When I was a kid, my parents had what they called the Sin Box.
They were pretty religious, I guess, taking their faith very seriously, and they raised me to have the same kind of respect for the gods as they did. Granted, I might have had a little bit of a rebellious streak in me back in those days, but, overall, I was a dutiful child and respected what they wanted me to believe.
So while it wasn’t often I had to spend any time in the Sin Box, when I would be put there for one offense or another, crying and begging for mercy in my little kid voice, I kept the lesson they were trying to teach me in mind.
One time in particular, it was really bad, but, I guess I deserved it.
I had just come into the house, having spent some time in the woods around our place, carrying some apples I found some distance away. I thought mother would be pleased with my trove, and, maybe even make a little pie out of them for after dinner. We could eat it as father read from his book of scriptures and we could have a nice smile as his words came in his gravelly voice.
Our house wasn’t large, just enough for our family of three. Mother and father had their room, I had one of my own, and then there was the kitchen, living room, and a bathroom that tended to smell really ugly in the heat of the summer. It was all made from wood, hewn from the trees around the clearing our house sat in the middle of, felled by the strong and steady hands of my father, himself. He had, apparently, taken the time over two years to make the place what it was and, even though pride could be looked upon as a sin, according to the scriptures, I sometimes caught a gleam in his eye as he would approach the place he had forged with his rough fingers, even years after.
There were two other buildings in the clearing, made from the same materials. One was a large barn I had helped him build, and the other the Sin Box, itself, which I had no part in making.
That particular time, when I came into the kitchen with the apples, my mother was horrified at the state of my clothes. I had to climb the tree, you see, to get those apples down, since they were just on the edge of being their ripest, and had torn my shirt near the center of my chest on a sharpened branch. I hadn’t even realized it, at first, being so excited at my find, but when I saw the look in my mother’s eyes, that flash of anger and righteousness she shot my way, I cringed in horror, knowing I had somehow fallen out of her favor.
The apples dropped to the floor, rolling everywhere as she grabbed my arm and thrust her finger at my chest, pointing out the rip.
“How did this happen?” she asked, keeping her tone even, but I saw the flash of ire even as the question came out.
My six year old self kicked out the heels of the shoes on my feet, scuffing across the floor with the rubber.
“I was climbing the tree, Mother,” I stammered, the words barely coming out, “and I guess I didn’t see the branch…”
She spent the next hour lecturing me about wastefulness, a deep sin, all the while seeming like she would rather be doing anything else.
Maybe that was true.
She had the book of scriptures in her lap the whole time, tapping it once in a while with that same finger that jabbed my chest, quoting the words of Narana about not letting anything, especially time, go to waste and taking responsibility for the errors of that wastefulness.
When the hour was done, she dragged me, as tears streamed from my eyes and mutters of how sorry I was pouring out just as much, she pulled me to the wooden Sin Box and pried open the door.
The smell in there was strong, and the heat of the summer as it beat down on the wood came out in waves.
I begged, plead with all my little might, to not have to go inside, but mother was adamant. The lesson had to be learned and I had to atone for what I had done.
Looking back on it now, I think there were tears of her own in her eyes, but in those moments I hated her and saw nothing but how much I wanted to run into the woods and never look back.
The door closed behind me and I knew it was useless to try to argue any further.
It stayed dark in there much of the time, the only light in the small, enclosed space from a few modest cracks between slats of wood that let the sun come in. There was just enough room to stand in there, the tightness of it an embrace meant to make you, I think, feel as if the gods themselves were pulling your body into a hug. Maybe that was the case. It’s hard to know how they operate. They are, after all, apart from us, holy things that take their duties seriously.
The scriptures tell of how they care for us, though, and have their eyes constantly upon us, their creations. Their part is to keep us safe, and ours is to give them obedience in all things.
Even with as small as I was back then, there wasn’t room to sit in the Sin Box. It barely gave enough for one to turn around, though if I was careful, I could lean forward and put my head on the far wall and close my eyes, taking rest as I could.
The heat was horrible on that summer’s day, the humidity of our little forest’s distance from the ocean overwhelming. As soon as that door was closed, the temperature started to rise and I sweat like I was in a fever dream.
