A Priest, an Assassin and a Lady walk into a Bar

1.

The priest opened his laptop. He’d had months to prepare and had thought intensely about what he might say but now that the live national address was tomorrow, he still hadn’t actually written a word. He felt claustrophobic and petulant as he stared at the screen. He had once imagined himself a seat-of-the-pants kinda guy assuming last minute panic brought out the best in him. It didn’t.

He expelled a breath through pursed lips, nodded and began typing. He typed. He read. He deleted. Over and over he attempted to encourage a flow and time after time he stuttered to a halt. He could hear his dead father’s voice chastising him, “The Lord is watching.” He leant forward and laid his forehead on the desk, closed his eyes and sighed, “For fucks sake,” he said and his old father’s voice cried out once more, “Language!”

He stood up, paced about his hotel room and decided to try to speak the sermon into existence, “At no time in history,” he began, “has there ever been a period so populated with such appalling human beings,” gesticulating calmly with his hands. He had been told TV cameras pick up everything so he should be gentle in his movements. “History may have its Genghis Khans,” he went on, “and its Vlad the Impalers, but we have our own modern genocidal psychopaths reenacting their 5th Century wet dreams, seemingly desperate to compete with the most violent inhumane fruitcakes…oh dear,” he reproached himself as he slumped onto the perfectly made bed, “Oh Christ, I should have done this already.”

“Blasphemy!” came his father’s censure.

He began typing again, “We encourage a sociopathic elite of soulless, violent, lunatics but the West’s super power is mass production. Modern Western societies manufacture the most obnoxious people on an industrial scale never seen before in the history of humanity.”

He read the paragraph and continued writing.“Selfish, egomaniacal, immature, needy, philosophically, spiritually and emotionally illiterate people obsessed with their own unimaginative, petty and unquenchable desires.” He smiled and even let out a small laugh, then forged ahead, “Entire Forests wiped out so people can outdo each other’s kitchen renovations. Entire oceans polluted so people can rub microplastic skin toner into their botox filled faces. Libraries of philosophical contemplation brushed aside so people can masturbate over exploitative porn and scream up a toxic hate-o-sphere on social media instead of take but a single moment for self-reflection.”

The Priest stared at the word “masturbate,” for a time, then deleted it, replaced it with “stimulate themselves,” then deleted that and wrote “fantasise.” Then the Arch Bishop came to mind and he replaced the whole sentence with “Entire nations drowning in a burning river of platform toxicity, their brains addled with the endorphins of hate.”

He continued, “Western humans are the most empowered yet powerless entities to have ever wasted the gift of life for nothing more than a smorgasbord of emptiness.” The words came faster, “Nobody lives in the present, instead we inhabit an amoral, self-indulgent hyperreality, fetishising what might be, what could be, but never ever what actually is.”

Writing late into the night, flowing from he knew not where, until the sermon was finally done. The priest sat back in his chair, awash with satisfaction and surprise at the intense passion that had spilled out of him. Why not celebrate with a small nightcap at the hotel bar?

His father’s cry of “Sodom and Gomorrah,” brought forth a chuckle as the priest left his room.

2.

On the same evening, at the same time, two floors below, another man was carefully making his own preparations. He’d already had his fee wired to a Cayman Island account, his fee to assassinate the priest exactly ten minutes into the following day’s live broadcast of the annual nationally televised Sermon For The People.

This man was not a seat-of-the-pants kinda guy. He was meticulous and methodical. He left nothing to chance. He was highly sought after in his secretive profession. The priest was one of three assassinations booked before the end of the month. Business was booming.

As he laid out tomorrow’s “work” clothes on the hotel bed he thought about getting old, and how, even though he had expected the physical deterioration, it nonetheless felt surprising when it happened. He thought about his aching knees and his capricious memory and how he had begun to walk down stairs like an old person. “I am an old person,” he said as he lay a dark blue jacket beside expensive dark grey woolen trousers and Italian linen shirt. It hadn’t gone unnoticed, as the years passed, that he’d become increasingly invisible to others. Only people of his own age noticed him. To the young he had vanished completely, which, he mused, might be beneficial in his line of work but it still stirred up a lonely sorrow for which there seemed to be no culprit, no one to blame, just a yearly acceptance. Like death.

