Category Archives: stories

The Vigil

Eddie turned 13 the summer of 1945.  Small for his age, he was given to doubts and anxieties. He worried over the drought which had burned the prairies dry and forced his Daddy to give up farming. He had agonized over World War II.  He worried that the Germans would come to the village and kill everybody.

Most of all, he worried about religion – and God.  God was everywhere, saw everything, knew everything.  The major preoccupation in his life was worrying whether God would notice what he did, or didn’t do.

The stained glass window at the back of church said it all — an enormous open eye peering into every nook and cranny of life.  God kept a perfect record of every  word, every thought, every deed.  If those thoughts, words, or actions were sinful, the only way to have the black marks removed from his soul was to confess them fully to Father William.

In his mind the priest was the great eraser of sins. He imagined his record smudged with many erasures. He worried about whether he had forgotten any sins, and always included “for these sins and any others I may have forgotten I am truly sorry” at the end of each confession. He worried anyway, not completely convinced that this really worked.

Religion wasn’t all bad for him, of course.  Father William had finally pronounced his mastery of the Latin prayers and the rituals of the acolyte as adequate for him to become an altar server.

He felt awed by this honor.  Even the holy nuns were not permitted beyond the communion railings except to clean the floors, dust the furnishings, and arrange the flowers.  Now he would be one of those nearest when the holy mysteries happened.

As far as he was concerned, serving Mass was just about the most important thing a boy could do. He was shocked and offended when some of the other boys played around or  made rude jokes about holy things.

In spite of the pride he felt at being an altar boy, Father William had to scold him for daydreaming while at the altar.  Lost in thought, he would forget to ring the bell or change the book or bring up the water and wine at the right time. Often he dreamed of being a hero in some holy cause like the saints the Sisters told the children about in religion class.

Not long after V-E Day Father William announced a thanksgiving service of “Forty Hours.”  Forty Hour devotions were among the most important of devotional exercises in our parish.

After Mass, the Blessed Sacrament was enthroned high up on the side altar in the big golden monstrance.  The altar was decorated with all the candles and flowers available. For forty hours members of the parish would take turns in adoration, never leaving the church unguarded.

The altar boys had places of honor on kneelers right in front of the altar.  Even though other people would come and spend time in the church, we were the ones  responsible for making sure the church was never empty. They would dress in their  cassocks and surplices, hair combed, hands and faces washed, so that the Lord would be pleased with their appearance.  Father William also checked up on them.  The younger servers took the day shifts and the older boys took the nights.  Eddie looked forward to the time when he would be old enough to take a night watch.

Eddie and his cousin Herb drew the first watch after Mass a little past eleven o’clock. They knew this would be a long hour. They were hungry from having fasted from the night before.

They soon tired of saying rosaries and paging through the devotional books Father William had left for them.  Their knees, though toughened by being servers, were not quite up to the demands now made on them.  Father William had told them they could sit for short periods, but that it was better to kneel.  Suffering would join them to the suffering of Jesus on the cross.

When the clock in the sacristy struck half past eleven, Herb took off.  It took Eddie a while to realize that he wasn’t coming back. He was now alone, the sole protector of the Blessed Sacrament.  He felt the sobering thrill of so great a responsibility.

Time dragged.  The clock in the sacristy chimed the quarter hours. At exactly noon old Mr. Langkammer climbed the stairs to the loft to ring out the Angelus.  But he left as suddenly as he had come without looking into the church.

Eddie prayed with renewed energy, believing that his time of waiting would soon be over.  The next shift would come and he could go home. Eddie could see himself coming home to his own piece of chicken, for today the family would have chicken, and his piece was a thigh.

Quarter past rang out, and still no one came.  Eddie began to feel more and more faint from hunger and thirst.  Half past twelve and 12:45 came and went. There was not a whisper of movement anywhere around the church.  The silence deepened.  He looked up at the statue of St. Therese and recited an Our Father for each of the roses in her arms, then a Hail Mary and even a Glory Be.  The clock ran no faster.

At one o’clock Eddie began to have visions.  He closed his eyes and saw himself lying in front of the Blessed Sacrament, dead of sheer exhaustion.  People were gathering around his emaciated body.

“Couldn’t someone have come to help this poor little boy?”

“What a little hero.   He is now in heaven.  A saint.”

