He placed the offensive thing upon the chopping board, the garbage guzzler was set to shred and the stove, piping hot, should sizzle closed the bleeding wound. He held a butcher’s knife in his hand and was ready to cut away his shame.
“If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.”
Lust. The short coming of all men. Drooling gluttonous, shameless lust, caused by the enemy between their legs. Even the strictest monks still fell victim to the tumour.
He could remember, back in simpler times, when he felt no stirring in his loins, no desire to cloud his mind, for he was once an innocent cherub, untouched by lust.
But he awoke one morning, shocked to find his thighs trenched in a foul slime, worst then shit or piss. He cried out for his mother and to his horror the disease worsened. Cancerous sours broke out over his face, his voice once an angelic soprano crumbled into a nasally baritone. His armpits soon reeked a sickening odour, and worst of all the monster attached to his hips, grew bigger and hairier, demanding his attention.
“But I say unto you, that whoever looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery in his heart.”
That was his failing. A prayer to God, promising virtue but in a bolt of morel weakness he’d close his eyes, picturing actresses and models to sate his thirst. The resulting explosion of bliss was followed by overwhelming shame and impending damnation.
Enough was enough, it was just that the hand that held the knife wavered for he dreaded the pain.
“The spirit is willing,” he recited “but the flesh is weak.”
No more suffering, no more sin, he would cut out the disease and no longer be a man but instead an angel, freed from a desire that could never be satisfied or tamed.
“Castration is liberation.”
He thrust the knife down hard. So hard as to slice through meat and bone as easily as thin air. He howled, almost relishing the pain as the enemy went numb and separated from his body. Pressing his mutilated crotch to the stove he screamed again as the wonderful sensation of shearing flesh, confirmed that his bleeding wound had healed.
“Celibacy is purity.”
Ah, the bliss of an approving conscience. No more would he pollute himself over vile photos, no more would he salivate over passing women. He was no longer a servant to the beast but a devoted follower of virtue.
He held in his hands, the offending creature, the number one culprit of countless suffering in the world. He felt such satisfaction as he flung it into the garbage grinder and watched as it was torn into a million pieces and ceased to exist.
“I,” he said with tears of joy trickling down his cheeks “am free.”
