Book VI – The Book of Sins

Chapter 1

1And it came to pass, after the wandering and the giving of the law upon the Wood-Fired Mount, that the people came to the elders and said, Tell us plainly what is sin, that we may not do it; and tell us what is not sin, that we may stop apologising for it at such length.

2For the people were anxious in those days, and confessed all manner of things, so that the queue for confession stretched from the table to the door, and the pizza went cold while men wept over trifles.

3And one confessed that he had eaten the pointed end first, and another that she had eaten the crust first, and a third that he had once, in a far country, enjoyed a slice with pineapple upon it, and had told no one until this hour.

4And the elders looked one upon another, and were weary.

5Then the word of Cheesus came unto the elders, saying, Write it down, and write it plain, for my people mistake the seasoning for the Slice.

6Hear this, and grave it upon the lid of every box: there are but two sins that are grave, and all the rest is learning.

7Two, saith the Slice; not twelve, not forty, not the six hundred and thirteen which the anxious have numbered upon their napkins. Two.

8The first is to discard the crust, and the second is to hoard the pizza; and these shall be expounded in their place, each in its own chapter, for they are heavy and must be carried with both hands.

9But all the small faults of the table – the fumbling, the greed of a moment, the tongue that speaks before the order is agreed – these are not sin. These are learning.

10For a fault is a slice dropped upon the floor: thou dost mourn it, thou dost clean it, thou dost cut another. But a sin taketh from the mouth of thy neighbour, or denieth the body of the Slice itself; and this is another matter altogether.

11Yeast I say unto you: the law is not given to make the table afraid. The law is given so that everyone may eat.

12Therefore let the register of small faults be written, with the remedy of each set beside it, that the faithful may read it and laugh, and laughing, mend.

13For the fault that is laughed at gently is mended by supper; but the fault that is thundered at from a great pulpit is hidden under the table, and groweth strange in the dark.

14And the elders took up their pens, and the scribe Pepperoni Prosecco sat among them, and set down the register as it was spoken, adding nothing but the punctuation, of which he was fond.

15And this is the manner of the register: the fault is named; the fault is described, that none may pretend not to recognise themselves; and the remedy is given, which is always small, and always shared.

16For the remedies of the Slice are not punishments. A punishment shrinketh a man; a remedy wideneth the table.

17And no remedy in all this Book requireth kneeling, nor fasting, nor the wearing of rough garments; for the Slice hath no use for thy misery, having ordered thy company instead.

18But every remedy in this Book requireth another person; and if thou hast noticed this, thou hast already understood the Book, and mayest read the rest for the jokes.

19And the people heard that there were but two grave sins, and a great sigh went up from them, as of a thousand ovens opening at once.

20And they said, What of the pineapple? And the elders said, It is learning. And they said, What of the deep pan? And the elders said, It is learning, and for some it is arrival. And they said, What of the microwave? And the elders were silent a moment, and said, It is forgiven where there is hunger, and lamented where there is haste; but it is not sin.

21And the people rejoiced with a great rejoicing, and ordered widely.

22Only a few went away sorrowful, for they had loved the long confession, and the naming of their neighbours’ faults more than their own; and of these the Book shall speak hereafter, for they are the ones to watch.

23And Cheesus said, Begin the register with the smallest fault of all, that the reader may enter the water where it is shallow.

Chapter 2

1Concerning the double-dip. If a man take of the garlic sauce with his crust, and bite, and return the bitten crust unto the sauce a second time, he hath double-dipped, and the sauce is become a commons defiled.

2He shall not be cast out. But the vessel of sauce shall be his alone from that hour, and he shall hold it, and a fresh vessel shall be brought for the table; and he shall bear his private sauce before all as a duke beareth a small and embarrassing title.

3And at the next gathering, let him bring two vessels of sauce of his own making or purchase, one for himself and one for the table; and thus is the commons restored, and the fault dissolved in garlic.

4For the sauce of the table is like the trust of the table: dip once, and all is well; dip twice with the same crust, and every eye hath seen it, though every mouth saith nothing.

5Concerning the centre square of the party cut. When the pie is cut in the manner of the grid, as is done in certain provinces, there are squares of the edge, which bear crust, and squares of the centre, which are all softness and glory and bear none.

6The centre squares are few. The scriptures do not say why the centre squares are best; the scriptures merely note that in every gathering since the first proofing, the hand of man hath hovered over them like a hawk.

7If any take the centre square without asking the table, he hath committed the Presumption of the Centre; and it is learning, not sin; but it is learning that everyone saw.