The thought struck him as he racked back the slide on his handgun, that he couldn’t really imagine his own death. “And yet I deal in so much death, they call me The Reaper,” he said, placing the gun gently on the desk, and looking out the window at the city, “The whole world’s a goddamn Death Cult fuelled by blood and destruction.”

Turning back toward the room he reached for the remote and flicked on the large screen. The News was full of rockets reducing residential blocks to billowing dust clouds, and scenes of crowds reaching for small bottles of water being thrown from the back of trucks, and solemn presenters whop broke the tension with a joke before an advert for a creatine laced yogurt promised to help “Show Them Who You Really Are.”

The Reaper stared at the screen with a despondent emptiness and flicked it back to black. “Something’s wrong,” he said, then, “Stop talking to yourself old man,” and shook his head as he headed to the hotel bar.

3.

The priest, who was already in the bar, ordered a Glenlivet on the rocks and watched the barman place a clinking tumbler of the golden liquid onto a soft coaster. The sermon was still fresh in his mind and for the first time since he was informed he’d be delivering the annual national address, he finally felt calm. “The die is cast, as they say,” he smiled, glancing around the room waiting patiently for the ice to open the flavour of his whiskey.

The room’s carefully designed ambience couldn’t disguise the deeply transient nature of the space. It was a spectacle of a bar catering to a forever fleeting customer base. “Like drinking in a film set,” thought the priest, “a new scene every 30 minutes.” He watched a woman enter, dressed in beautifully tailored cream trousers and a charcoal cashmere sweater. She was in her late 50’s with a composed elegance, clearly privileged, walking toward the bar with an aloof composure that was both vexing and attractive to the priest. She ordered a gin cocktail and turned smiling at the priest who smiled back.

“Are you him?” she leaned in, looking directly at him, really at him, so that he began to blush. After a lifetime of lingering glances, attentive civilities and igniting desires she immediately saw her mistake, “My apologies,” she said smiling as the priest pulled an embarrassed face and the woman retired to a nearby table. A group of work colleagues got up to leave. A young couple started laughing loudly. A well dressed older man entered and ordered a single malt at the bar.

Perhaps it was a rush of simple camaraderie, or maybe he’d been buoyed by the brief encounter with the woman, or finally having finished his sermon he felt playful, but the priest found himself lifting his own glass toward the well dressed gentleman, rocking it between thumb and finger to signal they’d chosen the same drink.

The elder gentleman held the priest’s eye with an intense stare until the priest felt a blush coming on for the second time, but the man, suddenly, raised his own glass and toasted the priest like an old friend. Encouraged, the priest lent forward, “Are you him?” the priest joked and again the man flashed a micro expression of panic, causing the priest, who always noticed such things, to regret his cordiality, and, in a comical echo of his previous encounter, offer his own apologies, “My apologies.”

The Reaper, realising the priest had absolutely no idea who he was, gestured toward the chair at the priest’s table. “Of course, of course,” said the priest mirroring the gesture for the man to sit.

The man sat and smiled graciously as the priest offered an explanation, “The lady there,” surreptitiously pointing toward the woman, “asked me, “Are you him?” nodding the priest continued, “So I assumed that you might be him, and that I’d point you in the right direction, you know,” he said nodding toward the woman and looking sheepish at his unusual forthrightness.

The Reaper raised his glass again, “Well, let’s drink to him, whoever the lucky so and so might be,” tilting his head toward the woman and winking at the priest who, for the third time in ten minutes, blushed as he raised his own glass and drank.

The Reaper noticed how the priest savoured his drink, how the priest had been charmed by the woman, the idea of her, the excitement, and he noticed the way the priest was subtly observing him, paying attention. Leaning forward conspiratorially, beckoning the priest to do the same, “Let me ask you,” he said, “do you think events are purely random or do you think everything happens for a reason?”

