00:00Athea, on the refusal to participate, the morning came, or something pretending to be dawn, an alarm hissed, my hand,
00:09limp, languid, glided across the clock, and smothered whatever sound tried to crawl out of it.
00:16Another day, another half-remembered renewal. Prayer tired me, hope bored me, I had grown allergic to try, even despair
00:26seemed repetitive. I drifted through hours that sloshed around me, a sea with no shore, a dream without plot, a
00:34world using me as a coaster.
00:36God called somewhere above the ceiling mildew, said rise, said be brave, said push, but what does a corpse in
00:46training do with orders? My soul no longer reaches for dreams, it nearly can't reach for me.
00:52All I see now is an altar, with candles stiff and unlit, collapsing inwards like little tombs of light. Plants
01:02wilt on my windowsill, even the hemlock, barely standing, is too tired for crime, a tragic irony, even the poison
01:09refuses to kill me on time.
01:11I lie beneath the ceiling until it grows bored of me. A clock ticks, but time refuses to cooperate, too
01:19slow to mourn me, too fast to save me.
01:22Wine stagnates beside the bed, half full, half faithless, even bringing its sweetness to my already chapped lips feels like
01:30labor I refuse to meet.
01:31Food rots magnificently, bread blooms with green fur, fruit around sinks into itself, a once red apple, Eden's echo, turns
01:41yellow, as if ashamed of its own mythology.
01:44Life passes my eyes in slow syrup lines, vita de fluit situ flos, life slips away like a flower, and
01:54I watch it decay with a spectator's gaze.
01:57I run a bath, the water dreams it's a river, I dream mammophilia. But even the tub rebels, its shallowness
02:05a parody of death, and refuses to play along.
02:09The archangel Raphael arrives, knocking with the politeness of someone unfamiliar with despair.
02:15I do not answer, why should I? Why ruin a perfectly good decline? A little sleep, a little slumber, and
02:23poverty shall come upon thee like a thief.
02:25So I sleep. So I sleep. I dream. I let my life pass me like a stranger, on a train
02:32I never meant to catch.
02:33A rosary tangled in my hair, decoration, not adoration. In sleep, the world reassembles itself dishonestly.
02:41I walk into boss circle, a carnival of drowsy heresies. A monk with tired eyes, eye bags made for pitying,
02:51snored beside a dying fire.
02:53His prayer book melting like cheap wax, the nun unable to motivate him. He had forgotten how to pray, I
03:01had forgotten to care.
03:03Creatures wobbled through the smoky dream, a fish in a bishop's hat, a pig nun chanting half a psalm, a
03:10bird loot hybrid playing a note that sounded like men losing faith.
03:15And then sloth herself, lounged on a throne of unmade sheets, her crown crooked, her scepter a wooden spoon.
03:23She yawned when she saw me, a gesture of welcome or warning. We understood each other immediately.
03:30Some kingdoms are ruled by fire, some by blood. Hers was ruled by nothing at all, and that was the
03:37terror of it.
03:39Sloth is the church's nightmare, not God's. He doesn't bother with those who don't bother to use his gift.
03:46Wrath can be punished, pride can be humbled, lust can be confessed, envy can be redirected, greed can be taxed,
03:53gluttony can be shamed.
03:55But sloth? Sloth cannot be moved. It is the unmalleable sin, the one no priest can threaten, no sermon can
04:02rouse, no miracle can bribe.
04:05A sinner who has stopped caring is beyond every tool the church possesses, because it is proof that the soul
04:12can die while the body still pays rent.
04:15There is a place in the soul where dying begins softly, not with rebellion, but with the quiet agreement to
04:22stop participating.
04:24She who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives. But I was more efficient. I died without the courtesy
04:32of pleasure.
04:33Let yourself go, whispers one dream voice. Forget who you are, murmurs another. I obey both without enthusiasm.
04:42Do not quench thy spirit, the verses warns. I did not quench it. I simply let it starve, drying out
04:50like a plant I refuse to water.
04:52Bed sheets unravel into burial cloths. My heartbeat thins into psalm, losing its words.
04:58My hands fold themselves, not out of prayer, but because rigor mortis comes early to those who stop trying.
05:06Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
05:11Thunders through the room, a divine alarm clock. To hell with that.
05:15If sloth must be my sin, then let me die in it. Let me sprint through Dante's purgatory later.
05:21Not now. Now I sleep. I did not answer when he called. I did not rise when the angel sang.
05:28I did not open my eyes when the world ended. It ended quietly, out of politeness, perhaps.
05:34In pulverem revertiris. To dust you shall return.
05:38I returned early, returned softly, returned without complaint.
05:42Some people die violently. I died by forgetting to live.
05:46Letting sin rate me, and heaven tired of waiting, let me sleep.
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