Unforgivable

Preacher

Just like I knew I was going to I went ahead and thought the bad thought and then all hell broke lose the abuse the screaming the violence the vicious appalling self-retribution and self-recrimination why did I think the bad thought why did I think the bad thought why did I think the bad thought why did I think the bad thought the bad thought was so bad it was unforgivable the worst possible the very worst sort! I knew before I went ahead and thought it that it was the very worst sort of thought and yet – knowing that – I still went ahead and thought it!

 

What an idiot. Idiot was too light a term this wasn’t the act of an idiot this was the act of a profoundly fucked-up asshole – why would anyone think such a fucked-up thought if they weren’t a fucked-up asshole? Why would anyone think such a thought, given the nature of the thought? I couldn’t believe that I had just done that you little bastard I roared at myself and all hell broke out again. I wouldn’t let up on myself I gave myself hell I went to town on myself. I went into a total paroxysm. I went ape-shit. I went mental. I went pure psycho on myself!

 

Eventually I grew tired, as I always do, and switched over instead to my default mode of glumly brooding over the fact of my fucked-upness, the fact that I was such an extremely fucked-up asshole the worst kind the very very worst kind the kind you wouldn’t believe. How could I have done that how could I have done that why did I have to be such a fucked up bastard why did I have to think the thought when I knew it was so very bad when I knew it was so inexcusably bad what did that say about me? I knew that it was the very worst sort of thought, the truly unforgivable one and I still had to go and think it…

 

And as I thought this I started to see something about myself I started to see something that I hadn’t seen before – I saw that if I already knew that the thought was such a bad one (if I already knew exactly how fucked up it was) then this obviously meant that I had already been thinking about the thought before I actually thought it! If I knew all about the thought – if I knew that the thought was as inexcusably bad as it was – then – obviously – I already knew all about it. And if I knew all about the thought, was completely familiar with the thought, then this clearly meant that I had already thought the thought.

 

The conclusion was inescapable – that unforgivable thought had already been there in my mind. It had been there all along! I had been thinking it all along. God knows how long I had been thinking it, on the quiet. Going over it feverishly in my own head, not letting on to myself that I had been. I had already been thinking the thought only without realizing that I had been thinking it and then when the pressure of keeping it secret keeping it hidden keeping it under wraps had grown too much it had burst out in full view and that was when I had thought that I had thought the thought!

 

I saw now that in some deep dark secret place within me I had ALWAYS been thinking that thought – busily thinking it and thinking it and thinking it like some kind of sick perverted little bastard. The very worst kind of sick perverted little bastard. The unforgivable kind. I was unclean, possessed. My life was a sham – obviously. A total sham, nothing true about it at all. An exercise in self-deception.

 

As soon as this realization hit me a black tide of self-loathing descended upon me and I was lost within it. You bastard you bastard you bastard you bastard I screamed at myself. You dirty filthy bastard. I unleashed every last ounce of self-condemnation upon myself. I unleashed all of it. And that was a lot. Believe me, that was a lot. You don’t want to know…

 

And then – as always – the energy drained away from me and I collapsed into a stagnant septic stinking oozing pool of black self-disgust. What kind of a man was I I wondered? And me a highly respected Church leader and all…

 

 

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