one night before the job

The particles of individual air seemed to swirl around her and pressed in on her skin with a stabbing coolness. Her breath made beautiful puffs of mist that stayed in the air for a second before flowing away. Marilyn liked that. She tried to hang onto this happy thought as she approached the Church of St Laurence. For Marilyn, the church was not a happy place. She only knew it to be a place of funerals. Moreover, the gargoyles and depictions of Jesus' death always freaked her out. So did the idea of angels, Jesus or any type of god, though Marilyn hoped dearly that there was some sort of entity on the other side of death. Marilyn hesitated, going into the church, but she placed a hand on the heavy wooden door and pushed through. The morning sun silently and calmly warming and streaking the inside with strips of light was nice, she had to admit, as was the peaceful awakening of birds she could hear. It was cavernous and quiet. There were a few elderly people praying by themselves on pews.

"You okay? You've been standing there for a solid 5 minutes. Or has the house of God put you in such awe?"

Marilyn turned to see the oldest man she's ever seen. It was the priest. And Marilyn hadn't realised she had been standing there, gazing up, for a solid 5 minutes.

"No, I'm o- it's okay, it's just ... yeah. What do you ... do here?"

The priest nodded and rubbed his hand over his cheek.

"Well... people pray. People come to confession, though I've spotted some people just using the confession box as a place to eat lunch," he chuckled drily, " or... some people just come to have a chat."

Marilyn looked at this priest with kind eyes, the past chuckle still yet to fade from his face.

"Would you like to have a chat?"

"Okay."

"Okay."

The priest led Marilyn to a nearby pew and sat down with her.

"What shall I call you?"

Marilyn decided something and said, "It's Anna."

"Anna, okay. I'm Father Pat. You can call me Father or Pat or annoying, anything you want." Again, he chuckled. Marilyn didn't find anything he said particularly funny but she liked his way of finding things joyful, no matter what.

"Father, I ... I have worries."

"Hmmm. Worries." His face turned very serious and he shifted his body to face her, "What kind of worries? Anything in particular?"

Marilyn opened her mouth but found it scary to make the words, the thoughts real in speech. She didn't know why she came here anyways, she better leave and leave Father Pat out of her life.

"I haven't gone to the toilet yet today and I won't have to and I'm worried that I'm gonna rush suddenly while I'm performing Mass, running, running down the aisle, excusing myself!"

Marilyn laughed suddenly, breaking her thread of thought.

Father Pat laughed, "You laugh, but it's a genuine worry of mine! I don't think people realise priests actually go to the toilet, I don't think people realise Jesus must've taken tons of s- yeah. Anyways...these worries. Are they like mine?"

"Um, no," smiled Marilyn but then her face grew still. "No, Father, my worries are, they're about th- the future. I'm dreading something I'm going to have to do. And I have no choice but to do it."

Father Pat stroked his cheek again, this time letting his hand trace his face all the way down his neck and he hummed in thought.

"Anna, I won't ask you right now what you must do. But I can advise you, there's always, always and afterwards. Nothing will go on forever. Is that, maybe, helpful?"

To be honest, it wasn't, but Marilyn thought Father Pat's presence secure.

"Will you come back to tell me later how you did?" he asked.

Marilyn nodded, smiled and began to get up hastily.

Marilyn lay very still on her back on her mattress. Some hours it made her feel serenely calm and silent and other hours it made her feel achingly restless but throughout the whole time she remained lying very still on her back on her mattress. Her only movement came from her thumb slowly rubbing Frank's engraved name on Frank's metal name tag.