid of their shadows, which resembled cats, mice, and a few ferocious beasts.
Sweat is pouring down my cheeks despite the cold weather, panic has become a routine and I fear that one of them might devour me at any moment, her quick movements make my heart feel tight as if they are ropes tightening on delicate ribs, I take breaths with difficulty as if I am pulling air through the eye of a needle, those hours passed after more suffering than yesterday.
I woke up startled after morning finally came, because of the sound of women quarreling, dogs arguing, children stealing and rats playing. I swallowed my saliva and reached out to sip some murky water from my broken-necked bottle, oh how I miss the snow even though it is difficult to live in it, but it gives me fresh water.
Damn why did I wake up again? How I wish my sleep would become eternal.
Now it is time to go out in search of my daily sustenance.
I wonder if I will find a bitten apple or a nearly empty box of sweets. I wish I could taste a piece of hot bread and sip from the city well like that time.
I left my apartment and the voices and screams suddenly became silent, as if someone had cut strong ropes, fearful looks and some hateful ones. I walked until I left the alley, and the voices returned behind me.
The only ones who know about my curse are the residents of my alley, and no one outside of it, but it became easy for anyone to know that I ate sins, as my eyes turned into dark circles and exhaustion settled on my face until it became like hands that had been submerged in water for a long time. Auditory hallucinations every moment I pass by, I don't know if they are from shadows or I imagine them, I move my arms to chase them away from time to time, and the fact that no one sees them except the one who ate sins makes people think I am chasing a mirage, so I am officially the madman of the neighborhood.
These are the last days of a winter that has not been merciful to anyone this year.
I have seen many dead creatures, one of which was the body of a little girl hugging a cat, they hugged each other until they looked like statues from a sad legend.
After walking for half an hour, I finally arrived at the city center.
I covered my head with a scarf I found a while ago so that no one would recognize my miserable mistake.
There, at the port, I stood where the goods coming from distant continents are unloaded. I sat at a corner waiting for someone to drop something, but waiting was in vain, as it was almost noon.
They were very careful, and the garbage areas were full of old beggars, so it was difficult. Suddenly, an idea came to my mind. I waited for one of the sailors to carry a box of strange fruit.
I ran towards him and took the cover off my head to scare him.
Indeed, he stepped back screaming until he fell to the ground from the shock, and the box followed him, comforting him. He shouted loudly:
"Damn you, you damned , get away from me!"
I took advantage of the opportunity, picked up two fruits, and ran away.
I know this is a mistake, but it is not my fault that I am helpless, I have no family, I am cursed, and I am only ten years old.
On one of those bridges far from the city center, I sat eating my feast. What a delicious fruit, I heard its name is banana.
. Its taste, combined with the scenery around me, was like paradise. The gurgling of the running river, the singing of spring birds heralding warm days, the gentle rays of the sun, a bridge with a little moisture and plants growing between its stones, the sounds of the vehicles on it were earth-shattering. But there has always been an end to every happy story, and the end of this story now is these annoying creatures roaming around me, spreading destruction. They fought among themselves until one of them fell from a bridge and then flew back, and some of them try to stumble upon passersby maliciously, and their earth-shattering sounds always devour my ears like worms gnawing at a rotten apple. Suddenly, something familiar interrupted my world: large, dignified steps, long black clothes adorned with a long cross necklace. It was a priest, and behind him was someone, too short to be an adult, with a childish face and torn clothes. It was a hideous picture. I quickly realized that he would be taken to perform that ritual, so I ran quickly with my six creatures, until I reached in front of them, interrupting them while panting heavily and shouting a warning:
"Don't follow him, he will take you to eat the food of sins. It is a curse that will make you see terrifying creatures. They are..."
Before I could finish my words, the priest interrupted:
"Don't interfere in what does not concern you."
Then he continued walking, ignoring her, but the boy did not move and was surprised. Then he quickly looked at me sarcastically and said while staring into my eyes with his yellow eyes:
"I know that, little one, but keep your information to yourself. It seems that you already have a lot of it."
Then he continued on his way, saying:.
"This is not my first time ."
This is strange, rather, I cannot understand it. He saw my creatures, and this means that he really had previously eaten the food of sin, since only those who eat it see it and hear its sounds.
But! But! Why weren't any creatures of it around him like me!?