The priest closes his eyes and opens them to a sea of unflinching reds.

It drowns him, and air rushes out of his lungs seemingly just as quickly as the force that brought him there. Some unnamed survival force propels him, forces him to swim upward as the lack of air burns him.

When the priest finally finds himself on the shore, he is stunned.

Bodies line the floor and disappear from the horizon. A symphony of sensations floods his senses, and it repulses him. The air feels humid. The smell of a thousand rotting corpses permeates the air. What could this be, if anything but hell?

This had to be hell, but why would G-d send him here?  G-d wouldn’t, so this wasn’t hell. He couldn’t accept it, but everything told him otherwise.

The priest looks down, as if physically suppressed by the realization. He kneels as if in a trance and clasps his hands together. There is a sickening “give” to the ground, but he ignores it and prays. He parrots the teachings of his teachers, that faith is not a gift to G-d but a gift from G-d. Faith means to him that G-d is on his side, through woe and fortune. Faith to him is the beautiful certainty of him loving G-d and G-d loving him. Faith means to him that everything turns out to be alright in the end; that you do good and good is done to you. Is this the end that G-d had envisioned for him?

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He summons his courage and stands up, for his prayers have answered him. His conclusion is irrational in the same way that faith is irrational, not borne from logic but beyond logic itself. He would have faith that G-d loved him, that G-d was still by his side. In many times of his life, he had resorted to prayer for answers. He had needed the assurance of someone being by his side and acknowledging the value of his existence and his worth in the cruel world. Now, the priest chooses to stick by his reasoning. He chooses to stand by the G-d who stood by him.

Even with this conclusion, the priest cannot help but curse G-d. He cries and laughs, at the absurdity of it all, at his desperation and weakness impeding G-d’s will. He begs G-d to take it back, and for G-d to give him another Purpose. But G-d has a reason, G-d always does, and it is the priest’s duty and honor to carry it out.