Absolution

In the coal dark loneliness of the night, in the empty silence of the blackened room, the illuminated screen beckons. The quiet intimacy of the text on the phone, more intimate than the confessional, more real than prayer. They type, they see an answer, they feel the comfort of the other, a comfort more real than anything they feel in real life. The text exchange between two disembodied persons, two damaged pilgrim souls, two people texting to themselves in each other, trying to fill the emptiness of their souls.

In the desperation of this splendid isolation, their conversations are open, they share the illusion of absolute privacy, the chance to, once and for all, tell someone else the very innermost aches of their heart. In those moments they find the courage to say what they could never say to anyone face to face.

In those moments they tell each other lies, but they are lies that are more true than anything they have ever told another human being­. For now, until the illusion is shattered, they become truly themselves as they hope they could be. — Free.