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The Confessionist

by Ava Kelly

Vemund pauses, standing on the wet sidewalk. Underneath the overcast sky, twilight stretches through the sloping city. Wealth lives here, in sterile houses carefully hidden behind designer bushes and fences. Not even petrichor feels natural this far across the megapolis. No stench permeates the air, no visible evidence of human misery, although Vemund knows from experience these walls hide just as many vile actions as the paperthin constructs at the other end of civilization.

The evening is chill enough that Vemund sees his breaths as he exhales. It fits this appointment, in a way; all day he’s been followed by a lingering impression that he’s about to trade his soul away. For almost twenty years, he’s worked as a confessionist. The only job he could ever take, young and untrained, but already buried under unbearable debt. Society needs you, they told him at recruitment. You’d be doing the world a favor. Vemund snorts quietly to himself. The only favor he’s been doing has been to ease abject consciences. Except for the children; sometimes he confesses children and their pain is almost always inflicted by others. They were all worth it, though rare enough to forget how it feels to actually help someone instead of simply dampening the guilt bred by one’s actions, consequences intended or not.

The house up ahead sits in heavy gray, made of dull steel and concrete and glass, as ashen as the rest of the buildings around it. Cutting through the front garden, the path to his latest client winds in a bend of stone slabs. This one had specifically requested him, even offered a hefty payment for the service.

His grip tightens. The squeak of his briefcase handle gets lost in the whoosh of the hightrain flying up above.

The entire trip here, he’s been wondering how much of an abomination he’d have to take on for the offered honorarium. He hasn’t wavered, though. Can’t. Not when it means he can forgo the fifty or so confessions he’d need to finally settle his score.

He’d be free. He will be free, after this.

But will he be able to carry it? Whatever the monster in this house did, Vemund will have to watch it, assimilate its effects, and live with them forever. With a trembling hand, he touches the back of his shaved head, over the place where the neural implant sits.

“Last one,” he whispers, and steps forward.

A smiling man answers the door at the first ring. Medium build, a little shorter than Vemund, clean shaven. Wearing a dark sweater, the same gray of the concrete and the sky and the house he occupies.

“Hi, I’m Obe. Please, come in.”

Obe keeps smiling and Vemund shudders. He’s never been afraid before.

After removing his shoes and coat, Vemund follows further inside. When instructed, he sits at the dining table. Its glass surface shines pristine, just like everything else in this place. The space is wide and open, any separation made from transparent material. No color, no personal touch whatsoever.

Even the tray with tea that Obe sets on the table permeates sameness. While he pours and serves, Vemund retrieves his tools from the briefcase. He sets them down on a paper pad between them after Obe takes the opposite seat. He’s dropped his façade of hospitality, instead studying the items with an intensity Vemund’s rarely seen before.

“The pulsers” —Vemund begins the requisite explanation, opening the small box to reveal the round neuro-actuators— “go onto your temples. They—”

“I’ve done this before. They modify the neural connections forming the memory that I write down.” Obe picks up the pen, twists it around. “With this thing: coated in enough sensors to read my entire mind.”

Vemund swallows, loud enough in the silence that Obe notices. He leans over the table slightly.

“Your implant will absorb my experience as if it were your own, and what remains will be distant for me. Like a scar over a healed wound.”

“That’s how it works.” Vemund’s voice cracks, but Obe doesn’t comment on that, so Vemund counts his lucky stars and tries to move forward. “How long ago was your last procedure? If less than a year, I’m afraid we can’t continue at this time. Health concerns, you see.”

Leaning back in his chair, Obe gestures at the tea and Vemund shakes his head.

“I was a child, back in the Zar boroughs,” Obe finally says. “I had witnessed a terrible thing during the riots. It left me… distraught. No, damaged. I was damaged. In fact, it was you who confessed it.”

“I’m sorry,” Vemund interrupts, “you must be mistaken. I’ve never treated a boy in Zar.”

A wry twist of lips, and Obe’s eyes darken in the lowering light. “Yes, you did.”

It clicks, immediately. Vemund’s perspective shifts from dread toward curiosity.

“Ah. My apologies. One should never assume, least of all me.”

“Unnecessary,” Obe says, lifting a long-fingered hand. “You’ve been in my head, but couldn’t have seen what I wasn’t aware of at the time. Understanding came later for me.”

Vemund nods. The tea by his elbow steams with a gentle aroma and, despite himself, he picks up the cup. Takes a sip, under Obe’s assessing gaze. Obe should be uncomfortable, the confession always is, and yet… Here, in this cold, gray house, the new information soothes something long torn beneath Vemund’s skin.

The first to break the stillness is Obe, who attaches the pulsers to his temples. Vemund’s pad swooshes over the glass as Obe pulls it closer.

“It’s part of why you’re here, really,” he says. “You gave me serenity. Peace of mind.”

He bends over the paper, smoothing it out with one thumb. The other clicks on the power button of the pen and Vemund’s implant fires. His eyelids flutter until the connection finally settles.

Eyes downcast, Obe breathes in deeply, his growing confidence resonating through the uplink.

