It takes less than a minute for the sounds of eating to cease, and the bowl is dropped back through the gap, its polished wood bouncing against the floor. I reach forward to take it, and begin to speak, my words streaming out of my mouth at a rapid pace, no doubt senseless and contorted. I fiddle with the bowl, rotating it in my hands, and attempt to calm myself down. Niels waits patiently, and eventually my words slow and separate, becoming comprehensible.  I begin to tell Niels about the previous day, and he listens intently, though it is nothing of great interest, the days here being all the same.

     Niels must think me an idiot, a rambling fool the monastery has taken in. I know for certain he thinks me a child. He always addresses me as such, but this is to be expected, considering the high pitch of my voice. What I had not expected was that remaining silent for most of the day would counteract my ability to speak. I am the only one in our monastery who has taken a vow of silence, which, I imagine, is why the abbot chooses me to deliver Niels his daily nourishment, so as not to risk breaking his isolation. But I have no qualms and see no danger in breaking my vow for the punished man. If the abbot knew how many vows I have broken, I would surely be in Niels’ place, stuck eating figs in the dark.

​

      “Brother Niels, yesterday you told me there is no such thing as sin. I have since grappled with this, but I cannot understand it.”

      “Marinos, my boy, do not obscure my words. I did not tell you there is no such thing as sin, only that the nature of sin is different than what your elders have told you. Our priests tell us there is a set form of sins that God forbids, and if we are to knowingly engage with these sins, we are damned. But in truth, the shape of sin is constantly changing, each action is reconfigured in its doing, and therefore there can be no punishment from above. We must approach our sins on our own, as God has granted us the ability to do, and find it within ourselves to change ourselves, if this is what we believe to be correct.”

     Niels has not told me what he has done to deserve his immurement, but from the parts of his thinking he has shown me, it is not hard to see how he was ill-fitted for the monastery. The other monks speak of him sparingly, but when they do it is in jest, with little pity. Great philosopher, they say, thinks himself smarter than Christ.

     I ruminate on his words during my morning walks. A great forest surrounds our monastery, and I spend the morning hours following its earthy paths, just the sounds of rustling leaves and dusty earth moving under my feet.  Though it is just a few hours past daybreak the sun on my back is unyielding, sweat collecting under my robes. As I squint into the greenery that surrounds me, I think about the shape of my sins, and the shape of my God. I think my sin must look like these great trees, twisting branches and gnarled wood. I think my God must look like these pinecones spread across the path, too many to count, misshapen and porous, small enough to fit in your palm. I imagine being saved by something I can crush under my feet.  

     There are usually others roaming the forest during recreation, but today the heat has kept them inside. I take this opportunity, and I head to the stream, taking care to make sure I’m not followed. When I reach the water, I remove my robes. I undo the bandages tied around my chest, allowing my lungs to fill fully for the first time in days. Small blisters have formed under my breasts, and I splash the water onto them, breathing through the stinging pain. I wash the rest of my body in the stream, scrubbing off a week of grime, wetting my cropped hair. I lay in the grass and wait for my body to dry, the sun brushing the water with its warm hands. I look down at my breasts, and then further down to the patch of hair between my legs. My hand finds a pinecone sitting in the grass beside me, and I toss it into the stream, hearing its tiny splash.

     On my walk back I meet Rene coming down the path, and I thank God I left the stream when I did. His cheeks are flushed, and bits of dried grass and leaves have attached themselves to his novice’s robe. He is fidgeting with his hands, the marks from the abbot’s flogger visible. I notice a newer looking bruise, large and purple, under one of his knuckles. I gesture to it, and he holds it out to me, showing it off with a pride that betrays his adolescence. It seems to bubble under the shifting sunlight.

     “I don’t understand why I should keep quiet when I don’t agree with what they tell us.” This is Rene’s usual complaint. I guide us back toward the monastery, preparing myself to listen.

     “What is the point in pretending to believe? Surely it is worse to lie about your faith than to be honest about having none at all.

     “Not that I have no faith. But I don’t believe half the things they tell us. For example,” he grins despite himself, looking up at me with his large eyes, still too big for his face, “how is it that God gave me this body, and gave me the ability to use it to my will, and yet to use it to my will would be the greatest of sins? Why would God create pleasure only to deprive us of it?”

     I smile, spreading my hands out to show them empty of answers.

     “Of course you’re the wrong person to ask that. God gave you a tongue, and yet you deprive yourself of words. Or perhaps you really are mute, and have no tongue.”

     I stick my tongue out at him, and he begins to laugh, before stopping himself. Laughter is forbidden here, and Rene looks around quickly, as if expecting to see the abbot hidden in the trees.

     “Will you write me another letter? I’ve gotten so much faster at reading.”

     I write letters to а number of the novices here, though it is Rene who asks for them most often. It started as a reading exercise, the literacy of children being important to me, but I’m sure the letters help me more than them.

     I pretend to hesitate, scratching my chin. Then I gesture to his bruised hand, and he looks down at it with me.