“Well,” said the priest, “Our business model is based entirely on divine providence,” holding his shoulders up in a long shrug.

“Yes, yes, of course,” the Reaper said, “It’s just I thought you might be a man who veers from the flock.”

The priest hesitated, was tempted, but instead said, “Are you offering to take my confession?”

“You wouldn’t be the first to offer confession or beg forgiveness,” the man said.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” the priest said, “What is it that you do?”

“Business solutions.”

4.

Sipping her gin cocktail the woman in the cream trousers and cashmere sweater watched the two men. Clearly two strangers who had met by chance, but there was something off. She watched the priest wave his glass and she saw the older man freeze, she watched the ensuing theatrics and she’d watched the priest tell the man about their encounter, what she’d said, and the man had said something lewd in reply, that was all unmistakable, but there was something else, a tension that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

There was something about the older gentleman, something familiar, a violence wrapped up in calmness, a volatile nature, domesticated but not tamed. He had the same air as her late husband, like some roving carnivore that can never satisfy its cravings, never conquer its emptiness. She could see they were evaluating each other, these two strangers, which, she thought may be just force of habit for the priest, but what was the carnivore after? What did he want? Because, in her experience, a man like that is always looking for something.

Two couples bustled past waving at the laughing couple, bought drinks and joined them. The barman cleared the glasses left by the work colleagues, side-eyeing the woman in the cream trousers and charcoal sweater as he did so, watching her sipping her cocktail, glancing at her watch, then the door.

She raised a finger to the barman, aware he was watching her, and smiling pointed toward her glass, he nodded and they shared a pleased expression. A few minutes later he arrived at her table with a gin cocktail on a soft white coaster.

5.

“I think it depends what you mean by “happen for a reason,” the priest said piercing an olive with a toothpick, “We create meaning from the randomness, don’t we?” He popped the olive into his mouth as the dapper gentleman raised his hand to the barman and pointed toward the two empty glasses on the table.

“Live every day as if it were your last,” smiled the man.

“Well, that’d be exhausting,” the priest laughing and pulling an exhausted expression.

“So what you’re saying is that life is really a brutal mass of random happenings that we dress up to disguise the emptiness? Is that what you mean?”

“No, no that’s not it. That’s not it at all,” the priest sighed and lent back in the leather armchair, “I’m saying that randomness isn’t some background from which you create meaning, I’m saying that the meaning and the randomness are all the same thing, you are beget by randomness to create meaning, like the Energy of Nothingness into the Energy of Somethingness, from randomness to meaning.”

“I’m not sure you’re in the right job, sounds like you’d do better in a less, how shall I put it, a less hierarchical institution?”

“I struggle,” the priest smiled as the barman placed a tumbler of single malt onto a soft coaster in front of each man.

“But, if I may,” said the Reaper, “according to you meaning is created from randomness so yo could equally create a different meaning.”

“The content of the meaning can be anything but the structure of meaning is fixed, meaning is the theatre of consciousness and consciousness is the theatre of Life.”

“You seem very certain, are you sure you’re not just you trying to force your own truth onto me?” the Reaper seemed a little annoyed all of a sudden and the priest noticed this straight away.

“This seems to be an evening of apologies,” the priest said, “Of course you’re right, there is huge arrogance in believing you know anything for sure, uncertainty is the only honourable route, and yet even as I say this I arrogantly imagine it were true,” the priest chuckled, “I apologise,” he said lifting his glass.

The Reaper was beginning to like this priest. Not enough to alter his plans of course, his feelings couldn’t be allowed to interfere with the power of capital. He’d been paid and he’d perform his role no matter if it were right or wrong, but he felt the seedling of an uncomfortable feeling of regret.

“You seem, if you don’t mind my saying, like you’re having a crisis of faith,” the Reaper said lifting his glass in reply.

“Wait till I’ve given my sermon tomorrow, then you’ll see what crisis looks like,” the priest said laughing.

