In my world there are many holy virgins and dwarfs with twitchy eyes; and so, here's a story about one of them...
On the altar where the Holy Virgin used to stand was a dark ruin that still smoked hours after the blast had vaporised the statue into dust that the wind blew away to land years later in a some field where it sank into the ground to nourish the flowers that grew there and then were picked and placed on the altar where by now another Holy Virgin stood.
One day, the man who had blown up the first Holy Virgin was released from prison and after making another bomb blew up the Holy Virgin again and was sent back to prison.
The priest who resembled a wino by now and in whose care the statue had been in, set off from his church one fine morning and went to visit the Virgin bomber in his cell.
“He’s in there,” said the guard.
The priest walked into the cell and the door banged behind him.
On entering the cell he found six men in two bunks: one red, one white, one blue, one black, one yellow, and a dwarf.
“Which one is the Virgin bomber,” he asked looking at each of the six in turn.
The dwarf had a twitchy eye and soon turned away from the hard stare of the priest and didn’t say anything.
The yellow man was a Buddhist and didn’t speak English so turned away out of boredom and went to sleep.
“Don’t look at me,” said the blue man in a language no one could understand, “I’m a refugee and am just waiting for my registry papers to go through.”
The black man took out a Jew’s harp and began boinging it and set his eyes on looking to Heaven.
The red man growled.
The priest then looked at the white man who was rolling a thin cigarette.
“Was it you?” asked the priest.
The man shrugged.
“Answer me,” said the priest in a voice not to be denied.
“I don’t like Holy Virgins,” he said and put his finished cigarette in his mouth and lit it with a sliver of a match.
“But why blow them up?” asked the priest, his anger showing through.
“Because they won’t stop talking to me,” said the man puffing on his cigarette and filling the cell with smoke.
“What does the Holy Virgin say to you?” asked the priest with much interest.
“She tells me I’m going to hell to burn forever in the fires,” said the man not looking too happy now.
“Well if you keep blowing them up you just might,” said the priest and looked up to see the other convicts gathered around and listening in on their conversation.
“But she started talking to me months before I blew her up,” said the man.
“Did you ask her why?” asked the priest putting his hands together to say a little prayer and then crossing himself.
The black man crossed himself too but the red man growled. The others just looked on.
“Why are you growling?” asked the priest of the red man.
“White man talk too much,” he replied and growled.
“Maybe you’d like to blow me up,” said the priest and turned back to the white man.
The red man growled again which made the priest uncertain he was safe in the cell so he said another prayer and crossed himself again, the black man following suit, and the red man growling.
“Why do you think the Holy Virgin would say such a thing to you?” asked the priest of the white man who was rolling yet another cigarette.
“Because she’s evil,” said the white man.
The priest began to cross himself once again but thought better of it and reached into his bag for his secret weapon.
“Prepare to be saved,” said the priest and pulled a Holy Virgin out of his bag and set it down on the floor and waited to see what would happen.
The red man growled and crossed himself.
The black man said Hallelujah.
The dwarf fell in love and was saved.
The blue man glowed with a blue light.
The yellow man who was a Buddhist was unconcerned and didn’t know what all the fuss was about.
But the white man was consumed in flames and went straight to hell and was given the job of stoking the boilers which was the hottest job there and the dirtiest because of all the coal dust.
“Well then...” said the priest rubbing his hands together in glee for another job well done. He winked at the Holy Virgin who winked back.
With the story finished, JR Holmsbrooke put it in an envelope to be sent off to be published and just as he placed it with all the other outgoing mail a voice said: “You’re going to hell.”
He looked around, and there on the altar of his life was the Holy Virgin staring back at him.
And so, if there’s a moral to this story it must be: if you write about the Holy Virgin, then write it in someone else’s name.
The end.
Oh-oh...
PS: go with god but leave the religion behind...
Image from Pixabay
