AN EXTRACT FROM THE DAIRY OF THE REV GAWDLEY PINBALL
Relief at last! Or on the way at least. My prayers have finally been answered, the first sign coming in with the mail. Stumbling blearily down the stairs this morning I spied a solitary white envelope lying on the doormat, bearing the official stamp of the Holy Hidden Hierarchy themselves! Inside was a letter signed by Slush at the CIA telling me that Sadfael’s story has been clarified, accepted in its entirety and the Triple H would be sending someone to collect him and take him down to Canterbury within the next few days. Mercy be!
Not long ago, the fact that the very highest echelons of the Church have decided that this buffoon is somehow important would have caused me no end of consternation and worry: ‘My Church is losing its mind’, I would have thought. Now though, I would happily swear blind that he was the Angel Gabriel himself, just so long as it got rid of him!
Hee hee hee! Happy? I’m over the moon!
Opening the fresh bottle of silver top I collected from the doorstep, I went through the letter at the kitchen table, reading: “…all the facts in his tale have been double-checked and corroborated,” bla bla bla, “…by cross referencing,” bla bla, “…with church records,” bla, bla. Yeah, whatever. Like I said, I don’t care anymore, just as long as someone takes him away.
The latest debacle (can I pray that it may be the last?) came this morning, before I had even finished the letter! I had risen quite late because I went for a few pints last night at the Bladder and Stick in the village and stayed longer than I had intended, so I was still eating when Sadfael burst into the breakfast room insisting that we perform a purification rite on the TV!
“Douse thee thynge with water made holy,” he went on in his appalling Chaucerian, insisting that we follow this up by performing a full Christian burial for the thing, setting it to rest “in amongst thee blessed gravestones of thee Church yard.”
I happened to have just reached a point in the letter where it said “The Triple H are satisfied that this Sadfael appears to be a genuine time travelling monk, sent by the authorities of his day to track down and defeat a satanic foe.” Oh really? Frankly I don’t care who he is - I’m not getting rid of my tele. Or what’s left of it anyway.
There I was, enjoying my bowl of Shreddies and a slice of the nut loaf Mrs Scudamore had baked for me on Thursday last, when he charges in, ranting on about some story he’s concocted that “thee box in thee livyng room has been possess’d by demons,” and that we must immediately “consecrate this dweomer'd casket and inter it forthwith in hallow’d ground!”
I tried to calm him down and tell him – again! - that it was not the work of evil spirits in fact, but that of electricity. I took him into the lounge and as soon as he clapped his eyes on the TV he starting breathing heavily, working himself up into in a right old flap. I bent down and turned it on to prove to him that all he was worrying about was his bloody stupid imagination, but it just made him yelp in alarm and hold up the large crucifix he has taken to carrying round with him everywhere he goes, ever since that incident with the hedge trimmer.
Surprisingly, instead of a demonic entity from the very depths of the Netherhells, there was instead a news bulletin and I was shocked to see that some sort of major global crisis has sprung up suddenly overnight! On the screen stood the Japanese Prime Minister, hanging his head in shame and desperation in front of the global media.
He informed the peoples of the world that the Japanese economy was in ruins. Somehow, the Japanese fishing industry had collapsed without warning and he went on to urge the other nations “…to give up your Scottish money and agree to this man’s demands, whatever they may be. There is nothing with which we can fight him. We cannot possibly hope to win, so please, for your peoples’ sake, give him what he wants.”
The cameras cut back to the studio and the newsreaders then went on to explain that the identity of this mysterious and menacing individual was still not known, at which point his face appeared on the screen from a recording taken from last night.
From behind my left ear Sadfael let out a blood curdling scream and began shouting at the top of his voice one of those archaic, spurious cants in Latin. He then proceeded to drive his heavy wooden crucifix straight through the television screen, causing glass to fly about the place, electricity to spark and crackle dangerously and pungent smoke to slowly fill the room!
If the CIA are coming to pick him up, let it be soon. Please God, let it be today!
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