First communion: 1

They get the little brats into the village church before they’re old enough to know better. The youngsters are still squeamish about sex, while moss on the church walls grows inches thick, lead roofs corrode, clogged gutters overflow, and the priests, blind and creaking like pews, complain while the morning light begins to shine through stained glass images of martyrdoms. Rotting flesh is more fertile than dust. The churchyard smells like fermenting compost, infested with worms. Every stone is sinking into the black earth, the tower, the walls, the headstones, sinking toward the coffins. Roses grow furiously along the graveyard wall, but here the church teaches about sin and death, not about pollination, seeds, or sprouts. The priests have unlearned their original humility and think they can explain the mysteries of faith in the context of a saint’s finger bone, embroidered surplices and chasubles, dry wafer of starch and gilded goblet, entirely unsuitable for boys and girls who are too young to think they’ll ever die. Who leads these innocents of mischief into these dark, cold, and damp rooms for somber and lecherous fear-mongering, instead of letting them play hide and seek with other children in sunlit gardens? In preparation, the priests drink a cup of dark blood, passing it between themselves with sighs and knowing glances. They share the cold body of Christ together. They put on their black suits and frowns. Creaking, they fold themselves into prayers of penitence, denying that the earth revolves around the sun. Boys this age are rightly unwilling to behave; they are vigilant but won’t look you in the eye; they have a lot to learn about tricking the unwary. For the girls, it’s a game they take seriously to test their natural cunning and ability to deceive, flaunting their innocence and gaiety for the eventual seduction of young lieutenants. The priests remember heavenly prohibitions in their hearts and minds, thinking that these should be the concerns of children, but it’s only a creepy sign of lust and its deprival, in their stale robes and nasal tones, that they describe the temptations of the flesh.