He envisioned them picking up his shrunken body and carrying it away in triumph.  Even Mamma didn’t cry.  She was so proud to have a son who gave his life to protect Jesus in the Sacrament.

A seraphic smile would glow on his face for all eternity.  Boys of every age would flock to become altar boys and emulate the heroic example he had given.  A shrine would be erected in the village and became a place of pilgrimage for all of Canada.  Many miracles were done at his intercession.

Eventually, a more practical vision entered his mind.  Eddie saw himself leaving the church to go across the road to the parish house to tell Father William that he needed to have a bite to eat before hecould go back, or at least a drink of water.

“Who is in the church?”

“Nobody.”

“You have left the church with no one to watch with the Lord?”

“Yes, but…”

“There can be no buts with the Lord.  You will no longer serve at the altar.  You cannot be trusted with the Blessed Sacrament under your care.  And if you ever thought of being a priest, you can forget that dream right now.  You are not worthy.  God would never call you, since you could not watch a little while longer at the tabernacle.  Go home.  Your mother will be very sad when she hears what you have to tell her.  You have broken her heart.  And mine.  Now get out.”

Eddie dared not risk that.  He thought of throwing himself down and lying there until he would be found.  And everybody would feel sorry for poor little Eddie.

But God would see.  God would be displeased and write still another black mark behind his name.  And in the final judgment the whole world would be told of his duplicity right in front of the exposed Blessed Sacrament.

It was after two o’clock when a new shift of servers arrived, warm and sweaty under their cassocks.  Without a word, they took their places.

On the way home Eddie had to run the gauntlet of a swarm of  cousins and neighbors playing ball along the grassy roadway.  More visions.  He saw the ball game stop. The players stood in reverence as he passed, shading their eyes from the glory surrounding him.  The older ones crossed themselves.  With hands still folded in prayer from the long adoration, he passed, scarcely touching the ground.  One of the girls reached out to touch him, then pulled her hand back, feeling unworthy to touch so holy a body.

In reality, they did notice his passage.  “Get out of the way, you stupid little jerk1”

Eddie consoled himself that at home he would be greeted by a solicitous mother. She was sitting on the chesterfield in the corner, paging through the Spring and Summer Eaton’s catalog.  The table was empty. Eddie looked for his chicken.  Where was his piece of chicken?  The kitchen was all cleaned up, the dishes put away.

“I thought maybe you had something with Father William, or the Sisters.”

“No, Mamma.”

“There’s bread in the pantry.  You can use double smear.”

That night Eddie cried in deep bewilderment.  Why was it that he felt so alone in his sacrifice today?  Why had no one else recognized the importance of the responsibility he had taken on?

He finally fell asleep wondering.  Had God seen?  Did God maybe take notice and put a gold star behind his name that day?

 

Roy

WHEN MAN IS BLUE

He stood alone to let the blue go by

And waited half impatiently

For longer than he would dare admit

And yet the blue went on

 

It always passed before

I have always mastered every test

Outlasted some, blasted them or damned them

Until they fell submissive at my feet

 

Why won’t the blue go by

This time

I no longer understand

 

Where is my power to control my fate

Have I lost my grip

I see others fly on ahead

While l am at this intersection

Waiting for the signal to go on

When the blue will pass

And I can go on again

 

I know that blue and other blues

I’ve analyzed them, crystallized them

Written about them

Hung them in my spacious mind to dry

 

And can name all the varied aspect

of their hues in most elegant and scientific words.

 

What’s that you say, my friend

You say I think too much

Seek too hard to understand

Is that not man’s greatest gift

To think

 

What’s that you say

That man is brain but God is love

That God is love and he who lives in love

Will live in God

And God in him.

 

It makes no sense to me

For I’m not God

I’m only man

 

And man is bound to seek his fate

By the sweat of his brow

By the power of his mind

His indomitable mind

His will to succeed

 

Alone he stands against his blue

Around his blue, between his blue

His blue which this time will not go away

 

Not by itself

And so far not by the power of his mind

His powerful mind

His indomitable mind

 

It will not go away

 

What nonsense

All I need is time to sort it out

To let my mind work on it

Until the blue disintegrates

And I’ll go on as I always have before

With my mind in control

My powerful mind

My indomitable mind

 

He knows no other way to break

The sea of blue that will not go away

Not by itself

Not by his powerful mind

His indomitable mind

 

But the blue is his

His prize possession now

 

He owns it

For he is the blue

Himself the blue that will not go away

His mind

His powerful mind

His indubitably indomitable mind

The blue that will not go away

 

 

 

 

Silicon Valley

 

COST OF LIFE IN SILICON VALLEY

Alone in air-conditioned SUV’s the drivers

Pulse through the clogged arteries of commerce

Like rosary beads amid titanic trucks and gargantuan car-carriers

Spewing tons of toxic fumes into an atmosphere heavyladen with sickening smog.