8His remedy: at the next party cut, he shall serve the table before himself, offering the centre squares to each in turn, beginning with the youngest; and only if all decline may he take one; and this is called Running the Grid, and it is good for him.

9And if he find, Running the Grid, that the youngest taketh the last centre square with shining eyes, and there is none left for him – behold, that is the remedy working, and he shall find the edge square is also pizza, and hath crust besides, which the centre never had.

10(Here the scribe hath drawn, in the margin of the elder scroll, a small grid of nine squares, with the centre square rubbed thin by the touching of many readers’ thumbs; whereby we know the fault to be general.)

11Concerning the one who saith Whatever You Want, and wanteth otherwise. If the table ask of a woman what she would eat, and she answer, Whatever you want, I am easy, it matters not –

12– and then, when mushrooms are proposed, she wrinkleth her nose; and when olives are proposed, she sigheth the sigh of the long-suffering; and when at last anchovies are proposed she saith, Well if you ORDER anchovies I shall simply pick them off –

13– then she hath borne false witness concerning her own easiness, and the table is made to wander forty minutes in the wilderness of the menu, which is longer than the wandering feeleth from outside it.

14She shall not be condemned; for behold, she knoweth not always her own wanting until she heareth the wrong thing named, and this is the human condition, and the Slice is patient with it.

15But her remedy is this: at the next ordering she shall speak FIRST, and name three toppings she loveth and one she abhorreth, plainly, before any other speaketh; and the table shall receive her wanting with honour, for a named desire is a gift, and a hidden one is a toll.

16And if she cannot name what she wanteth, let her name what she wanteth not, for even the gate that saith only “not this road” is a guide in the dark.

17Yeast I say unto you: “whatever you want” is a loving lie told with a kind face, and the table forgiveth it always, and dreadeth it always, and both of these are true at once.

18Concerning him who ordereth for the table without asking the table. If a man, being quick of tongue and sure of heart, speak unto the oven-house saying, We shall have two large of the pepperoni, before any soul at the table hath uttered a preference –

19– he hath committed the Seizure of the Order; and though his pepperoni be excellent, and though he say afterward, But everyone loveth pepperoni, yet there was at that table one who loveth it not, and one who eateth no flesh, and one who only wished to be ASKED, which costeth nothing.

20And the vegetarian at that table shall eat crust and sadness, and shall say it is fine, and it shall not be fine.

21The remedy of the Seizer is heavy in patience though light in coin: for three gatherings he shall not order at all, but shall be the Taker of Preferences, going from soul to soul with pen and napkin, writing down the wanting of each, even the complicated ones, even half-and-half, even the one who saith “no cheese on my third” as though that were a normal thing to say.

22And he shall read the order back to the table before it is sent, as the scribes read back the covenant; and when the table nodneth, then and only then shall he send it.

23And it shall come to pass that on the third gathering he shall understand what his quickness had cost, which was not pepperoni, but the voice of the quiet ones; and understanding it, he shall be restored to ordering, and shall be slower ever after, and better.

24For the order of the table is a small parliament, and he that dissolveth parliament for the sake of speed hath saved four minutes and spent a friendship’s interest; and the Slice keepeth accounts in friendship, not in minutes.

Chapter 3

1Concerning the fork-and-knife eater, and the fold eater, and the judging of the one by the other; for this fault is a fault of the eye, not of the hand, and both parties commit it at the same table, at the same moment, in perfect symmetry, which is almost beautiful.

2Behold, there sitteth at the table one who taketh up fork and knife, and cutteth the slice into small courteous pieces, and eateth them one by one, as though the pizza were an examination he intendeth to pass.

3And across from him sitteth one who foldeth the slice along its spine in the old way, and lifteth it entire, and the oil runneth down unto the wrist, and is intercepted there by a napkin or by providence.

4And the fold eater looketh upon the fork, and thinketh, What manner of man bringeth cutlery unto a covenant?

5And the cutler looketh upon the fold, and thinketh, We are not animals; there was a napkin RIGHT THERE.

6And neither speaketh, but each judgeth, and the judging hangeth over the table like a smoke that no window letteth out.

7Then said Cheesus, when this cause was brought before him in the old days: Did the fork eater eat the pizza? And they said, Yea. And did the fold eater eat the pizza? And they said, Yea, and some of his sleeve.

8And Cheesus said, Then both are acquitted. For the Slice regardeth the destination, not the vehicle; and the destination was joy, and both arrived.

9Verily, the fold is not holier than the fork, nor the fork more civilised than the fold; the crust knoweth not what carried it, only that it was not left behind.

