St. Mocheomoc Cathedral's bell rang out. The entire town slept through it, all except for the animal inhabitants of Kilcathclyde, that is. They all gathered at 4:00 in the morning for a memorial service for their beloved hero, a cat named Bandit, who had saved the town from a fathoms deep flood that engulfed the citizens for months following a giant earthquake in New Zealand. The non-human townsfolk waddled in, as was the case with the penguins, for example (...they now numbered 4,000 from the original 400 accidentally ordered by Fr. Eric for lat year's St. Mocheomoc Feast Day celebrations. He intended to order only one but the company that supplied all the major movie and television studios' animal requirements had botched the order...) while others crawled in, slithered in, and sauntered in. Some hopped, some jumped, and still others flew. But they all came.
Also present were Elsie the Tarantula, whose life Bandit had literally saved, her boyfriend Timmy the Turtle, their friend Celery, a bright green parrot who was descended from an escaped couple owned by a Victorian animal collector, Sir Ira Codswallop, of the famous south side aristocratic home: Kilcathclydeceltcroftcastle, and, Nettie the Knitting Kitten and her companion Chi Chi, the chihuahua, and Bandit's partner, Ginger, a stocky ginger tabby from Glasgow's south side. The cathedral was buzzing with the talk of Bandit's untimely and tragic death, whisperings of different members of the congregation, such as the Fabulous Four Ferrets who had had apparitions of Bandit and St. Mocheomoc prompting them to give up their mischievous, lewd spelling acrobatics and enter religious life. They had changed the name of their troupe to "Frank and the Four Ferret Franciscan Friars" and had repented, changed their ways and now spelled out verses from the Bible instead. They sat near the front of the cathedral clothed in brown habits and sandals -- all four of them on their knees, praying the Rosary for the repose of Bandit's soul.
ST MUCKYMUCK
Season 2
WRITTEN BY STEVEN GORMAN
WHAT YOU ARE READING IS:
IRRELIGIOUS, IRREVERENT, AND IRRELEVANT.
THE PEOPLE, PLACES, AND EVENTS CONTAINED IN ST MUCKYMUCK ARE COMPLETELY FICTIONAL. ANY AND ALL RESEMBLANCES TO REAL PEOPLE, REAL PLACES, AND/OR REAL EVENTS PAST, PRESENT, OR FUTURE IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.
THE PEOPLE, PLACES, AND EVENTS CONTAINED IN ST MUCKYMUCK ARE COMPLETELY FICTIONAL. ANY AND ALL RESEMBLANCES TO REAL PEOPLE, REAL PLACES, AND/OR REAL EVENTS PAST, PRESENT, OR FUTURE IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.
Among the penguinal parishioners was one poor mother trying to keep her two chicks in line. "Mom, make him stop!" came a little girl's annoyed plea.
"Percival Evangelio Ninnian George Uriel Ignatius Nicholino Penguin, if I have to tell you one more time to stop pulling your sister's down feathers out from between her toes, there'll be no Penguindo Igloostation games for you later today!"
"Nnnnoooo -- Mom, c'mon! I promise, I'll stop!"
"You mark my words, young man," she continued sternly. "And you can add another week to your restrictions."
"WHAT!" the boy protested.
"At the rate you're going now, you're going to be grounded until you get married!" The boy slumped back into the wooden pew with a thump and folded his flippers. His sister stuck her tongue out at her brother but he was unable to retaliate as the entrance hymn began at that precise moment.
"Please stand," said a member of the penguin choir. "And turn to page 4,612 in your hymnal, 'Shall We Gather At the Animal Sanctuary Watering Hole.' Number 4,612." Everyone sang, most of them knowing the standard hymn by heart. The entrance procession alone took four of the nine verses. There were a total of seventeen priests of all different species and religious orders, three altar servers, plus two readers, the cantor, Sr. Edwina Elmore, two bishops, an archbishop, and, finally, Percival, the ancient wizened Emperor penguin who had been present the day Bandit had been swept away by the raging flood waters of Goldilochs Minor.
Percival slowly lumbered up the altar steps and after the hymn was finished, he turned to face the enormous congregation. "As you know, I was with our great saint the day he came to Kilcathclyde." The attendants had gone completely silent. Even Little Percival was no longer tormenting his little sister but was sitting up straight, listening with rapt attention. "It is I who sits on Mocheomoc's lap." He pointed up to the shiny mosaic behind him of St. Mochemoc sitting in his cathedra, a tiny, cute penguin perched on his knee. "It is I to whom our patron whispered the words to a verse of his hymn that makes it possible for anyone who hears it and learns it by heart to live eternally." The silence grew more dense. Little Percival moved to the edge of his pew. Percival the Presider continued, "Yes. It is true. But in all my 1,400 years of living, I have never witnessed such bravery, such courage, such intestinal fortitude as that displayed by our beloved Bandit on that fateful day. I'm happy to announce as we open this memorial celebration for the life of our feline hero that I petitioned the Holy Father, Pope Quivox LXXXVII and he has beatified our Bandit and is quickly moving him toward official sainthood!" There was an intake of breath as everyone murmured their approval of this grand pronouncement. "Yes, yes, for now he is to be known as Blessed Bandit the Beloved. And he is now with our great saint and all the saints, basking in the warm, glorious light of our Lord."
* * *
About an hour later.
A car screeched to a halt in front of the cathedral. "What is going on here at this time of the morning?" asked Bandit. "I'll run inside and see. Mary, Joseph, lend your aid. Let me out of this cage!" They opened the door to the travel carrier and Bandit shot out, though wounded, and bounced out of the car toward the cathedral doors.
"Wait! Bandit!!" yelled Dr. Tatjana. "You've got to be careful. Your leg!!"
But Bandit didn't hear her. He zipped through the vestibule and once inside the nave of the church, found himself in the Communion line. No one heard, as St. Mocheomoc's hymn was being sung so loudly, that every single creature who saw Bandit began to keel over in a dead faint out of shock. One woman shrieked, "It's a miracle! My conjunctivitis infection is completely healed!!" just before she fell sideways into the pew.
Finally, Bandit made it to the front. He turned and looked back, then smiled at Elsie who then fainted into Timmy. He caught sight of the cat and fell the other direction. This drew Ginger's attention who looked down into the pew and then up to the altar into Bandit's big green eyes. He gasped loudly, made the Sign of the Cross, just as his eyes rolled up into his head, and he fell backwards into the pew next to Elsie and Timmy, just as unconscious as everyone else in the cathedral nave and gallery pews.
Bandit turned around and approached Percival who was too old to hear any of the thuds, clanking collar tags, or cries of disbelief. He didn't even notice the organist had stopped playing when she saw Bandit in her rear-view mirror and toppled off the bench. The only one singing now was the resurrected cat, "Pro his specialis lineae praedicare...Et sic ad Quivox pietas declament....Sunt ascendet ad alta maximum." Their eyes met, cat and ordained presbyteral penguin. And at the hearing of Mocheomoc's secret verse, and the realization that the cat knew it by heart, Percival fainted, the ciborium in his hands rolled down the central aisle with a resounding clang.
Ina Mallarky was jogging by in her finest pink sweat suit and matching trainers and with earphones blocking out all except the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever to which she was listening, when the spinning ciborium crossed her path. She tripped, fell forward, hit her head on the lowest step to the cathedral door, and landed on the pavement in a coma.
(c)2012 Steven Gorman. All rights reserved.