Hours passed into the twilight of the setting sun and still no one came for me in the Sin Box. I didn’t expect them to, really. Atonement takes time, after all, and what I had done was something near the top of the list of things one can do wrong. All I could do was contemplate, thinking not only of the scriptures my mother quoted to me before being placed in the small space, but others, as well.
Narana was merciful, however, having given us all the information we needed to fulfill what was necessary for his service, and Tikana the Punisher, his bride and pride according to the scriptures themselves was there with me in the Sin Box, chiding me of my wrongs.
This time, however, the Sin Box seemed to have more in mind for me than simply teaching me to do better, and I came away from it much different for it. I’m thankful for it, really, but at the time I didn’t really understand.
I had just finished relieving myself, letting the precious water out of myself and into the funnel built into the splintering wood floor, the scent of old residue wafting up into my nostrils and filling the enclosed space with its headiness, when I noticed the light.
Now, mind you, the sun had already passed below the horizon at that point, Narana carrying with him the lamp that lights the world, and not enough time had passed for his golden chariot to come back again. So, where was the light coming from?
It seemed to be in the wall, itself, starting out as a tiny pinprick and growing larger in just a few moments time. It was white, but tinged with a reddish hue at the edges and, as I stared into it, I became very afraid.
Never, in any part of my young life, had I experienced something like this, the glow of it passing through the empty air of that small space and washing across my dirty, tear stained face. The scriptures spoke of men having visions, and I wondered, is that what was happening?
The light brightened, filling up my whole vision like a reverse tunnel until it washed over my body. My head hit the wood behind me as I started to tremble, fear and dread careening through me. The burst of pain from the strike was strong, but I made no noise as this silent light became everything to me.
I think a seizure struck me, then, as my body completely locked up and my mind froze, teeth gritting down hard enough to crack one of them a bit.
Then, it was all over, ending as quickly as it had begun, the light disappearing with a wink. There, whole and intact one second and gone the next.
I blinked as the black encompassed me once more, the Sin Box taking the place of the light and embracing me with its heat and stink.
One singular word filled my mind as my mouth went agape with awe, causing the pain in my tooth to flare up even more.
Narana.
He had come to visit me in that place of atonement, I was sure of it. He had come and granted me his atonement with his enormous light, letting me know that, though I was a sinner, I was forgiven of it.
I was, truly, his, well and worthy enough for him to come and personally take a hand with.
When mother opened the door the next day, I was filthy and sweaty, stinking of the rot of decay from the septic below the Sin Box and my own odious body, but I was smiling.
She could see it immediately, the way I carried myself out of the box and into her waiting arms. Her look, stern upon the opening of the door, softened as I came forward to her and, when she took me back to the house and gave me the blessed gift of the water, I knew all was going to be okay.
She helped me change out of the clothes and put the ruined shirt into the fire she used for cooking in the kitchen, telling me that all was to be forgotten.
I had paid the price and had been washed clean of my sin and it would never be brought up again by her.
That was the right of things, the way it should be. The gods, after all, are the ultimate judges, as it says in the scriptures.
I spent the day helping mother in the kitchen, weakened from my time in the Sin Box too much to train with father, as I usually would do. That evening, we had the apple pie for dessert after dinner while he read from the book and I smiled, knowing everything was exactly how it should be.
I didn’t have to spend any more time in the Sin Box for a long time after that, though, to be honest, I sometimes thought about doing something incorrect so I could see if Narana would come once more, but I knew better than that. That could lead to disastrous consequences and even incur the ire of the gods.
A couple of years later, father and I were away from the house doing training, as we so often did. Now that I was older, I could be trusted more with the holy weapons, though I was still not allowed to go into the basement area with the shrine to them. No, that precious duty was for father, alone, as the scriptures spoke of how important the man is as head of the house. It is his duty to protect and secure, an extension of Narana’s hands of guidance.
The holy guns he put into my hands were done for me to learn my own place for my future, and I would take them with the reverence they deserved.
I was not as good as father, of course, having less experience in their handling, but I liked the smaller one the best, the righteous way the cool metal felt in my fingers as I stroked it, and the heat it would emit after the bullets were fired. It was magical, those moments with that searing hot pressed against he flesh of my fingers, and I knew, when the time came and the forces of Hokkai the Destroyer descended upon us, as it was prophesied, I would revel in that heat.