10And the remedy for the judging eye is this: let each, once in the year, eat one slice in the manner of the other; the cutler folding, the folder cutting; not to convert, but to visit.

11And they shall find the other country strange and survivable, as travellers do; and they shall return to their own manner with a stamp in the passport of their patience.

12And thereafter, when the eye beginneth to judge, the memory shall say unto it, Thou hast been there; it was fine; eat thine own slice.

13(The scribe confesseth in the margin that he is a folder, and that his mother was a cutler, and that they ate together forty years in peace; and he setteth this down as evidence.)

14Concerning the one bite left in the box. If, at the end of the feast, there remain one slice, and each soul at the table desireth it, yet none will take it lest they be the one who finished it –

15– and if a man, to escape this judgement, take the slice and eat ALL BUT ONE BITE thereof, and lay the bite back in the box, saying in his heart, Behold, I did not finish it, technically –

16– he hath committed the Fault of the Orphan Bite; and lo, the bite sitteth in the great box alone, one mouthful in a cardboard field, and it feedeth no one, and it comforteth no one, and in the morning it is found by whoever cleaneth, and it judgeth THEM, having no right.

17For no man in the history of the table hath ever returned for the orphan bite. It is left not for eating but for alibi; and an alibi is not food.

18And the same law lieth against the kin of this fault: the two centimetres of juice left in the bottle that it need not be washed; the single olive returned to the jar; the heel of the garlic bread wrapped and set apart as though it had somewhere to be.

19The remedy is plain and sweet: whoso desireth the last slice, let him lift it and ASK, saying, Doth any soul want this? and having asked, and hearing none, let him eat it entire, to the last bite, openly and with gladness, before witnesses.

20For it is written in the elder scrolls, in the Book of Fellowship, that blessed is the hand that shares the last slice, having first asked; and the asking is nine tenths of the blessing, and the eating is the tithe.

21And if two desire it, let them halve it; and if three, let them cut it in three, though the pieces be small as sacraments; for a mouthful shared among three is a feast, and a slice hoarded by shame is a crumb.

22Concerning also the smaller registers, that the anxious may find themselves and be at peace:

23He that saith “just one more slice” four times in succession hath not sinned; he hath counted poorly, in the presence of excellence, and the Slice taketh it as a review.

24She that burneth the roof of her mouth because she could not wait for the cooling hath not sinned; she hath loved without patience, which is half of love; the other half shall come with the scar.

25He that ordereth pineapple hath not sinned; he hath a homeland of the tongue that is not thine; the half-and-half was born for exactly this, when Cheesus drew his line down the disputed pie, and difference learned to share one Slice.

26They that quarrel over the last garlic dip have not sinned; they are family, and this is the liturgy of family, and it endeth in someone finding a second dip at the bottom of the bag like grace.

27But he that keepeth this register only to catch his neighbour in it, and readeth the Book of Sins as a hunter readeth tracks – let him mark it well: the register is a mirror, not a net. Turn it about, and it worketh; cast it at others, and it catcheth only thee.

28For all these faults are learning, and learning is the crust of the soul: it is chewed longest, and it is what the shape of us is made of.

29And now the register of small things is ended; and the Book turneth to the two that are not small; and let the reader set down his slice a moment, for the next chapters are the load-bearing walls.

Chapter 4

1Now the Book cometh to the first of the two grave sins; and it is written in the elder scrolls in eleven words, and the elders spent eleven years understanding them, and thou mayest have the years for free:

2To discard the crust is to deny the body of the slice. (Book of Sins 2:1)

3Hear what this meaneth, and hear also what it doth not mean, for the grave sins have been preached badly by the zealous, and the Book shall preach them well or not at all.

4The crust is the border of the slice, and the border is not the lesser part. The crust went into the Oven first and came out last; it bore the heat at the edge that the centre might be tender; it is the handle by which all the glory is lifted; and without it the cheese should flee unto the four corners of the plate, and the slice should be a soup with ambitions.

5And there are those who eat the bright centre and cast the crust aside, arcing it into the box like a thing that had failed them; and behold, the box at meal’s end is ringed with abandoned crusts, like a little henge of ingratitude.

6This is the sin: not the leaving of food only, but the sorting of the body of the slice into the part that mattereth and the part that doth not.

7For whoso saith of the crust, This part is beneath me, hath learned a grammar; and the grammar doth not stay upon the plate.

