Edward sat down, bumping his knees against the opposite wall of the tiny confessional.

A strange voice, much like his mother's, though colder and more harsh than he remembered, told him: You're not actually going through with this, are you?

Another voice. Kelly, his sister who'd died with AIDS a year ago: Eddie, I ain't got much living left. You'll have to finish things for me. Make me proud, little brother.

Esther, his seventh grade crush: That is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard! I'd sooner piss on a rattlesnake than go steady with you!

They wouldn't leave him alone. Everybody accusing him, hating him, expecting so much from him. Despising his very soul when he fell short.

Except one. Edward could barely hear it above all the crazy shrieking voices with pointing fingers. When he heard it, Edward was able to almost focus solely on that one voice.

Edward looked down at his hands. They were small and bony; the veins barely even stuck out.

He was wrong, Edward thought. He wasn't a sissy, and he had done something very useful with these hands a few days ago.

Edward suddenly realized he'd lost his train of thought and pounded his white-knuckled frustration on the bench seat. What had he been…? Oh, now he remembered. That voice, the quiet one, the only one of the many in his head he actually stopped to listen to.

"Is anyone there?"

That voice wasn't in his head. Edward looked immediately to see the wooden slat between the tiny window screen and the adjoining room had been slid aside and a priest sat patiently while Edward continued to wander in his thoughts.

"Yes, Father," Edward began, then remembered his manners. "I mean, bless me, Father. For I have sinned." He hurriedly crossed himself, having forgotten to do so when he'd entered the church.

"Speak softly, my son," the priest said, straightening himself up in his seat from the floofing sound of his robe. "What sins have you come to confess?"

Edward's mother: Are you going to tell him or not?

Kelly again: Make me proud little brother.

Edward's father: I know you did it, you no good little queer. You did it and everyone's going to know. You might as well just die because when people find out and throw in the booby hatch, you'll wish you were dead anyway.

Edward shook them off, searching for the other voice. If it was there, he couldn't hear it. Perhaps it was waiting, listening for Edward's own voice.

"I've killed a man, Father." Shoot! He hadn't meant to sound so blasé about it. "At least I think I did."

The priest was silent, but Edward thought he could hear a deep sigh from the man. He looked at his hands again. Sissy hands, his father said. Edward looked away from his sissy hands and got up to leave. He didn't feel any better. His father's voice still echoed in his head: Now tell him you're a sissy, Edward. Show him your hands.

"Go on, my son," the priest encouraged.

Edward sat down again, puzzled at the priest's response. "What more am I supposed to say, Father? I just confessed to murder. I want to be absolved, then leave in peace."

"Sin always comes with a motive, a reason. That's what we call temptation. There must have been a reason you killed this man. We need to understand why you did it-to go back to the beginning, so that everything can be cleansed. Now, what do you mean when you say you think you killed him? Is he dead or not?"

"I can still hear his voice, Father. In my head. I hear all kinds of voices." Edward thought he heard the priest nod with understanding, and it surprised him. "You don't think I'm crazy?"

"That remains to be seen, but your emotional well-being is not my immediate concern so much as your soul." Edward sat quietly, thinking.

"I know I killed his body, Father," Edward began, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. "But I couldn't kill his voice. I still hear it. But I like hearing it. I love the voice."

"Why did you want to kill him?" the priest asked patiently.

"There was a fight," Edward said. "He came to me one night as I was walking home from work. I work as a laundromat attendant. Or I did. Anyway, I was walking home, which is about a half-mile away from the laundromat. I heard footsteps behind me, but when I looked there was nobody there.

"When I turned around to keep walking, I collided with him. He apologized for being in the way but I panicked. For all I knew, he'd been following me. I yelled at him for it and shoved him aside.

"But he didn't go away. He started walking beside me, not saying a word. I tried to ignore him, but it made me mad this weirdo was following me. I shoved him again, knocking him to the ground. But he got up again and smiled at me, like he was daring me to do it again!"

"Was he trying to pick a fight with you?" asked the priest. "I thought so at first," Edward said. "But he reached over and hugged me, saying 'I love you, Edward.' He knew my name!

"I've always been afraid of homosexuals, because my father-" Edward could hear the old man's voice again: Show him your hands, Ed. Show him your shiny faggot hands. "-thought I was gay." Edward forced the voice back into his subconscious, like one would swallow their own vomit. "But I'm not," he quickly added.

"Anyway," Edward continued. "I didn't shove him this time. I was paralyzed, too afraid to move."

"Did he touch you in any bad way?"

"No," Edward replied. "And that's what was so weird. His embrace was very passionate, but there didn't seem to be anything inappropriate about it. I think he genuinely loved me, the way you're supposed to love people."

"Then why did you kill him?"

"I was afraid of him. He told me things, he still does. I didn't understand their meaning at the time, though."

