"Padre, I hate my partner! We fight all the time, but she doesn't want to leave."

"Are you two married?"

"No, we are not, but we've been together for a long time. It's always been a rocky, on and off relationship. Padre, my thoughts are very bad. I'm thinking about hurting her."

"No, Son, don't do that! Hurting is not the solution here. Hurting someone is a sin."

"Yes, I know, but I don't know what else I could do. She's very controlling. Sometimes, she shows up at my work, too, making me embarrassed in front of my workmates . . . There is something else that I have to confess. I met a girl online. She's from China"

"Did you tell your partner?"

"Yes, I did. It was the day before I went to visit my girlfriend in China, and you know what, she got pissed about it and left. I was very happy. Then, I went to China, and I spent two amazing weeks with my girlfriend. She made me forget about her. We visited sites in her hometown in the daytime, and at nighttime, we made love."

"You made love to a girl you've never met before? Before marriage?"

"Yes, Padre. I'm a weak man. She was like an angel. Beautiful black hair, like the night sky. Slim, beautiful legs. And she had made me feel like I was a man just by looking into my eyes with the darkest pair of eyes I had ever seen in my entire life. I was lost in them. I had never felt that before. I felt that we were what we were supposed to be. A woman and a man, coming together and becoming a whole."

"Then, what is the problem? Why do you want to hurt your partner if she had already left?"

"When I returned from China, I opened the door to my apartment, and there she was, staring into my face. Padre, do you watch TV?"

"Yes, sometimes."

"I saw this news about an elephant, once, that had trampled a man to death. They had shown how it happened. The elephant, simply, stepped on its handler's head and smashed it as (if) it was a mere watermelon. My memories of the two weeks that I spent in China was smashed like that man's head when I opened the door. My partner was back and has never left since then, and she has even gotten worse–more controlling."

"Son, as I said, hurting is not the solution here. Do you mind if I talked to her?"

"Actually, she's here."

"Where? Outside?"

"No, here, with me, in the confessional."

"So, she heard everything that we talked about?"

"Yes, Padre."

"Oh. How are you, miss?"

"Oh, no. She can't answer you."

"Why not?"

"Because she can't speak."

"Is she mute?"

"No, Padre. She can only scream and yell and shout, especially, at nighttime. That's the way she communicates"

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. What's her name?"

"Loneliness"

"Loneliness?"

"Yes. Loneliness–of the long-distance dater."