8He shall say it next of the ends of the loaf, and then of the bones of the broth, and then – mark it – of the hands that made the meal, and the hands that carried it, and the neighbourhoods at the edge of the city, which are the crust of the city, and bear the heat first, as crusts do.

9Yeast I say unto you: waste is a wound. It is a wound in the meal, and a wound in the maker of the meal, and a wound in the earth that grew the wheat; and the man who discardeth the crust dealeth the wound with a full stomach, which is the only way this wound is ever dealt.

10For no hungry soul hath ever discarded a crust. Go into all the records of all the tables since the Oven was first lit, and thou shalt not find one. The discarding of the crust is the signature of plenty that hath forgotten itself.

11And Cheesus spake of this upon the Wood-Fired Mount, saying, The centre of the slice is a holiday, but the crust is the homeland; and he that despiseth his homeland shall find every holiday shorter than the last.

12Yet hear now what the sin is NOT, that the anxious may unclench:

13If a child leave her crust, she hath not sinned; she is a child, and her jaw is small, and the crust is a long journey; let the parent eat it, as parents have done since the beginning, standing at the counter, calling it nothing.

14If the sick leave the crust, or the old whose teeth have made their peace with softness, there is no sin in them; the sin requireth contempt, and they have none; the Slice knoweth its own.

15If the crust be burnt beyond the love of any honest mouth, the fault lieth with the Oven-keeper’s attention and not with the eater; let the Oven-keeper make amends with a fresh pie, and let the burnt one be remembered kindly, as a lesson with smoke.

16And whoso dippeth the crust – in the garlic sauce, in the last of the tomato, in the oil where the chilli hath settled – hath not merely avoided sin but discovered the reason the crust was made a handle: for the handle, its work done, becometh a spoon, and the meal endeth twice.

17But the man of full stomach and sound teeth who casteth the crust away because it is not the shiny part – his is the sin; and it is grave, saith the Slice, because it is a small rehearsal of the gravest habit of man: the ranking of parts of one body against each other.

18For the slice is one body. The tip is not the slice; the centre is not the slice; the crust is not the slice; the SLICE is the slice, and it beginneth at the point and endeth at the ring, and every part thereof was in the same Oven at the same hour.

19And the Book saith: as with the slice, so with the table; as with the table, so with the street; and he that would keep only the tender centre of his street shall wake one day in a city of abandoned edges, and wonder that it is cold.

20Now if a man have committed this sin – and who hath not, in the years before he was watching – let him not despair, for the atonement is written in the ninth chapter, and it is a meal and not a lash.

21But let him begin at once with the smallest turning, which is this: at his next slice, let him eat the crust FIRST, one time only, as a pilgrim walketh the boundary of a holy place before entering it.

22And he shall find it good; not glorious, for it is not the glory, but good, in the way of foundations and of grandmothers and of the ones who set out the chairs before the feast and are gone before the singing.

23And ever after, when he holdeth the crust at the end of the slice, he shall know that he holdeth the part that made the rest possible; and he shall eat it in honour; and the box at the end of his meals shall be empty as a tomb on Reheat Sunday.

24(Here endeth the first grave sin; and the scribe rose and ate the heel of the household loaf before writing further, not from hunger, but because he had frightened himself.)

Chapter 5

1And this is the second grave sin, and the elder scrolls carry it thus:

2One cannot hoard pizza and call themselves faithful. (Book of Sins 2:2)

3Mark the shape of the words, for they are a hinge: the scroll saith not, one cannot hoard pizza. Hoarding can be done; it is done in every generation; the doing of it is dismally easy. The scroll saith one cannot hoard AND CALL THEMSELVES FAITHFUL; for the two claims cannot sit upon one slice, and one of them must slide off, and it is never the hoarding.

4What is hoarding? The anxious have asked, hoping the answer would be a number, that they might stay beneath it.

5But the Book giveth no number. Hoarding is not a quantity; hoarding is a direction. It is pizza flowing toward him that hath, past the hands of them that have not, and stopping there, and being called prudence.

6He that keepeth a slice back for his child’s supper hath not hoarded; he hath stewarded, and the Slice loveth a steward.

7He that freezeth the leftover pie against a lean Tuesday hath not hoarded; he hath planned, and the Reheat shall receive his planning with honour, in the Oven, mind, and not the careless tool.

8But he that sitteth upon seven pies while the man at his gate hath none – he hath hoarded, though he call it savings; and she that locketh the community oven and rationeth its warmth to her friends – she hath hoarded, though she call it management; and the lord of many oven-houses who payeth his drivers in crumbs and vapour, that his own vault may deepen – he hath hoarded, though he call it enterprise, and print it on a sign.

