Children offered warm cloths with which to clean our hands before communion. The priest came around and soon the rest of my family had taken communion and had left the church. The priest held up before me, not a communion wafer, but a large tortilla chip.
"Body of Christ," he said.
"Amen," I said, and took the tortilla chip.
He whispered an aside, "You're doing good, son."
I tried to put the tortilla chip into my mouth, but it was too large and most of it crumbled and fell onto the stone floor. The rest of it I chewed, and the sharp pieces made the roof of my mouth bleed. I slipped off the kneeler again and fell, face first, onto the floor.
I looked around the church, and the entire congregation consisted of children. They stared at me in silence. My family waited in the empty parking lot, and wondered where I was.