Midnight Mass
by Christopher G.
Meade
William was in
that special state of drunkenness in which the
world becomes mere putty and everything is as you
would like it to be. For obvious reasons, he
needed to urinate, and to him the giant oak doors
and sandstone spire seemed perfectly reasonable
for an inner-city toilet block. William did not
know it, but he was just in time for the sermon.
After much
fussing with a convoluted latch on the
‘toilet’ door, William stumbled in. The
priest looked up for a moment, then continued
droning on at the congregation. William took no
notice of them, for he had already spotted
‘the urinal,’ a little high perhaps;
and made of stone. Luckily, he found a cushioned
stool waiting for him; he stepped onto it
mumbling, “Bloody architects!”
He unzipped
his fly and released a steady stream of amber
into the receptacle.
If you are
familiar with The Catholic Church, you will know
that it is quite a feat to halt a priest mid-sermon,
especially one with both the appearance and
vocals of Vincent Price. There was that deathly
silence in the air which only comes when a large
group of human beings are deciding whether to
posture, flee or kill. When William had finished
he turned around, stepped down from the stool and
gazed suspiciously at the parishioners. They were
shocked, but the prevailing emotion was fear; it
was written on their faces. This was that Devil
they had heard so much about, or at the very
least one of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
But if that was so, what did he have to say? What
message had he come to convey?
“What are
all you ladies doing in the men’s toilets?”
No response.
“Oh well, discretion is the better part of
valour,” said William, as he turned to wash
his hands in the untainted holy water to his
right.
As providence
would have it, there was a white donation box
attached to the wall, near the door. In his
altered state William perceived it to be an
electric hand-dryer. Seeing no button, he began
waving his hands underneath it in all manner of
queer ways, to see if it was automatic. When this
failed, he started banging it with his fists,
cursing all engineers who have ever had anything
to do with electronic hand-dryers. This caused
the bottom of the donation box to fall out, and
along with it came all the envelopes of the more
humble and therefore more generous churchgoers.
“Ah, hand
towels! That’s more like it! I hate those
blowers anyway; they never dry your hands
properly.”
William
stooped down, picked up the envelopes and wiped
his hands with them. There was no rubbish bin in
sight so William, not wanting to risk the $150
fine for littering, put the envelopes into his
pockets before he ambled out the door. The church
lay silent, and it was half an hour before anyone
was sensible enough to call the police. But
don’t worry about William; they never caught
up with him, the Devil looks after his own.
|