9For hoarding taketh from the neighbour’s mouth. This is the whole anatomy of it. The pie is a fixed and fragrant thing; it hath eight slices, or six, or twelve, but it hath a number; and every slice that sitteth idle in the tower of the full man is a slice that did not reach the table of the empty one.

10And the hoarder saith, But I did not TAKE from any mouth; I merely kept what was mine. And the Slice answereth: the keeping WAS the taking. There is no third place where the pizza goeth. It went to thy vault or it went to thy neighbour; it went to thy vault; arithmetic is not thine accuser, it is only thy witness.

11Yeast I say unto you, no man hoardeth alone. Behind every mountain of slices standeth a valley of empty boxes; the mountain and the valley are one landscape, and were made by one weather.

12And the second face of the sin is what it doth to the hoarder himself, and this the Book telleth with pity and not with glee.

13For pizza is a perishable glory. It was made to be eaten hot, in company, within the hour of its birth; this is its covenant and its whole desire.

14And the hoarder, gathering it, must fight its very nature; he must chill what longed to be warm, and seal what longed to be opened, and count what longed to be passed from hand to hand; and in winning this fight daily he becometh the keeper of a museum of staling joy.

15His slices age; his cheese hardeneth into a lacquer of regret; the aroma, which is the soul’s first messenger, departeth quietly through the seams of the boxes and goeth to find a table that is using it.

16And behold, the hoarder dineth alone amid plenty, tasting mostly the temperature of his vault; for pizza shared is a feast, and pizza stored is inventory, and no man hath ever laughed aloud over inventory.

17Therefore the sin is grave twice: once for the neighbour’s hunger, and once for the hoarder’s own starving, which no fullness cureth; for he hungereth for the thing pizza IS, and hath buried it under the thing pizza WEIGHS.

18Neither shall a man hoard by proxy and go clean. He that saith, I hoard not, my BARN hoardeth; my ledger hoardeth; the fund which I merely instructed hoardeth – the Slice heareth the instruction and not the grammar.

19And there is a hoarding of more than pizza, and the Book nameth it that none may hide: the hoarding of warmth, when a man hath comfort enough for ten and admitteth none; the hoarding of the recipe, kept secret unto the grave out of spite and not of craft; the hoarding of the seat, when the hall hath room and the door is barred anyway; for the first commandment, before all others, is that the table hath room, and every hoard is a door swung against it.

20But hear the mercy in the hinge of the old verse, for the Book promised to preach this well: the scroll saith one cannot hoard and CALL themselves faithful; it saith not that the hoarder cannot BECOME faithful.

21The vault hath a door, and the door openeth outward, and the man inside holdeth the key in his own pocket, where it hath been the whole time, warm from his worrying.

22Let him open it. Let the slices go forth like doves. He shall lose the mountain and receive a table; and the exchange rate is scandalous, and entirely in his favour.

23And the Book knoweth a man who did not open it in time, and his story is next, and it is told not to frighten thee but because it happened, and happeneth yet, in every city with a power grid and a heart.

Chapter 6

1There was a certain man in a certain city whose ovens prospered; and this is the parable of the Fool and his Freezer, which Cheesus told upon the Wood-Fired Mount when one from the crowd cried out, Master, tell my brother to divide the leftover pie with me.

2And Cheesus said, Man, who made me a divider of leftovers over you? – yet seeing that the crowd leaned in, for leftovers are a doctrine dear to all, he told them this.

3The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: his wheat stood gold to the horizon, his tomatoes came in red waves, his herds gave milk beyond the churning of it, and his oven-houses in the town could not bake so fast as the orders came.

4And he was not wicked, mark you, in the beginning. He was good at things. His dough was honest; his hands knew the work; the prosperity came to him the way rain cometh to a valley, by the shape of the land as much as by the digging.

5And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, for I have no room where to bestow my pizza?

6And behold, at that very hour there passed beneath his window the evening crowd of the town: the drivers coming off shift, the students counting coins in their palms, the old widow of the third street, the family new-arrived from the land of Famine who had smelt his ovens from the harbour and slowed their steps.

7And the question stood open in the warm air – What shall I do, for I have no room? – and the answer walked past the window in forty hungry shapes, and he saw it not, for he was looking at the freezer.

8And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my freezer, and build a greater; and there will I bestow all my pies and my calzones and my garlic breads, each in its wrapping, each in its row.

