Cocooned (412 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1 on 14 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by BillyGoat (View user info) at 2008-05-15 13:01:53 EDT
From Merriam-Webster online:
Cocoon: something suggesting a cocoon especially in providing protection or in producing isolation
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"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned". He starts, as he takes in the strong smell of wood cleaner mixed in with various eau de toilettes from previous visitors to the confessional. The confessional is a dull mahogany box built into one of the recesses of the cathedral. It sits on a small platform, with parquet flooring. On it is the kneele, which like the chair he is sitting on- is shiny, from repetitive use.
Fr. O' Neil shifts closer to the dividing screen as he scrutinizes this new voice. It sounds familiar, but years of veiling, have drawn out the strong regional accent. The church is situated in a small village, 30 minutes west of Cork. It's part of a boys' boarding school and has been presided over by O'Neil for close to 40 years. Over the years, O'Neil has grown to know the majority of the local population and pupils. He might struggle to recognise new people during the tourist season, but that usually ends rather abruptly, as the tourists are driven away by the ever present rain blasting in from the Atlantic. So when Ronan opens his mouth, O'Neil finds it hard to put a face to the voice.
"It's been 15 years since my last confession."
"15 years, that's a fucking long time" says a voice in O'Neil's head. He sips the air in anticipation of the confession to come. He allows his mind to freely meander. He's excited by the thought of this guy committing some heinous crime, going on the run and then ending up here in his little church in Comiskey. He finds himself, edging closer to the screen, intrigued by what this fellow has to say. Finally, he'll hear something new and exciting, a far cry from villagers drab confessions. Their insistence bores him and no matter how hard he pushes them, it's inevitably something petty that wouldn't count as a sin anyway. He often finds himself reciting the same mantra day in day out. Blah,blah blah... Maybe it's the isolation from seemingly everything, that keeps them coming back, O'Neil thinks as he clears his voice as if this is the cue Ronan needs to speak.
Ronan, see's the priest's fleshy ear tantalizingly close to the screen. "Hello father," he whispers. O'Neil feels the warm breath tickle the outer fold s of his ear before it fades into the air. His excitement, is heightened and he clears his throat again, with more vim this time.
With the priest's attention now guaranteed, Ronan steadies himself. Before he speaks he contemplates the ornate wooden box insulating him from outsiders. He thinks of the little village itself, closed to the world and the people within it, pretending to not know what is going on. He watched them this morning as they left for home after Mass. He imagined them, getting home and tuning into RTE and being 'appalled' by news of abuse elsewhere, yet they were happy to accept communion from O'Neil and sing wholeheartedly at his Mass. Such double standards-he considered- Hypocrisy to the highest- hymn number 432.
"What is it my son..." O'Neil whispers. Ronan takes his time. Later he will tell the priest why he is here. But for now he will sit silently contemplating his actions.
What Ronan did, was breach the confidentiality rules at his workplace. Though he wasn't allowed to- he took it upon himself to log all the calls he'd received and from these he slowly built up a map of where the calls were coming from. Although the locations varied, there was a huge cluster from Comiskey. He recalls one particular boy, crying down the phone line, narrating how he was too scared to go to the school because of O'Neil. The boy went on to describe how O'Neil had plied him with alcohol before assaulting him. The Boy had found the idea of drinking, especially with a priest quite exciting and had taken up his offer, not knowing what O'Neil had in mind. The following day O'Neil had told him not to tell anyone or else he'd use his influence to get him expelled. So the boy kept quiet for some time but eventually he broke down and told his parents only to be dismissed as a liar. He was told to confess 'such terrible lies' and never speak of the incident again. Ronan's heart sank when the boy recalled how his parents had taken him to church on that very day and waited for him outside, to make sure he confessed. The boy lied to O'Neil citing stealing as the reason for his confession. He was given penance and told to pray as per usual. Once that was done, his parents were content and to them all was well and good.
A similar pattern would emerge from his data collection. He worked out that most of the 'Comiskey callers' were too ashamed to speak out because of the stigma associated with being 'touched up' and their fear of either getting expelled by O'Neil and his cronies or getting severely bullied by other pupils. On several occasions a caller would say he'd spend " hours on end counting the days till end of term" or words to that effect. When asked why they didn't transfer schools, they'd either remain silent or say they chose not to as this woukd require revealing them revealing their secret.
What angered Ronan more was that, he knew O'Neil from his days as a temporary teaching assistant at the school. Although O'Neil was outwardly nice and priestly like. He had a reputation for being volatile and threatening. Though the public loved him, he was isolated among the school staff.
He remembers hearing some stories of abuse within the school but it was hard to get a full sense of the situation, as the information was often disguised as a joke or a clever quip. Without clear names there was no way of reporting what was going on. Moreover Ronan was too concerned about his career at the time and was desperate to leave the village for the big city. He didn't want to jeopardise his future employment prospects by upsetting his referees. He knew that O'Neil was most likely to write the reference or at least partake in it since he seemed to have a say in everything at the school, so he put his head down and kept his mouth shut. Once he had left the village, he soon realized that teaching was not for him and a sense of the sense of guilt grew. He had to do something so he joined ChildLine in the hope that a name crop up and he'd inform the police. But for 15 solid years there would be no prosecution because no one dared speak out against O'Neil.
