April 11th, 3:40 AM, which is the hour of my clearest thinking and my worst decisions.
The sixth station is a booth. Black steel frame, roughly the dimensions of a phone box, walled on all four sides with cords hung shoulder to shoulder, their plugs resting on the floor along the base like the feet of a congregation. Two orange cords mark the parting where a person enters. Inside there is one warm bulb, and the light coming through the pale cords turns the whole cell the color of old varnish. From outside it is a black object. From inside it is a lantern. This is the only transformation I have ever managed on purpose.
The canopy from the fifth station passes overhead and enters through the top of the frame, so that the booth appears to be receiving something. It is not. I want to say plainly that nothing in this chapel is connected to the supply. The confessional is a box built out of things that used to carry current, and a person who steps inside is standing within the memory of electricity, alone, warm, and heard by no one. That has been my experience of confession as well. Confitere, deinde tace.
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