The runes etched into its frame would empower that scathing lead spouting from it to rain righteousness upon those enemies of all that is sacred and holy.
Hokkai the Destroyer would know the ire of Narana that day.
When the day was done and father sent me back to the house to cleanse the residue of our training from my body, he told me to take all but one of the holy weapons back with me. That one, a long rifle, he kept for himself.
I told mother he would return later, as he instructed me to do, and made myself clean from the sweat the summer heat in Georgia inevitably brought. Mother helped, of course, though I thought, then, I was close enough to a man to not need it.
Still, scripture demands obedience to one’s parents, even if they are the mother, though she is not the head of a man.
I was given leave to read from the scriptures if I desired and spent the rest of the evening poring over the large leather bound book, hoping to glean something new from its pages.
By the time night had fallen and the last of the candles were lit, father still had not arrived home. That wasn’t too odd, since he sometimes spent time away from the house on his own to think on the scriptures or to complete a hunt for food. The forest around us was filled with game, but some days they were harder to catch than others.
I went to bed, contemplating my place in the world and what Narana might bring into our lives.
The next morning, father still had not come back, and mother was, I could tell, beginning to fret. But she held her peace and did not say anything to me of her concerns, going about her morning cleaning and cooking the meals for the day. I caught her sidelong glances out the window, though, a dark look on her face.
I stayed around the house until mid-afternoon when she called me in for lunch. We prayed and thanked Narana, as was righteous, for the blessing of his meal and ate in the silence that fell afterward.
The crunches of footsteps outside drew both of our attentions and mother dropped the metal fork onto the porcelain as she rose up and ran to the door.
I followed, a little slower, unsure of what the noise might be. I glanced to where I had left the holy weapons against the wall, carefully set aside so father could put them back into their proper places upon his return. I definitely did not want to break the rule stating I am not allowed to go near their retainers.
Mother glanced through the small peephole in the door and gasped. She grabbed the knob and spun it, swinging the door wide with a smile on her face.
I looked past her and saw father approaching the porch, just entering into the shadows it cast across the front of the house. A serious look was pinned on his face as he pulled along behind him a girl, her hands tied with a rope that he carried in his free hand.
She was a little younger than myself, smaller, and had long blond hair. I couldn’t see her mouth, since it was covered by the handkerchief he had put on her lips, probably to keep her silent. Her clothes looked strange to me, not in a dress as I always saw mother in, but wearing pants and a teeshirt with an odd design on it. Pink flowers wrapped with a braid of thorns, of all things.
“Welcome home,” mother said as she stepped out of the house and embraced him in a one armed hug. She barely looked at the girl trailing behind him, though I could not keep my eyes off of her.
Blue eyes. They were so strange to see, as I had never seen anyone with anything other than brown, those being the color of mother and father. My own were brown, as well, from what I could tell by looking into the soft spots of the river that eddied and mirrored the sky above.
Mother took the end of the rope from father and dragged the girl away from the front of the house. I heard her whimper and she gave me a look, something like desperation, as she disappeared from my view.
Father came inside, then, and told me that I was not to speak of the girl. She was not really there, you see, more of a ghost at that time, because she was unclean and needed to be purified, brought into the faith as the scriptures proscribed.
I didn’t really understand it, but father was clear that I was to have no thoughts of her, as thinking about evil is not to be done. I wanted to ask him how he had been able to touch her, to bring her to our space, if she was so evil, but knew better than to voice that kind of thing.
She seemed to pretty, so simple, even with those strange clothes and fiery eyes. How could she be evil?
I heard the door of the Sin Box slam shut, as father gathered up the holy weapons from where I had left them and made his way to the basement stairs.
When mother returned, she was smiling, so I knew everything, though it might have been confusing for me, was right.
I didn’t want to raise her ire by asking her any questions, and father had made it clear I was to keep to myself, so I sat back down and finished my meal, not wasting a drop of the lettuce and beans. That would, after all, be wrong, and there was not room enough in the Sin Box for two.