 

They swarm like tenacious ants over the faulted earth

Touching without feeling

Talking without communion

Breathing without living.

 

Their children have never stepped into a fresh cow pie

Or munched sunwarmed carrots from a backyard garden

Walked barefoot through a meadow in dewy dawn

Or gaped in wonder at the Milky Way.

 

Nature lies buried beneath the shuddersome sameness of colorless apartments

Overlaid by pitchblack parking lots of outsized shoe-box megamalls

Leaving only barren hillsides and sterilized lakes

Where once wild things roamed at will.

 

 

 

images from a prairie road

 Images on a Prairie Road

By

James Gerwing

 

A halfburnt house gapes

stupidly at scruffy trees

behind a green field.

 

A church steeple

waits patiently

in the thinning poplar bush.

 

Grey clouds weep unashamedly

on the shoulders of green hills.

Spindly telephone poles

march quietly

beside a thin dirt road.

 

Fat cattle

gorge themselves

in luscious pastures.

 

crows

 

 

                                            CROWS

Greedily

Silently

Methodically

Relentlessly

Two rough-feathered crows

Took their turns at the robin’s nest.

With frightened spurts and alarming cries the robin

Dove at them. They flashed an occasional disdainful glance

Finished the scraps

And

Flew away.

 

 

 

Schnockdurgle #3 Cat Catapult

 CAT CATAPULT CASED BY COPS

By Finkus Frownbottombly

In a classical example of cop cooperation across international boundaries a plot to catapult cats into outer space using backyard technology was foiled in James Bay.

“For the past ten years information has slowly led us to the conclusion that this method of ridding the area of unwanted cats was hatched far away from this quiet neighborhood in James Bay,” said Constable X, whose name could not be released because of international prohibitions against naming police individually in local publications.

Because this reporter has always made it his policy to supply the James Bay Beacon with lucid and accurate reports, he is constantly chagrined by such tactics that keep the public ignorant of criminal activities about which they ought to be fully informed.  Now the truth is finally coming out into the open.  James Bay has suffered the devastation of feral felines ferreting out the last few squirrels, mice, rats, and assorted other benevolent rodents, including termites and cockroaches.

As police rounded up the last of the gang they made a significant discovery as to the identity of the ringleader.  Using a variety of aliases this young man has moved from low rental to lower rental, and was now holed up in the newest building on the waterfront.

Fingerprints and DNA confirmed that he was the long-lost nephew of the noted archeologist, Sir Rodney Schnockdurgle.  He had been taken from his mother’s knee twenty nine years earlier and forced to live in the depths of old growth forests with Big Foot and his family on Vancouver Island, not twenty kilometers from Port Alberni.

Asked about his early life, he shrugged his massive shoulders. “What’s to be said?” he sighed sadly.  “Given my condition could it not be considered that I not be cast into confinement among castaways?”

                                              catapult

Schnockdurgle #2 Penny farthing

Watch out, Motorists of James Bay!

By  Plinkus Bikepennybly

Victoria Police reportedly issued a warning to James Bay residents to watch out for a man on a Penny Farthing bicycle riding erratically around the area of five corners.  They have not come out clearly on exactly who this individual might be, but the description fits none other than our own good little doctor, Sir Rodney Schnockdurgle.

Dr. Schnockdurgle himself was mystified by this unprecedented public statement questioning his ability to navigate the streets.  “I can’t imagine why they are doing this to me,” he wailed.  Without further warning he broke down, as is his wont, in great stentorian sobs that convulsed his tiny frame.  “What is this world coming to?”  I wondered.

 

the bike

Schnockdurgle #1 Dinosaur bone

 

DINOSAUR BONE AT BEACON HILL PARK? 

