The Sin Eater

As the light modulated from a monochrome gray to subtle hues and limping colours he rose and dressed, putting on his boots, despite the holes, and wrapped himself in a coarse woolen blanket he reserved for these occasions.

When he could hear their boots on the lane he sat on the edge of the cot and waited. They didn't knock but simply kicked open the door and told him to come. They took him through the streets like a prisoner, surrounded and pushed along at a hurried pace. He stumbled once, but rather than a helping hand they cursed him and pushed him harder. The streets were filled with people watching, as he was hustled by, but there was no sympathy in their eyes nor did he expect any. He was a poor man and did what was necessary to eat.

He had never been in the house before, nor anywhere near it as far as he could remember, and so, as they climbed the hill, the familiar perspective was altered and he lost his bearing. They circled the wall, taking the servants walk to the gated opening at the side of the manor, and his last look at the sky delivered a flash of lightening from a rare morning storm that he accepted as a sign of evil. They left him sitting on the floor in a corner of the kitchen that was easily three or four times bigger than his own house. The servants treated him with the same disdain the people of the village did, but his own belief in the sanctity of his work protected him from all scorn; a crumb of hope he held fast to, even as he accepted that he was damned for all eternity.

The simple ceremony was always held before the general announcement of the death. Accepted and necessary, his role was considered vital but hated by nature. When they came for him again he said a quick and silent prayer that God would see him home. They took him into a small chapel built into the house, it's vaulted ceilings and high windows doing little to lift the gloom. Above the alter he could barely see the priest, cloaked against the darkness, standing over the corpse, waiting for his arrival before beginning. His escorts pushed him ahead while they remained behind and he shuffled down the aisle and stopped in front of the shrouded body, across from the priest. On the shroud which covered the corpse sat a small cake. As the incantation began and with a hand gesture from the priest he took it up and ate it. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up as a servant handed the priest a goblet, encircled with stones, and he reached out to take it. He gulped this down with another prayer and tried his best to prepare for what was to come. He turned and walked back down the aisle into the waiting hands of his escort.

He tried to run, he was supposed to, but twice he was felled by a punch and then kicked as he struggled to his feet. The servants hurled garbage at him and yelled obscenities into his face as he rushed by. He couldn't be sure he was going in the right direction and he hoped that they would herd him to the gate, as was their responsibility. From behind something big and hard pounded into the back of his skull and he collapsed onto his hands and knees, water pouring out of his eyes. He got to his feet and pushed for the alley that led to the outside. As he ran, blinded by tears, he prayed once more to God to protect him, to carry him out but he knew in his heart he was alone. A sin eater, a pawn broker of souls, had no recourse. His earthly form was damned by the sins of others that he had assumed for a cake, or a loaf, for a drink of wine, so that others might pass the gates of Heaven without pause. His only comfort as he collapsed onto his lice-infested cot to sleep away the bruises of the beating was that he had done what he could for the old woman's soul, knowing that she had been forsaken by her family as evidenced by the dryness of the cake and the fact that they had cut the wine with water seeking cheaper entrance for her into the kingdom of Heaven. He fell heavily into sleep but his dreams were dark and punctuated by the screams of the damned, his own included, and he perceived a new voice in the chorus. He smiled to himself, in his sleep, and then dreamt of nothing.