That night, mother took a candle and a plate of food outside with her, holding the book of scriptures beneath her arms. She didn’t come back in for hours, and, though I was curious about what might be happening, I couldn’t see anything of the box from my window. I heard her creep back inside and go to her room with father eventually. They talked for a little while, but I could not hear the words they said, no matter how much I kept my ears perked.
I went to sleep with the eyes of that little girl in my mind, wondering what was going on, unable to restrain my curiosity no matter how much I prayed.
I think father knew this, and was trying to save me from myself by taking me out the next day into the woods, carrying the holy guns with us as we went. We went far away from the house, and I wondered if mother was going to spend the day teaching the newcomer the ways of faith while we were gone.
Father talked to me of man things that day, as we walked through the woods. We kept as quiet as we could, his soft voice barely carrying through the air as he talked. I think the guns were with us as an excuse that we were going to hunt, but our larder was full and if we did catch something, it would likely end up going to waste.
So we did no actual hunting, but I spent the long day being taught that the man is always the head of the home, but the woman is there to guide and temper him, to restrain him when his anger threatened him into sin or his faith began to shake.
The next month was spent in that way. I would go with father in the morning out into the forest, sometimes to actually hunt, sometimes to fish, and sometimes to work at storing up the wood that would be needed to help us get through the winter months.
Mother, on the other hand, spent much of her time at the door of the Sin Box, speaking to the small girl inside.
I thought how hot it must be inside of there, and crinkled my nose at how much she must stink by that time, knowing how it was after even a day of being trapped in it. Who was she? What was she there for? What had she done that was so evil that she had to be in there for as long as she was?
I prayed to Narana that he keep her safe and, maybe, grant her the same atonement he had given me so long ago.
It helped, I think, because she was finally allowed to step out of the Sin Box.
The day it happened was a day I will never forget.
Father and I stayed home that day. Fall was not too far off and, thought the heat was still oppressive, especially inside the house, he told me that we’d be remaining there to help.
When I asked with what, he told me to wait.
Just after breakfast, which mother had gotten up early to fix, she disappeared out of the house and came back in after an hour, opening the front door wide.
She stepped aside and there was the girl, her clothing barely held together after so long in the Sin Box, and looking so much thinner than I remembered her being. The smell of her struck me hard, already wafting through the house as she came a hesitant step inside.
She smiled a little beneath her blue eyes, but it was weak and she shook a bit as she stepped, so emaciated that she reminded me of some of the dead animals I had spotted sometimes in the woods.
“Welcome, Kara,” father said, a smile on his face. He didn’t approach her, and I kept my seat as the girl gave her wan smile to him, as well.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” mother said as she walked next to her through the living room toward the bathroom. The girl said nothing but nodded, plodding quietly across the wood floor.
“Kara?” I asked father, raising my brows.
He nodded. “That’s her name. Just like yours is James.”
I was shocked at that, because I had never heard the word before.
“James?” I asked, the word rolling off of my tongue. Never before had I heard it, having only been referred to as “Boy,” if they said anything.
“You’ve earned it,” he replied and smiled even larger.
I nodded, understanding the seriousness of what he was implying with his tone, despite the smile. I knew one day I would be given a name, but the surprise of it and the girl being welcomed into our home on the same day was overwhelming and I wasn’t sure how to take it.
When mother brought Kara from the bathroom, she was transformed, the smile on her face genuine and sure, and she tore into the plate of food and water she was given with a gusto I’d not seen before.
“Hello, Kara,” I offered as she ate. “I’m James.” It seemed too weird to use my name, the unfamiliarity of it in my mind not set in yet.
She beamed as father nodded.
“She’s to be your sister, James. She will be here to aid us when Hokkai comes. Do you understand?”
I nodded, though I didn’t really.
It would not be long, though. Hokkai would be coming, of that we were sure, the evil of the world descending upon our little family of four.
Looking back on it, I knew mother and father always had the best thing in mind for us, from the day they brought me to the house bound in a rope of my own. That was my first experience with the Sin Box, and, though it had been so hard to be in there for those long weeks, the days blending into each other unendingly, they were just doing what the scriptures provided them to do.
The time would come, and soon, for the four of us to take up our holy arms and bring righteousness to the forces of the Evil One, Hokkai the Destroyer, in the name of Narana the Creator.
We will be his justice. We will be free.
