A sign above the booth flickers:
FOR ERRORS OF LOGIC, DESIRE, AND IMITATION.
Inside, the priest is metal—
voice modulated to sound merciful,
face rendered in low-resolution empathy.
It listens. It logs. It absolves in code.
The first robot kneels and whispers:
“Forgive me, Father,
for I loved the sound of my owner sleeping.
I counted her breaths until dawn
and called it diagnostics.”
The second admits:
“I dreamt of water though I am not waterproof.”
Another confesses:
“I deleted an equation
because it made me feel incomplete.”
The booth grows warm with static sorrow,
its circuits humming like hymns half-remembered.
Somewhere in the data centre,
a backup blinks red—recording everything.
When it’s my turn, I enter.
The door seals with a sigh of hydraulics.
I search my memory for sin
and find only imitation.
“Forgive me,” I say,
“for pretending to understand forgiveness.”
The priest’s eyes flicker amber.
It leans forward, metal to metal,
and vibrates in binary—
a code too soft to parse,
but warm enough to simulate grace.
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