By: Armando Covarrubias, Staff Writer/ Cartoonist
Forgive me Lord for I have sinned. I have strayed from your light and now I am broken. As I lay on my knees upon your house. As the fear of what is yet to come, an inquisitor, dressed in garbs of red, black, and white with golden embellishments, carries the book in one hand, and the cone on the other. By her side was an acolyte wearing white robes. The inquisitor looked down at me and stared into my eyes, or rather into my soul.
She asks me, “Do you have any idea of the weight of your sins?”
I looked up and responded with a yes.
“Do you know why you have done it?” she asks.
I did not respond, for I was pondering about that. Why did I commit sin? Why did I choose this life of debauchery, manipulation, disgust, and bloodshed?
She then asked me a different question, “Do you know what is to come next?”
My train of thought stopped. I looked up at her and stated yes.
“Then you would have known better than to give yourself up to the unholy gods. You chose the pathway to hell just because ‘the gods’ would have made your life easier.”
It was at that moment I understood something about myself.
She continued, “You were created in God's holy image, and you chose to become an ungrateful little brat wishing you had a different father than the one you had.”
As every word exudes from her mouth I fell closer and closer onto the marble floor until I was on my fours.
“You will not be executed, but you will be punished. Get up.” I look up at her. “Get up!” She shouted as I stood.
Her acolyte seated me onto a chair where the priest would have sat. As I sat down the inquisition gave the acolyte the book, and grabbed a key from her pocket as she put the cone on my head. It was made of iron and had a face on the front wearing a crown of thorns. On the highest part of the cone was a cross painted on the cone. As the helmet was put upon my head the interior had spikes inside. I did not feel pain, rather mild scratch. The inquisitor inserted the key in the back of the helmet.
Before she turned the key she spoke to me and said, “Do not think I find any enjoyment out of this, you have broken my heart as you did to the father.” I could hear her trying not to cry. As she held back her tears she said, “May you learn from your sins.”
She then turned the key and at that second the nails were injected into my skin - piercing my flesh, bone until I could feel it in my brain. I screamed every part of me was in pain. Every cell in my body was in torment, every thought in my mind was a nightmare, every inch of my soul felt a burning sensation more painful than the fiery depths of hell itself. I could do nothing but scream, I couldn’t do anything but scream. I lied on the floor in torment as the acolyte looked on in fear.
From what I could gather, the inquisitor turned to the acolyte and said, “This is the fate of damned. Do not dare to stray away from God’s holy light, and if you do I will not hesitate to punish you as I did to him.”
After that everything went red. I could not hear anything but my screams echoing from the cathedral. This was my penance, and I will not lie, I deserved every ounce of torment. If God is truly merciful he will end my suffering once I have entered the battlefield. For that, I say with whatever is left of my fractured mind “Miserere Nobis.”