Structure Of Prayer. Diego Maenza

drooling fangs. He knows the inevitable end to his story. His sweat will be drops of blood falling to the ground. A blast of heat impregnated into the air circulates uselessly over the boy's chilled body.

      We all know that God, being spirit, and the most supreme of all, does not feel. At least not like this wretched man, at least not like this poor young man suffering from a hell that has been inaugurated and is not even executed. It is time to sleep, Father, rest, for tomorrow the world will bring new airs. God does not understand your tortures.

      Father Misael's shoulders receive a colossal weight. Exhausted, he lies down on the bed and closes his eyes. The nightmare of the knife and the ears will emerge again from the dark corner of guilt.

      FRIDAY

Sweet and bitter

Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie…

FIRST STATION

      The mouth opens in a yawn that erupts into an inaudible scream. The loaded and thick tongue forces him to swallow dry with the natural bitterness of the morning. He remembers the fall of the previous night. It is not the first time that he emulates the ancient practice of Onan, but it can be said that he had turned from sin and redeemed himself through a vast path of atonement and weary days of penance. The most elementary desires have taken the form of an agitated chorus that within his body demands satisfactions that his soul is not willing to consent to. And this fact dictates the condemnation. He feels his body dirty, he registers his soul maculated, he hates his crotch. His hands have been stained by the secretion and he contemplates superimposed in a light wake the rigid layer that gives him away. He gets out of bed and washes his hands with abundant soap. He intones a prayer.

*

SECOND STATION

      Forgive me, beloved Father, if my sins are great, greater is your goodness. Accept my prayer. Don't take me away from you. I truly try to bear this burden on my shoulders, Father, which oppresses me. Give me your help to keep on standing, do not let my steps falter, do not let my soul faint in sin. Be my protector. Be my guide. Help me, Lord, to stand firm on your word.

*

THIRD STATION

      It is good, indeed, to feel the respect they command for the authority of a representative of God on earth. These ladies have successfully made up for my absence in the preparations and here I witness a complete representation of the Way of the Cross translated by the clumsy movements of the boys. How slender they are. Especially mine, transmuted into the wounded, half-naked man hooked to the wood. An impulse invites me to look at the comfortable extension of his pale legs, the provocative stretching of his feet, the bulge that originates in his tights and that articulates in my mind an undignified image that I shake with a renewed prayer. I feel the awakening of a portion of me. I cry out to the heavens to bring down that betrayal of my body.

*

FOURTH STATION

      How to elude, beloved Father, the promptings of the devil. How. Give me strength. I turn to your word, to your sacred word, and I take comfort.

      After short invocations, I am surprised to find inside the sacred book a picture of the Virgin. I observe the lines that draw her profile, the look emanating towards the sky, the magnificence with which the little one rests on her shoulder, unaware of the destiny that awaits him. The boy calls to me. I leave the Bible almost on the edge of the desk. I put it in my shirt pocket and go outside. The food has an excess of salt that I don't reproach the boy for. The cheese, on the other hand, is crushed on my palate and it reduces the feeling of salt. The sweet bitterness of the wine compensates for the shock of these extremes.

*

FIFTH STATION

      I am attentive to the attitude of the boy whose lip has developed a mimicry that allows me to sense his purpose in speaking.

      Father, I've thought about what we talked about yesterday and I don't want to be in hell. I want to comply with the measures imposed by God.

      I look at it with surprise. His words are a support to bear this burden that torments me, to wall up once and for all the heavy shutter of desire that is shown to me as an easy, fatuous, tempting and harmful subterfuge and to put an end, at last, to my intentions.

      You will fulfill them, rumble my words in the dining room, while a headache begins to invade me. The bell, exasperating, bursts into his calls.

*

SIXTH STATION

      The boy has directed his steps towards the door. For my part, I lay on the couch with the annoying feeling of thousands of needles piercing my skull. I observe Mrs. Salome's anatomy as she approaches to attend to my discomfort surrounded by Thomas' annoying greeting. By her gestures, I sense that I am sweating since she is venting me with a handkerchief. She explains something to the boy who is going to the kitchen. I feel my head exploding. Then I taste the fresh roll of sweetened water. It's been an imbalance in my blood pressure. They both insist on calling the doctor, but I absolutely refuse. Mrs. Salome comes to me once more and with her dry handkerchief of my face the sweat that I have distilled in the trance.

*

SEVENTH STATION

      My head is spinning. The throbbing pain is gone, but there's a sense of weariness left. I'm not interested in the lady's presence. As she clears the table, I think of the boy. My desire to feel his skin is intensified in the emulsion of my blood pooling in my pelvic area. I notice Mrs. Salome's uncomfortable walk with me. I enter the bathroom. With my pants touching the floor, I stroke my limb. I stimulate myself for a few seconds and then rebel against the pleasure. I make an effort for my soul to impose itself on my senses. I achieve this and the erection, little by little, decreases.