All Your Morals

Crumbs descended from the bread like little thoughts gone by. Every bit of the loaf had to be carved into tiny pieces. A fresh loaf, the flakiness seemed like forever. There existed a sense of the bread being something more than just wheat flour and water, unleavened. The brownness and the tanned nature enlivened the baker. The dark spots of where fire licked like little children tongue ice cubes seemed black and plain as skin.

Some of the areas of the bread that had been made not quite blanched, other sections remained bone white. The bread had been prepared with hands that knew the role it played. Every motion had been calculated and adjusted just so. All of the bread should have been worked on with the sweat of the culinary craftsman’s brow. He, yet, showed little perspiration atop his head. The Internet clip stopped and ads popped up on the screen.

“The bread constituted the finding of the best display of time immemorial. Down through the centuries, this practice had its roots in the final dinner for a life. This ancient practice appeared to be as a way of looking into the previous years and what they held…what they sought to indoctrinate.”

“All of the power of thinking had regressed into the wooziness of the days, nothing but the grape-based wine remained.”

Nalton Bauer lifted a glass. He looked tallish and had light brown skin and a short, clean Afro. “This once potent potable gained its power over the years. Additionally, there had never been an aim to be overcome by the red liquid in the first place. Wine poured forth in the same fashion just without the intention of imbibing to the point of drunkenness. The wine in the days of yore produced lesser effects than the stronger wine of modern times. This notion served as proof that the names remained different according to the difference in cloth. Catholics call it the Eucharist and Protestants use the term Communion. But you knew that. You know all of this, but I’m just reminding you of where this all originated. From the vineyard sprouted the idea that this is supposed to be a good thing; this whole notion had been coupled together for the betterment not of the self, but for remembrance of days that have died. The alleged return of a Man who is also God made it all the more curious for parishioners.”

“The point is to couple the bread with the wine. Those with high places in the order of things have made this clear in abundance. In recent years, the bread loaf has been replaced by wafers and the wine by grape juice, either sweet or fortified. Either way, the sense is still the same: cannibalism. Now, obviously it’s not the same thing as literally picking the skin of the Man who was beyond blemish and supping His lifeblood.”

“Even at His moment of seeking some way to get out of the inevitable while also embracing what would come of Him, he never flinched. So the plastic containers pop open like government seals, only the faithful anticipate the day where they swarm heaven’s gates. A solemn morsel and a sip will do for now. This has to be cannibalism in the metaphorical sense, yes, but in the ethical sense it is as well.”

“Just as the Man revealed no iniquities in his life and became brutalized for the sins of the wretched and lesser, so must this practice of different names but the same aim, be described as such. The white and the red coalesce into something entirely distinct and permits the mind only one notion: cannibalism.”

“There’s no way around it. It must be called for what it is,” Gillian Vesser acknowledged. Her skin color rivaled the inside of a diamond mine. She had high cheekbones, full lips, and cascading dark brown hair. Her face looked like a granite gravestone, though. Her tone never rose above a whisper.

“Now, you see. The faithful can say what they will about this ritual, but it is all the taboo ‘C,’” Bauer related. He sighed. Then he retracted a knife. It glistened in the light like too many tiny suns tickling the edge of the blade.

“Please stretch out your hand,” Bauer commanded.

Gillian at first complied and then withdrew her hand with speed.

“No, they don’t even do this in this fashion. You said it yourself, it’s cannibalism. I will not,” she argued.

“Just the top layer of skin and a few drops of blood. You won’t even miss it. I’ve got hydrogen peroxide and bandages.”

“Yes, so you can carve me up over time. Today it’s a piece of my arm and next week I’ll be missing sections of my calf muscle,” her tone seemed even yet assertive.

“Okay, okay. I just wanted to show you how this practice has been used throughout the millennia. But we don't have to do anything. Unless….”

Vesser looked at him for a moment. Her eyes darted like sparks. “No, I will not,” she protested with quiet assuredness.

“C’mon. It won’t hurt me. Hell, I’ve tried it on myself a few times already.” He peeled back his sleeve to reveal various spots that looked like tiny craters had covered his skin. Gillian’s eyes remained focused on the door.

“I will not do that. What you say about the clergy is tame. Of course their ways remain detrimental to the mind, but you want to besmirch body and mind.” She stood to her feet. “Mr. Bauer, it’s been an evening I will never regret if I forget it. Thank you for the dinner. It was fine.”

Bauer raised up as well. “I can walk you to your car, it’s quite a ways up the block.”

“No, it’s fine. I know there’s no God and that this mace will protect me.” She held it in her hand like a gold ingot and looked at Bauer without pointing it at him. He nevertheless lifted his hands to the sky.

“Whoa, I guess I’ll just hang back, then.”

“Yes, you do that.” She found the door and it shut with force like an ancient text being closed.