By  Finkus Downbottomly

 

Reports of the discovery of a dinosaur bone in Beacon Hill Park appear questionable.  However, Sir Rodney Schnockdurgle, a noted archeologist insists that the matter is far from resolved.  Officials are discussing the advisability of closing the park to visitors despite the tripling of tourists to the area after news of the find was leaked to a local radio station.  Many of the business community of the city of Victoria openly support the widest possible dissemination of whatever bits of evidence reaches the surface.  The potential cash cow so near downtown may yet be the saving of the city’s rotting downtown core.

Beyond the barebones revelation, not a great deal can be corroborated as factual.  This reporter spoke to one of the diggers on condition of anonymity.  This worthy gentleman informed us that the find was approximately fifty meters from the surface in a solid rock formation.  He would not elaborate as to whether it was a bone or a tooth, nor would he speculate on the precise nature of the dinosaur.

Dr. Schnockdurgle is clearly impressed.  “I believe we have here a find of great significance.  Such a mysterious relic of the deep past of Vancouver Island is not something to be ignored by scoffers.  I am amazed and frankly angered at the skepticism of the scientific community at the university.  I would have thought . . .”   He was unable to finish his thought.  His broken sobs will haunt me till the day I die.

The mayor of Victoria was unavailable for comment at the time of this writing, but the mayor of Esquimault could not suppress his excitement.   “I am ecstatic.  I really am.”

Folks at the James Bay Beacon laughed their heads off, and now the paper is looking for new volunteers.  Must have a sense of humor.

the bone

 

A Camping Encounter

A Camping Encounter

Our family didn’t do a lot of camping, but we had some friends who spent most weekends  in the woods during the summer and they often invited us to join them.

This time we joined them up in northern Alberta, near Lac la Biche. It was a warm summer evening. We set up our little red seven-by-seven tent at a campsite next to theirs. After getting it all up we barbequed some chicken legs.

It was almost dark by the time we put everything away and walked over to our neighbour’s site for stories and beer. It was pitch dark by the time we turned in. I slept in the middle, my wife, Ruth, to my right, and our seven-year-old daughter Jennifer to my left. At her head slept our feisty little schnauzer, Bertha.

Now, I had been warned that this was bear country and that we needed to put all our table scraps in the garbage bins. Obviously, I forgot. I was awakened well before sunrise to rustling and shuffling nearby. I turned on my big flashlight and shone it toward the table, but all I got was a big white triangle of nylon mesh. I zipped it open and again pointed to the table from which the sound was coming.

Yikes! A family of skunks, squabbling over the remains of our chicken. Mother skunk was very busy pacing around the table while her family of three or four snarled their warning to their siblings to let go of their piece of chicken.

I woke up my wife to inform her that we were under siege, grabbed Bertha and told Ruth to shove her down into her sleeping bag.

“What do we do now?” she whispered.

“Nothing much to do but to wait and be quiet. Just make sure that Bertha doesn’t get out, or we will have hell to pay.”

I had visions of trying to clean up after being sprayed by a skunk. We would likely have to burn the tent, and we had nothing along to do any clean-up job. Every once in a while mother skunk paid a visit close to the tent. She walked around it once or twice. Each time I held my breath, fearing the worst.

After what seemed an hour or more, the sun decided it was time to get the day started, allowing me to see more and more of what was going on. The little skunks finally left the bag. The mother lit into it to get the last few scraps.

Then she decided to check out the tent. She came right up and looked straight at me, her beady little eyes darting from side to side. She stopped about a meter away. I got my pillow ready to shield my face when and if she decided to turn around and give me a jolt of her perfume. She decided not to do that. Maybe she was just there to say thanks for the good meal. She gathered up her brood and went on to her next adventure, leaving me heaving a great sigh of relief. I waited a few more moments and opened the tent flap. “What are you doing. You can’t go out there, can you?” Ruth sounded frantic.

“”Oh, it’s all right. I know a thing or two about skunks. They will not use their weaponry unless they are threatened. They don’t like using it any more than we like to be sprayed. I will move slowly. Mama skunk will tell me which way not to go. She will just let go a little whiff that tells me to stop. And I will go the other way.”

And that is what happened. I could follow her meandering progress to a wood pile and beyond, and then I returned to clean up something I should have taken care of last night. And to thank my lucky stars that it wasn’t a bear sniffing out our site. Lesson learned.