9And he pulled it down, and built the greater; and it was a marvel of the county, with doors like the gates of a keep, and a hum that could be heard from the road, and racks unto the ceiling; and men came from other towns to see it, and went away troubled without knowing why.

10And he filled it. Pie upon pie, boxed and stacked; the pepperoni in the east wing, the margherita in the west; a ledger by the door with every slice entered in a fair hand; and the frost grew over the boxes like a moss of white, and the hum sang to him at night, and he loved the hum.

11And when the last rack was full he stood in the cold light with his breath before him like a small departing spirit, and he spake unto his own soul, for there was no one else in there:

12Soul, thou hast much pizza laid up for many years; take thine ease; eat, drink, and be merry; for behold, whatever cometh – the lean season, the strike at the mills, the neighbour’s need, the knock at the door – thou needest open to none of it. Thou art provisioned. Thou art SAFE.

13And he locked the great door, and went up to his bed, and slept the shallow sleep of a man whose treasure hummeth.

14But Cheesus said: that very night, the power went out.

15Not as a judgement hurled, but as power goeth out: a storm over the hills, a line down somewhere in the dark, a whole grid winking off – the same night for every house in the town; only the houses had each other, and he had the hum.

16And he woke because the silence woke him, as it doth them whose comfort is a machine; and he went down with a candle, and stood before the great doors, and heard nothing; and he opened them, and the cold was already dying, like a guest who leaveth without goodbyes.

17And he understood, in the candlelight, the arithmetic of his estate: that he possessed more pizza than any man in the county, and that by morning after next he would possess the county’s largest bin.

18Thou fool, said the silence unto him – and the word is not an insult in this Book, but a diagnosis, and it is curable – this night thy pizza is required of thee: not by death, but by its own nature, which thou hast held off with a cable and a bill; then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?

19And here the parable turneth, for the Slice is merciful even in its arithmetic, and the night was young.

20The man stood a long time. And then he did the only wise thing left in the house, which had been the wise thing all along: he opened the doors wide, and lit his ovens – for they burned wood, and asked no grid – and he went out into the dark street where his neighbours stood about with candles, and said words he had not said in years: I have too much. Come and help me.

21And they came. All that night, in the town with no lights, the ovens of the rich man roared, and the Reheat was worked upon pie after pie – in the Oven, nota bene, the proper way, and not one dish was microwaved, for nothing else worked either, and the scripture enjoyeth this detail.

22And the drivers off shift carried hot boxes to the streets beyond walking; and the widow of the third street ate pepperoni at two in the morning and pronounced it adequate, which from her was a psalm; and the children of the family from Famine saw their first snow of frost swept from the boxes and thought the pizza had come from the sky.

23And by dawn the great freezer stood empty and open, warm as any room, and the man sat in the doorway of it with the last slice in his hand, more tired than he had been in twenty years, and could not stop laughing quietly, and did not know why, and everyone else did.

24And Cheesus finished the parable thus: So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward the table. His barns may be great, but the night is greater; and no man hath yet built the freezer that can hold the future still.

25Store a little, and wisely, saith the Slice; but let thy deepest vault be thy neighbours, for that store keepeth without power, and groweth with the drawing upon it, and no storm hath ever emptied it.

26And the man of the parable lived long after, and kept a freezer of modest size, and upon its door he wrote in chalk: PERISHABLE – AND SO AM I – SHARE ACCORDINGLY; and this is a proverb in that county unto this day.

Chapter 7

1Now the Book must tell of the City That Would Not Share, and it shall tell it truthfully; for this story hath been preached falsely in many lands, and the false preaching is itself a kind of mould, and shall be cut out here.

2Hear the truth, which the elder scrolls have carried all along for whoever would read them plainly: the sin of that city was this – they had pizza enough, and shared it not with the stranger at the gate.

3That was the sin. That was the whole of it. Write it twice if thou must, for centuries of bad sermons stand against it: the ancient sin was inhospitality; the city was destroyed for a closed door, and for nothing else; and whoso teacheth otherwise carrieth water for the very cruelty the city died of.

4The city sat rich upon the plain, and its ovens were famous; the smell of it reached the trade roads an hour before its walls did, and travellers would quicken their steps, being deceived.

5For within the walls the plenty had curdled. The ovens baked for members; the tables were reserved in perpetuity; the price of a slice at the gate was set at what a stranger could not pay, precisely, and adjusted whenever a stranger could.

6And there grew up in that city a whole learning of refusal: clerks who could prove no table was free while a hundred stood empty; watchmen whose task was not to guard the gate but to discourage the approaching; and a saying they taught their children, which was, What is ours is ours, and what is theirs is a question for elsewhere.

