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Brother Faulkner is now two days into his own personal vigil, and blessedly enough, he’s feeling all right. He’s gone without food for much longer than this in the past, of course. Growing up, there was never enough. It wasn’t a choice, back then. But now, it can be, and that’s the beautiful thing. Now, he can abstain from all worldly nourishment on purpose, subsisting only on the purity of water. A perfect offering for his River, his god. And on the days when the growling in his stomach grows too much, and he’s forced to find a snack or a green drink… well, he is only human, after all.
Well. For now. One day, he might be made perfect.
“Has it occurred to you that you might have an eating disorder?” Sister Carpenter asks in that annoyed, condescending way of hers over breakfast one morning.
Faulkner laughs freely at that. How could he not? It’s absurd. “A disorder? Carpenter, where the hell are you getting this?”
Arching an eyebrow, Carpenter plucks one grape off her plate and holds it out to him like a challenge. “All right. Prove it to me, and eat this right now.”
Faulkner shakes his head, understanding slowly dawning on him. “I’m fastin’, Sister. That’s what this is, a religious fast. I don’t do it every day, you know that.”
“The Trawlerman does not command fasting,” Carpenter says, sounding wary.
“No, but I offer it willingly, ” Faulkner explains, with all the patience in the world. “It’s… well, it’s my own little sacrifice. Surely you understand.”
Carpenter puffs out an irritated breath. “Be that as it may be. I don’t want to have to deal with a partner who can’t have my back because he’s too damned lightheaded to see straight.”
Faulkner frowns warningly at that. “Are you suggestin’ that the Trawlerman will not sustain me?”
“All I’m suggesting is that this isn’t healthy,” Carpenter snaps. She’s… she really doesn’t get it, does she? She’s still concerned about him. And yet somehow, she can turn even that into an excuse to belittle him.
“Carpenter.” Faulkner sighs. “I do not have a disorder , all right? I don’t think I’m fat or anything like that—I know I’m skinny, probably too skinny for most peoples’ tastes. It’s not about that. I simply refrain from food in service of my Trawlerman, as an act of hardship. What about this isn’t makin’ sense?”
Sister Carpenter sighs at that, gazing mournfully at him like she sees right through him. “Are you really doing this for the River’s sake? Or are you just happiest when you feel like some sort of martyr , and this is just one way you can justify your own self-destruction?”
Faulkner blinks. “But—”
“Is this about you, or your god?” Carpenter asks point blank. “Because if you can tell me right now that it’s not just about you and your own personal suffering for suffering’s sake, then I’ll leave it. For good.”
That… That’s… She’s wrong, of course. But for several seconds, Faulkner can’t think of a single thing to say.
Sister Carpenter sighs at that, pushing her plate of fruit forward and her chair back. “Listen, I have to go to the bathroom. You can have the rest of this if you want it, I don’t care. Just make sure you’re in fit shape to do your job, and don’t give me any more headaches than you already do. Okay?”
Faulkner watches her go, brow furrowed in perplexity. How can she not understand? This is his fast, of his own free will. An offering to his god. Why is she so hell-bent on stopping him from doing what he believes is right?
Then his gaze lands on the plate of fruit, and his empty stomach gives a lurch. All right. He’ll do it. He’ll eat the one grape—just the one—just to prove to himself that he can. His eating isn’t disordered, it’s obviously not. He can eat, he wants to eat, he just sometimes chooses not to, as a test of his faith. That’s all there is.
To prove that he has no problem with food, Faulkner leans forward in one quick motion to grab the grape and pop it into his mouth.
It’s a mistake, of course. His resolve should’ve held. As the purple skin pops between his teeth, sending sweet juices flowing over his tongue, he feels… filthy. Wrong. Sickly sweet, somehow, like even this tiny indulgence is too much. He can’t force himself to keep chewing.
Subtly, he brings his napkin to his mouth and spits the mutilated grape-mush into it, wincing at the shining arc of spit that strings for a moment between his lips and the rejected fruit. That’s… disgusting. Oh well. He hides the napkin in his coat pocket and takes a long drink from his glass, silently praying that the clear water will wash away the aftertaste of his moment of weakness.
Mercifully, when Carpenter returns, she doesn’t remark on the missing grape and finishes the whole plate herself.
It’s much later when Faulkner’s resolve begins to waver again.
He’s standing on a dock, peering down into the sacred waters, studying the flurry of life down below. Claws and fins over rocks and weeds, barely visible in the murk. Carpenter is there beside him, watching for something else. But Faulkner feels like he’s the only one truly seeing.
“What’d’ya think they’re doin’ down there,” he asks absently. He’s more appreciating out loud than actually expecting a response, so he’s surprised when Carpenter answers in a stiff voice.
“Feeding,” she says. There’s a pause, and she glances down to actually look at the water for a moment. “Feasting.”
Faulkner follows her gaze, and… well, she’s right. The crabs are a flurry of decomposers, swarming over an indistinct form down there and rending and gnawing and consuming. From something dead, they fill themselves.
It’s only then that Faulkner realizes that the corpse in the stream may once have been human.
A chill goes through him, one that he hopes is made of wonder and religious awe. There’s a person down there, joining the cycle, being transformed by the river. Being transformed into something joyful. Being transformed into a feast.
For the first time, he sees in the Trawlerman a sudden and startling vision of plenty. And it shakes him to the bone.
The image doesn’t leave his head, even when he maintains his fast that evening in the face of Carpenter’s scorn. It doesn’t change him much, at least not at first. Habits die hard. Habits of scarcity are especially hard to break.
But once in a while… once in a while, Faulkner does try. He even orders a stack of thick pancakes once, and Carpenter gives him a quizzical look. (Of course, he ends up feeling awful afterward. Kneeling penitentially in front of the toilet, he makes the decision to bring something up for the first and last time. The experience sucks, and the stomach acid burns in his nose and sinus cavities. He doesn’t do it again.)
But through it all, the revelation remains. If the river is about transformation, about being subsumed into something greater than yourself and used as raw material, then consumption should be a ritual. His own feasting should have ritual significance, just like that of the crabs. And for the first time in his life, Faulkner begins to find that he has both access to enough food and the will to give it to himself.
Martyrdom be damned if the pancakes have chocolate chips.
One day, months down the line, Brother Faulkner glances in the mirror and sees something strange. A soft jaw, and beneath it, the barest hint of a double chin.
Before he can help it, he’s also seeing a smile that borders on blasphemous spread across his face. It only feels so illicit because no part of it is dedicated to the Trawlerman, not even a little bit. The sense of satisfaction belongs totally to him.
Is that wrong?