"What sorts of things?" Edward could hear the priest leaning forward, enthralled with his strange story.

"Things like 'You belong to me. Remain in me and I will remain in you.' I liked hearing it, Father. He said these loving things that no one had ever told me before. Actually, that's not true. I've heard others say them, but nobody'd ever convinced me like he did.

"But then he said, 'If you do not eat my flesh and drink my blood, you can have no part of me."

"After that - I mean - when he said that, something just snapped inside me. Instead of being afraid of him, I started hating him. Hating his interruption of my life, odd though it may be. Hating him for saying he loved me. Hating him for confusing me.

"I roared at him to leave me alone and stop saying things like that. He didn't resist or make any sound to save himself when I pushed him against a back alley wall. He said nothing when I picked up a splintered board and started beating him with it. Again and again, I hit him.

"Finally, he sank to the dirty ground. My temper spent, I dropped the board and fell to my knees.

"I know I killed him, Father. He was dead! His face looked and felt like a bowl of warm red Jell-O. I think I saw some of his brains leaking from the ragged remains of his ears. His chest and back were in about the same condition. I hadn't realized I'd beaten him up so bad." Edward stopped, waiting for the priest to interject another question. He heard nothing.

"Are you still there, Father?" Edward asked, looking through the screen.

"Yes, I'm still listening," the priest answered. "You'd beaten him to death and it's pretty safe to assume he was dead. Please continue."

"Well, Father, I still hear his voice, like I said."

"And you love to hear it, you said. Why is that? Why would you love to hear the voice of a man you hated so much you killed him in so brutal a manner?"

"Father, I swear I don't know, and that's the truth. But I've started understanding his words since I saw him again."

"You what?!""

"I saw him again just yesterday. In a crowd of people walking down the sidewalk. I saw him from the back and suddenly became very afraid. I thought the guilt I felt over killing him had started to manifest itself in hallucinations. Like in Tell-Tale Heart?

"So I had to follow him. I had to see if it was really him. We must have walked a couple miles in circles around downtown before I caught up to him. Right as I reached out to spin him around and look to see his face, he turned first and…it was him!

"But his face was different. It wasn't all mashed in. It wasn't even dirty and pale like before. His dark eyes pierced right through me. Felt like a warm knife in the gut; I even looked to see if he'd stabbed me. Of course he hadn't."

"You're certain it was the same man you killed?" the priest frowned. "You'd only met him briefly before you killed him. And it had been dark then, too, right?"

"One thing about murder, Father," Edward said. "You never forget the face of the person you killed. Even if it's unrecognizable by the time you're through. It was him all right."

"He'd come back to life?" The priest tried very hard to stifle his laughter, but Edward heard anyway.

"Yes I suppose he did. I saw him again after I'd killed him, you know. So anyway, he looks straight into me and I hear his voice again. But his lips haven't moved. It was like telepathy or something."

"What did he say?" the priest asked. "Anything resembling 'And these signs will accompany those who believe'?"

Edward frowned sharply. "How did you know that?"

No answer.

Edward peered through the screen and strained to see where the priest sat. No one was there. And there was something oddly familiar about the way his voice had sounded. Edward turned again to go see where the priest had gone, but collided with the priest.

Edward looked the priest full in the face and cried out in fearful recognition.

"You!"

The priest took off his long black robe to reveal the tattered and worn clothes of a street vagrant. He smiled knowingly and shrugged.

Edward stumbled back into the confessional and fell against the bench. The "priest" gently lifted Edward to his feet saying, "It's all right now, Edward."The priest stepped back and let go of Edward, but Edward continued to hold the priest's arm tightly. The priest gave Edward's hand a friendly squeeze.

"Don't just stand there gawking at me, Edward," the priest laughed. "Answer a question."

"Anything," Edward found himself on his knees, gazing in awe at the priest.

"Do you hear anything?"

Missing the point, Edward slowly shook his head in confusion.

"Where are those who accuse you?" asked the priest, bending down to draw invisible patterns in the floor with his finger.

Edward suddenly realized the voices were gone. Not just barely audible, or even in a black and forgotten corner of Edward's mind. They were so far gone, it was like they'd never been there to begin with.

"I can't hear them anymore, Father."

"Don't call me that. You've only got one Father now. You really can't hear those voices?"

"No, they're gone!" Edward was amazed. He felt so - normal. Yet, somehow changed and renewed. Transformed, maybe?

"Then as they no longer accuse you, Edward, there's no reason I should either." The priest clapped Edward on the back and pointed him to the door, grinning widely. "Now get out of here and bring all your friends back this way. Tell them what happened to you."

Edward got quickly to his feet and ran out the door, leaping and hollering for joy. A voice, the priest's, entered his head: I tell you the Truth, today you will be with Me in paradise.

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