“All this talk of meaning is important, I suppose, but in a material world a bullet in the head is important too,” the Reaper said. The priest looked quizzically for a moment and, being that such things were far from his understanding, laughed, and the Reaper laughed along with him, feeling slightly smug because we all love to know something others don’t. Even terrible things.

6.

A tall man with a single red rose appeared at the door. He had a healthy vigour, athletic in an amateur way, like a 1920’s tennis player. He looked about the bar, his eye sweeping over the priest and the dapper gentlemen drinking scotch, over the group of animated laughing couples and landed on the woman sitting alone sipping her gin cocktail. He took a deep breath and upon reaching her table held up the rose and nervously asked, “Are you her?”

She had been watching the man as he entered, as he looked around the bar and as he caught sight of her, and was surprised by the flush of nervous joy that she hadn’t felt in she didn’t know how long.

“Are you him?” she asked.

“I certainly hope so,” he said.

She took the rose and he gestured to the barman pointing to her drink, holding up two fingers. The barman nodded, a little disappointed but pleased. It was nice she hadn’t been stood up, he thought, as he prepared the drinks, she deserved love, he thought, and he smiled at his blatant romanticism, always so sentimental, he thought, what a idiot I am.

The barman watched the man sit and he watched the woman resettle herself in her seat. He could see they were both a little flustered and a little excited. Well, well, he thought.

The barman listened as he approached their table, they were relaxed with each other, the man calmly talking.

“I took a ferry back from France once,” the man was saying, “the girl I was with had a epiphany of sorts and decided to become an Anarchist so she threw her passport into the ocean. Can you imagine? When we docked in England the border guards weren’t amused at all, they questioned us both for hours, took my car apart, took the seats out and put an inspection camera under the roof lining. Everything. Later, when they’d let us go I realised that throwing her passport off the boat was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, an astonishing act of disobedience and bravery, you know?”

“Why are you telling me this, do you think we should throw our passports off the boat?” the woman said laughing a little

“I honestly don’t know, he said, “I just thought, I don’t know, maybe yes, maybe we should just throw out passports off the boat, you know,” and they both smiled at the audacity of it all as the barman placed two drinks on soft coasters.

7.

The following day, the day the priest was to give his sermon, the newly enamoured couple woke up together in the hotel. It was late. They’d talked all night. Both of them telling each other things they hadn’t told anyone for years. They felt a mix of vulnerability and bravery, feeling a heightened perception of the world, both of them holding on gently to the new possibilities swirling around them.

They decided to go out for breakfast. Take a walk and find a place. Just see what happened. They had time. Who knows, maybe they had a lifetime. The sun was out and the day was fresh. They walked along for a time without talking until they found a small cafe with good coffee and pastries.

They sat for a moment before the woman took out her phone for the first time since yesterday. Something of a record, she thought. Absently she opened her browser and was confronted immediately with the face of the priest and the headline “Assassinated”. She paled and turned the screen to the man.

“This is him, the man last night at the bar, he’s been killed,” she said. The man looked confused, “From the bar?” he said.

She read the article. He had been delivering the National Sermon For The People when he was killed by a single bullet to the head. He was a controversial priest whose “desire to unmask the structural causes of poverty had brought him to the attention of the authorities numerous times,” the article continued, “a tireless defender of peace, forgiveness and understanding, he swam against the tide in these perilous times.”

“It says they’re appealing for any information. I knew that man was off, last night, that man at the table, he was a cold hearted bastard, that much I could see straight away,” she said.

“You can’t be sure, it’s probably best to let them sort it out themselves, the authorities, they know what they’re doing,” the man said looking toward the counter trying to catch the eye of the waitress.

She looked at him and felt the light leave her like a final breath.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“Best not to get involved,” he smiled.

“Still got your passport in your back pocket have you?” she said, “Disobedience and bravery are beautiful you said, your own words.”

“This is different,” he said smiling at the waitress as she approached.

“No,” the woman said, standing up, “No it isn’t,” walking toward the door now, dialling and lifting her phone to her ear, she turned and shrugged at the man, “I’m sorry,” she said, “But we can’t just sit about drinking cocktails and eating pastries while monsters destroy everything.”