“I wanted to thank you. Easing my pain gave me clarity and presence. It allowed me to learn, and live, and make something of myself. It let me discover who I am, what I want. What I love. How to love, both myself and others.”

The tip of the pen touches the paper.

It was spring, March 12th. At that time I was exploring what it meant to be me. Half wary, half excited, a lot afraid. Didn’t feel comfortable in public, didn’t want to explain myself again.

I remember trees in bloom in the park. It wasn’t that warm outside, but the sun was shining that day and I’d missed it. So I went to sit on a bench in the farthest corner I could find, hoping nobody would see me. Wishing to remain invisible.

A woman strolled by, at some point. She had long, gray hair, wrinkles on her entire face, a large hat with a red bow shielding her from the sunshine. She asked, “Do you have the time, young man?”

I recall experiencing true, pure joy. It was the most vivid moment of absolute and sincere happiness I have ever felt.

Vemund gasps as Obe’s intense memory gathers in a knot in the middle of his chest.

Across the table, Obe sets the pen down, eyes back on Vemund.

“Now we share it.”

Vemund can’t find the words to reply, but he clutches onto the feeling with everything he has. He’s never had— He hasn’t—

“Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to create this.”

Obe presses both palms onto the tabletop.

The world blooms with color.

The walls, the ceiling, the floor. Obe, himself, is covered in swirls moving over his dark skin in mesmerizing waves. Everything in Vemund’s body comes to a halt—for one heartbeat—and restarts with the surges of radiance around them.

“Cyberpainter,” Vemund rasps.

Obe grins. Wide. Warm. Vemund blinks the blur away, and wipes the wetness off his face with shaky fingers.

In front of him is not a monster, but the infamous inventor of the holographic technology that spread through the privileged layers of society, increasing in value as it gained more and more uses—like the silent garden back at headquarters, where only the bosses are allowed. But then the artist donated it to the whole megapolis. It spans all districts—there to feed all souls equally, to nourish hope, to provide a ray of light in the harsh reality of the struggling and the unlucky. Some swear they feel strength to carry on when looking at his projections.

Self-sustainable happiness. Free for all.

And then it hits Vemund. The job, the payment. He lunges for the pulsers at Obe’s temples, but he steps away easily.

“I can’t numb your good memory.”

Obe shrugs. “It’s yours now. Take care of it for me.”

“Please don’t—”

“Don’t what? Thank you for saving me?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Vemund says with alarm. “Unsanctioned emotion categories are erased.”

“Fortunately, you don’t work for them anymore. I wired your fee this morning. The hacker I hired has already performed the last of your payments for you and handed in your resignation. It finished processing right before you knocked on my door.”

Vemund staggers back. “That’s—” Too much. Too much kindness.

“I wouldn’t even have lived to see that day at the park if it hadn’t been for you and your magic pen. Search for me in your databanks; I know you can.”

Sure enough, it comes to the forefront of Vemund’s mind. The saddest, smallest child. His first client, whom he’d coaxed into drawing the scary boo. The hurt from back then returns to spill over Vemund’s cheeks again.

“Don’t you get it? You saved me so I can change the world. Starting with you.” As he speaks, Obe rounds the table until he’s close enough to touch the side of Vemund’s neck. “No more debt. No more forcing people to carry pain and secrets. No more high-tech sin-eaters absolving humanity of its horrors.”

His palm slides, fingertips reaching the surgical scar on the back of Vemund’s head.

“This gift should only be used to heal. Will you help me make that happen?”

Vemund nods, unable to find his voice, but Obe must get it, because he grips Vemund’s shoulder with his free hand, and whispers—echoes joy in polychrome brightness—

“Then welcome, confessionist, to your new life.”

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Host Commentary

And we’re back! Again, that was The Confessionist, by Ava Kelly, narrated by Ben Gideon.

About this story, the author says:

The story features a joyful moment very dear to me. While exploring myself beyond the gender I was assigned at birth, I experienced such a moment that brought me an unparalleled, unforgettable feeling. Now, I’m sharing it with you.

And about this story, I say:

I thought this story was truly delightful. One of my favorite things about it is that it so clearly sets you up for Very Bad Things to happen. Our protagonist has spent twenty years listening to terrible things, taking them on to ease the burden of those who pay for the service. Now this new client is willing to pay a small fortune–so the crime must be terrible, right?

I truly did not see the twist into happiness coming, and that release of narrative tension absolutely did produce Kelly’s intended effect for me–the moment of euphoria, in this case my vicarious happiness for the protagonist. I love that not only does this particular confessionist get a relief to the end of his career, but that it’s a specific result of the kindness he did, so long ago. He tells us right at the beginning that he is happy when he can help children, who have never caused the terrors in their memories. And Obe was there, Obe saw him, recognized him. He is witnessed, the way Obe was witnessed in flashback–each of them truly seen, and each of them receiving a moment of euphoria in that seeing.

Escape Pod is part of the Escape Artists Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and this episode is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. Don’t change it. Don’t sell it. Please, go forth and share it.

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Our opening and closing music is by daikaiju at daikaiju.org.

And our closing quotation this week is from Martin Luther King Jr, who said: “Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”

Thanks for listening! And have fun.