“Communion” by Elisabeth Hamilton

A new story by alumna Elisabeth Hamilton (fiction, ’13) appears at [PANK]:

Here’s a story: he goes out to play soccer with a bunch of boys. Three from his grade, the rest from other grades. The boys are late returning, and the teacher locks them out. This is when hitting a kid with a slat of wood ten times in the ass is no thing. And the Brothers (or was it a priest, that time, in Ecuador?) use the cords of their robes, which burn like crazy, though he won’t know this until he’s 14, when he truly thinks he’s invincible, and doesn’t anticipate how a rope will feel compared with the gentle give of wood against his backside.

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