At the end of the room light comes up from the kitchen through the heating vent and casts the intricate shadow pattern of the vent's grate onto the ceiling.

I watch the shadow of the grate on the ceiling.

I'm an altar boy.

Father Terrell treats me like a special case, like there's something that makes me different from the other altar boys.

I worry about being good about not dying with a mortal sin on my soul cast into hell about loving God more than anything else more even than my own mother a sin to love my own mother more than Jesus about saying my prayers about faithfully going to church about imitating Christ's life about my father.

 

different for being out I lowered my head with black fire at night in the walls