     “I know, I’ll be good.” I nod my approval, and mime writing a letter and giving it to him. But he isn’t looking at me, and misses the gesture.

    “Good and quiet, just like Brother Marinos. Do you think this is what God wanted for you? You can read and write, you could go anywhere, join the university, become a famous scholar-"

     I point at Rene, causing him to turn his head and watch as with the same hand I take two fingers and imitate someone walking, and then stretch my arm out, away from us, away from the monastery.

     “I know, I could leave too. They’ll give me the choice when I come of full age. But here is all I’ve ever known, since I was an infant. What could I do, out there?”

     We walk in silence for a while, our footsteps in sync. Eventually I stop, and gesture to the trees around us, point first up at their leaves and then down the bark of their trunks. I point at the grass, the scattering of nettle, a patch of dandelions. Then I point to my heart, and hold my hand there, looking at Rene. He looks around us slowly, his gaze hovering on each place I have pointed.

     “Yes, you’re right. It’s not so bad here.”

 

     Each morning my tongue is heavy, and I am thankful for the five figs.

     “Brother Niels, do you know what God wants from you? Do you know why he put you here, why he asks that you suffer?”

     “My suffering is my becoming. When I depart from this cell, young boy, I will be a new man. I will have understood things that have escaped our fellow monks, I will have become closer to God for my solitude, Christ will be my constant companion. In every stone of this cell I see Him, and when I leave this place, in every new stone around me will I see Him. Everything around me will be my brother and friend, and I will never be alone.”

     What friend have I, who’s lie is eternal? I don’t know what God wants for me. I like to think, sometimes, that he chose me as listener, as the person for people like Rene to come to when the confession box isn’t enough. But this seems too grand, too prideful an assumption. If I examine how I live my life, it is all for me, I am the great self-feeding animal, hiding myself in the places I’ll be safe.

     I notice myself trying to make noise in any way I can. When we eat, I chew and swallow loudly, knock my cup against the table, sigh after each sip. When I walk, I let my sandaled feet slap against the stone floor, move my arms side to side to hear my sleeves rustle. In my sleep I hope I snore.

     The wish to make noise is the worst during the canonical hours, when I must stand in silence as the others sing. Their great deep voices echoing through the chapel’s walls, sound taken from the stomach out into the air. When I first heard it, I was almost brought to tears. Now the rhythm seems to taunt me. I try not to think of myself; to imagine I am not in the room at all, and this music is happening without me only because I am not there. I pray for envy to leave me and for resilience to take its place.

 

     When I approach Niels’ cell a strange feeling grips my chest, though I do not know why. I think perhaps I have tied my bandages too tight. I place the bowl upon the stone and wait, but nothing takes it, no grip meets mine. I wait another moment, but still nothing, and the feeling in my chest turns cold with fear. I call out to Niels, trying to peer into the small gap, but I can hear nothing, see nothing, only smell the awful acid scent of fig-filled piss. I keep calling until my voice gives out, and I find nothing to do but go bring the abbot.

      The abbot is not surprised. There is only so long someone can live without company. More monks are summoned, and they tear down Niels’ cell with pickaxes, hammering away at the wall. With each stone that falls I fear he will be injured, that I was mistaken to tell the others, that surely he is just asleep. But there is no way he could sleep through the furious pounding, the spraying of stone across the floor, the abbot’s commands to go faster. Finally the gap is widened enough to move through, and someone holds a torch into the dark space.

      The flickering light illuminates Niels’ corpse, lying slumped against the opposite wall. His eyes stare blankly back at us, his mouth slightly agape. I am struck by how much younger he is than I imagined, and how frighteningly thin, his skin in the torchlight looking more like bone than flesh. The torch is moved around the cell, and I can see lots of tiny dark spots scattered all over the floor. At first I think they are excretions, but as the light moves I can tell they are figs, untouched and rotten, their tiny seeds exposed within the collapsed skin.

     “What a waste,” the abbot mutters, looking down at the cell of decaying flesh, “There was no one forcing him to eat, we would have stopped bringing him food if he’d asked.”

     As they carry the body away, I sit on the stone floor, watching the group disappear down the corridor, hearing them jest and complain of the smell. When they are gone, I crawl into the opened cell, and gather the rotting figs around me, forming a sticky, viscous pile. I take handfuls and force them into my mouth, chewing the sour mush, feeling the rough seeds against my tongue. I eat until I feel I might be sick, until I begin to sob. Great wailing noises from my mouth, heaving breathes fighting through tears. I will never speak again.

 

     I take my walks through my forest and I hear and see nothing around me. It is as if it has all fallen away, I walk along an empty parchment, there is nothing to call my friend. When I undo my robes there is no one to see and therefore I do it for nothing. I am the great self-feeding machine. I consider running, as Rene wishes, running out of here and into the world, away from God. But where could I go where they would take me as I am, silent and half alive? I sit by the river, casting out pinecone after pinecone, waiting for the pattern of their falling to reveal something to me.