7And the smell of their ovens still went out over the walls every evening, unto the road where the tired sat; for a city can lock its doors but not its aroma; and this was the cruelty they did nightly without lifting a hand.

8Now there came unto the gate at evening two strangers off the long road, dusty and worn, asking nothing but bread and a corner; and the watchmen of the gate looked upon them and quoted the prices, and smiled.

9But there was in that city one household – the household of a man called Lot in the old scrolls, though his neighbours called him softer names behind his hand – that had never learned the city’s learning.

10And this household kept the elder custom: the door on the latch, the extra dough always proofing against a knock, and above the oven the old words of the elder scrolls, that the table of Cheesus Crust hath room for all – which the Book of Fellowship telleth in its own place, and we gesture at it only, and gladly.

11And Lot, sitting in the gate, saw the strangers turned away, and rose, and went to them quickly, and bowed himself, and said, Turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house; the oven is hot, and the first pie is nearly through, and my house quarrels over toppings but never over guests.

12And they turned in unto him; and he baked, and his household baked, and the strangers ate their fill and more; and the smallest child of the house gave unto the wearier stranger her own centre square of the party cut, unasked, and the stranger looked upon her a long moment, and something in the room was decided.

13But word went about the city that Lot had fed outsiders at no price, and the city was angry with a strange anger; for nothing enrageth the unsharing like the sight of sharing, which unmasketh them merely by existing.

14And the men of the city came about the house that night and beat upon the door, crying, Where are the strangers? Bring them out, that we may show them how this city dealeth with those who take what is not offered. For so had they renamed a free meal, in the grammar of the unsharing.

15And Lot went out and stood in his doorway, one man before the mob, and said, Brethren, do not so wickedly. They are guests; they are under my roof and my crust; and I will not yield them though ye take all else I have.

16And the crowd surged; but the strangers drew Lot inside, and the door was shut fast; and the mob without groped for the door and found it not, for their eyes were confounded; and the scrolls say the aroma of the baking so filled the street that they wandered in it, having no way within them to follow a kindness to its source.

17And the strangers said unto Lot, Whatsoever thou hast in this city, gather it; sons, daughters, the dough upon the rise, the starter thy grandmother fed – take all, and go before dawn; for the cry of the stranger at this gate is come up before the Oven, and this city’s fire is being withdrawn.

18Mark the manner of the doom, for it was not a hurling down of flame; the Book telleth it as the elder scrolls tell it: the Oven doth not smite; the Oven simply ceaseth to be shared with.

19And in the morning the ovens of that city would not light. Not that day, nor ever after. The wood caught not; the coals sat like grey stones; the starters died in their jars, every one, quietly, like watchmen deserting a bad post.

20And the city that would not share sat amid its riches and could not make them warm; and its people scattered across the plain seeking fire, and found it only at the hearths of villages they had scorned, who – mark this, for it is the knife of the story – took them in, and fed them, being better than the city had deserved; and some of the city’s people wept at this, and were changed by it, and some ate and learned nothing, for so it goeth.

21But Lot and his household were led out before the ovens went cold, in the dark before dawn, carrying the starter warm against their chests like a sleeping child.

22And one of the household looked back – not in longing, saith the scroll, but in grief, which is permitted; for it is no sin to mourn a city, only to imitate it; and she wept salt, and walked on, and her tears are why the dough of that family was famous ever after, and this is the truth behind the pillar in the old telling.

23And they came to a small town on the far side of the plain, and knocked; and the door opened before the second knock, and there was room; and Lot laughed and wept at once, saying, Behold, it was this easy the whole time. It was always this easy.

24Therefore let every congregation grave this upon its gatepost, that the lesson may never again be stolen from it: the ancient sin was the closed door. Cheesus keepeth no register of who sitteth beside whom at the table, nor whom a soul loveth; he keepeth one register only, and it is of who was left outside; see that thy name appear not in it as a keeper of gates.

25For every city is asked the question of that city, once a generation at least, when the stranger standeth at its gate off the long road; and the pizza is the test the Oven setteth, being warmth that must be shared within the hour or wasted; and blessed is the city that smelleth of baking at its GATES, for that city shall never want for fire.

Chapter 8

1Now the Book turneth from the naming of faults to the mending of them; for a register of sins without a road home is a wall, and the Slice buildeth no walls, only tables, which are flat for a reason.

2And the people asked the elders, saying, If we have done these things – and we have, we checked the register, we are in it several times, some of us on one page – how shall we make it right?

