Miguel watches Father Mukada say his invocations, take out the water and the crackers. The body and the blood.
He’s so hungry.
It's been over a week since he'd last eaten, had clean water to drink – the sharp stale taste of his own piss drying out his tongue, his stomach pressed against his spine like a deflated balloon.
But the priest doesn’t know that – couldn’t. Couldn’t do anything about it even if he did.
Miguel fiddles with his hands in his lap as he listens to the droning voice. God, the Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit.
Body of Christ.
The body and the blood.
The body of his infant son. The blood he offered up to heaven in exchange, ignored – scar on his face a permanent reminder, made for nothing. The blood of Eugene Rivera, a body he offered to his fellows, ignored – blood on his hands for nothing.
Now he wastes away in solitary, in permanent buzzing fluorescence. The light doesn’t chase the demons away – it only makes it harder for him to run from them. There is no respite in this constant artificial sunlight.
His hunger grows, a gnawing ache.
He had thought Groves was crazy, that nothing else could explain why you’d ever want to eat a person, but he guessed he took that back, now – or else maybe he was crazy too.
Now I know why McManus put us in the same cell together. You're the only motherfucker in Em City more fucked up than I am.
The man in front of him holds out a wafer, and Miguel takes it, smooth and tasteless and insubstantial.
The hand proffered to him is more appealing.
Body and blood.