Over the past years Ronan had scoured the internet hoping that O'Neil's name would pop up somewhere. He'd spend hours typing in different word combinations into different search engines but the fact was that Father O'Neil of Comiskey just wasn't there. All he had were detailed notes from the calls he'd received and some names. Frustrated by the lack of extra information, he decided to solve the problem once and for all. What followed was more internet searching. This new information and its by-products are what brought him back to the Comiskey.
"I know what you did," he snarls into O'Neil's ear. "I know everything about you." He proceeds to tell O'Neil everything, backing up the information with the notes. He tells him about the boy who had sobbed down the line and how he is forced to listen to stories about people like O'Neil every day. He acknowledges his own selfishness, for putting his career first despite the suffering of the pupils, and his weakness for not confronting O'Neil all those years ago. He admits that his failure to inform the police or anyone for that matter in order to safeguard his future - as a moment of self-centredness and a weakness . Finally, he tells him how would love to smash the little 'cliques' within the church that protect such vile people from persecution.
"And I wish the system was more transparent so more people like you would be caught." He concludes as he gets up to leave. He slides the little satchel that was at his ankle closer to the dividing panel. He doesn't wait for O'Neil to reply. The door closes behind him and O'Neil is left in his little box facing his sins with no one to confess to.
10 minutes latter Ronan flips open his phone and dials in the code. He presses the 'send' button and doesn't flinch when the blast wave from the church shakes the coach.
There is a brief frenzy as some eager tourists beg the driver to turn the bus around so they can return for some pictures. The driver refuses... and the 2.30 to Dublin rumbles on.
User Reviews
Submitted by pen_name (user info) at 2008-05-19 22:39:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/116824
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-05-16 06:47:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Wasn't Ronan one of those winged chaps that fought Godzilla?
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-05-16 06:39:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You have written better. :(
Submitted by TheGoat (user info) at 2008-05-15 19:31:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
hmm..i'll think about what you said and i might even re-write the whole thing just to see how it hangs.
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-05-15 19:01:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I don't think it was the detail per se that I didn't care for. I think it was more the way it was presented all at once. It wasn't hard to follow, by the way--that wasn't the issue I was trying to get at.
The story (as I see it, anyway) is about Ronan going to a confessional to assasinate a pedophile priest. Ronan's background is there to explain his behavior. It's necessary, but it's somewhat tangential. My suggestion would be to weave the back story and the confessional story together. Bring Ronan's background out in bits and pieces through his confession. I guess that might make it a little harder to follow, and there's probably a pretty good argument for keeping it straightforward the way you have it. But by interweaving the two stories it might help keep the reader inside the confessional. That's where all the suspense is, in my opinion.
Submitted by TheGoat (user info) at 2008-05-15 18:06:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I get what you are saying X54, but earlier on in my posting 'career,' the main issue that people had was that my stories didn't have much detail in them so now i try to include as much as i can. But the problem is, the story becomes too convulted and kinda hard to follow as you pointed out.
Is there a way of providing the same information [ Ronan's back story, in this case] without going into too much detail?
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-05-15 17:47:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I thought it started off good, but it became a bit of a chore wading through all that back story. Ronan's history was interesting, but I thought it went on too long and in too much detail. It started to sound preachy. The parts that took place inside the confessional were much better. Maybe you could you have implied more of Ronan's back story through the dialog of his confession? And since you're splitting the POV anyway, maybe O'Neil could have reminisced about some of his offenses after he realized what Ronan was confessing? Something to break it up.
Your proofreading sucks.
Submitted by TheGoat (user info) at 2008-05-15 14:54:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Oh and the cathedral/church mix up is stoooooooooooopid on my part
Submitted by TheGoat (user info) at 2008-05-15 14:53:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
ok, it looks like putting the definition was the wrong thing to do judging by the comments so far. it's not to insult anyone's intelligence but its there to kinda explain what the story is about.
lolz @ SkullBitter's comment
Submitted by tinactin (user info) at 2008-05-15 14:05:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
From Merriam-Webster online:
Cocoon: something suggesting a cocoon especially in providing protection or in producing isolation
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So the definition of cocoon is "something suggesting a cocoon"? That is really helpful, especially if you don't know what a cocoon is and you're looking up the definition at Merriam-Webster online.
Submitted by SkullBiter (user info) at 2008-05-15 13:55:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
So what you're telling me, is that, "cocoons" are not two niggas in cahoots?
:D
Submitted by CarterPFly (user info) at 2008-05-15 13:44:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
A cathedral is the church of a bishop. A church in a small town cant be called one. Since you're into definitions and all that
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-05-15 13:15:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I really can't read all that just now, but the first few lines got my attention, and it looks pretty cool, so good faith +2
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2008-05-15 13:04:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
It's kind of insulting that you begin with a definition of a fucking simple word.