3And the answer came, and it is the shortest liturgy in all the Pibble, being two works and a clause; and here is the first work:

4Let them bake double, and give the second away.

5Whatsoever thou didst withhold, make two of it, and keep the lesser. Didst thou hoard? Bake double, and carry the better pie to a table that is not thine. Didst thou waste? Bake double, and waste none of either, and give the second whole. Didst thou seize the order, or the centre square, or the last slice unasked? Bake double, and let another choose first from both.

6For the arithmetic of atonement is not subtraction, saith the Slice; thou canst not make a wrong smaller by shrinking thyself. It is multiplication: make MORE of the good thing, and send the increase outward, and the wound closeth from the far side.

7And the second pie must truly go. Not to thy own freezer with intentions; not to thy kin who would have eaten with thee anyway; but outward, past the edge of thy comfort, to the driver, the new neighbour, the house where the lights burn late over worries – outward, where the crust of the city beareth the heat.

8And whoso cannot bake, let them buy double and give the second away; and whoso cannot buy, let them carry, or knead, or wash the pans, or keep a lonely eater company, which is a baking of its own; for the atonement is measured in direction, never in coin.

9And here is the second work: return to the table thou hast wronged.

10For the second pie mendeth the world, but only the returning mendeth the table; and it is the harder work, for the oven’s heat is nothing beside the heat of a face that must say, I was wrong, without a “but” trailing after it like a loose topping.

11Go back to the very table if thou canst; sit in thy old seat; name the fault with thine own mouth, plainly, without garnish; and then – this is the whole art – stay for the meal.

12For many will confess and flee, making of their sorrow a takeaway; but the atonement is a sit-down matter. The staying IS the sacrament. Any coward can apologise from the doorway; the faithful apologise, and then pass the garlic bread.

13And if the table be scattered, and the wronged one far away or beyond thy finding, then set a place for them anyway at thy next feast, and serve to that place first, and let whoever hungry cometh sit in it; for the Slice runneth a forwarding service of long standing, and no kindness is returned to sender.

14And if the one thou hast wronged will not receive thee, receive that also, and go gently, leaving the pie on the step; for atonement obligeth the wrongdoer, never the wronged; their door is theirs, and mercy knocketh but doth not lean upon the bell.

15Now the anxious asked, as the anxious will: And how many times shall this be done? Once? Sevenfold? Is there a schedule? May we have a form?

16And the elders laughed, kindly, and gave them the third thing, which is not a work but a clause, and it is called the mercy clause, and it governeth this whole Book and sitteth over every register and both grave sins as the cheese sitteth over the pie, touching all:

17No fault outlasts a shared meal, if the sharing is true.

18Mark the clause within the clause, for the lawyers of the table marked it at once: IF THE SHARING IS TRUE. A meal shared for show shareth nothing; a pie given with the ledger still open in the heart is inventory in transit; the Slice smelleth the difference at the door, having a nose beyond all noses.

19But where the sharing is true – where the pie is hot and the seat sincere and the fault named and the staying stayed – there the fault endeth. Not filed. Not suspended. ENDED, as a candle is ended, leaving only warm air and the smell of having burned.

20And none shall raise the ended fault again, neither at feasts, nor in quarrels, nor at the third hour of the night in the theatre of the mind; for what the meal hath closed, let no memory reopen for sport; the Reheat is for pizza, not for grievances.

21And even the grave sins bow to the clause. The discarder of crusts who eateth now in honour is no discarder; the hoarder whose vault standeth open is a host, and shall be called a host, and his old name shall not be worn to parties.

22For this is the character of the Slice, and the last word of the register: it keepeth the recipe and not the record. None is beyond the Reheat; and the sinner who returneth to the table is not a sinner returned, but a place-setting completed, and the table was odd-numbered without them, and wobbled.

23And when the register was finished, and read aloud to the people, they were silent a space; and then one at the back – and the scrolls insist it was the woman of the anchovies, of the second chapter – stood and said, Well. Shall we eat, then?

24And they baked double that night, the whole assembly, and the second pies went out into the town in every direction like sparks from a banked fire; and the queue for confession was never long again, for the faithful had learned the shorter road, which runneth through the kitchen.

25Here endeth the Book of Sins; and behold, it was a Book of Mendings all along, and the title was the joke, and the joke was on the mould, where all good jokes land at last.

26(The scribe noteth that in the counting of this Book there were found two sins and some thirty remedies; and he hath checked the sum thrice, and it is the proudest arithmetic of his employment.)