Mary went to the hospital to have her CT scan. As usual she was a companies by her friend Anne. But she didn’t know that Emile the cat was in Anna’s handbag today.

As you know some women like to have very big handbags but have you never wondered what they are carrying inside these bags?

Annie, they are going to put some iodine into one of my veins, she informed her friend .

Well it doesn’t matter which one they’re putting it into because all your blood circulates around your entire body is it once every 24 hours or is it once a year I’m not sure.

I think you’re thinking about the sun and the earth and the moon which has got nothing to do with the human circulatory system.

Yes Mary I think you’re right I was never very good at science.

And you have no common sense either

How could it take a whole year for the blood to circulates round my body. I would turn into a stone!

I just wasn’t thinking properly I apologize. But why should I apologize because I was born like this… in the lower half of the normal curve for the IQ. God must be very good at statistics.

Oh don’t worry I know what it’s like I’m sure I will say something quite stupid while I’m in the hospital. Doctors seem to bring out the worst in me.

If you feel like that maybe you shouldn’t speak at. After all irs only scan of your kidneys not your brain.

Do you think if you’re having a brain scan that talking will make the scan come out differently? It seems a ridiculous idea to me but you never know is these days especially if you watch Fox News.

Mary lay down on the on the cold metal bed that was part of the CT scanner.

Will it be alright if I put a cannula into your arm, the nurse enquired kindly?

If I say no, what will you do Mary asked

Well it’s not really a question it’s just a form of politeness so we don’t just grab your arm and stick the cannula in as it will be seen as very invasive.

You are in a very powerful position aren’t you as a nurse here before you could ask me a question which I cannot actually give a truthful answer to because I don’t like having cannulas put in. I really don’t want you to put it in but I have read the explanation on the internet and I realised it will better if you do put it in.

You really need to study philosophy and language and many other topics before you could understand these pseudo questions that doctors had nurses and other people may ask you.

Why it’s almost as if Benjamin Netanyahu rang up the new Ruler of Iran and asked him would he mind he dropped a bomb on his home.?

If they did that then they would say it wasn’t a war because the Iranian person had agreed or at least not disagreed when he was asked if he would mind having a bomb dropped on him.

Is it what they call a rhetorical question asked Annie nervously as she stroked Mary’s cat Emile who was in her handbag without permission of the hospital.

I knew I shouldn’t have brought a cat she thought anxiously.

If he meows it will cause a lot of trouble and since Mary can’t see him or touch him it’s of no benefit to her that he is nearby. I must be out of my mind she thought. Don’t tell me I’m getting dementia.

To be continued

The face that was familiar is no more

I gaze into the crowds, but see no sign 

I’m fearful like a child lost on a beach

But no one I see here can I call mine.

The face that was familiar disappeared.

I can’t believe you’re nowhere I can find

And as you are gone my own small self has too

I’ve lost my soul, and I might lose my mind

The face that was familiar is no more.

I cannot see or love you as I did.

I wonder where to walk and where to rest.

My  feverish ramblings do my half wit’s bid

The face that was familiar is no more

And my own eyes with weeping are now sore.

The face that was familiar is no more
Yet in my dreams ,he is alive again
If ,by a chance, his life could be restored
It would affect me like the hidden chord
Which played, my own life force would go.
That one must live and one must die is plain
The face that was familiar is no more.
Yet in my dreams ,he is alive again

The setting  sun reflected hits my eyes

Beautifies the branches multiplied

While daisies bloom in January frost

Deception of the seasons  is a loss

Climate change has made the air too warm

Too soon misguided bees may start to swarm.

We live without a thought until we see

The deaths of summer flowers the bumblebee.

Yet the strange reflections in my eyes

Fill me with that ancient, wild surmise.

Although we long for comfort, stable times

We also long for change though in disguise

Enraged by boredom, tired before the night.

What is the way to gain some new insight?

I think it is  to find a slower way.

In between each breath a moment’s prayer

No need to fight a tiger on the lawn

Or kill the hippopotamus  forlorn

That moment of reflection was so brief

The sun shone  in my eyes, it was no thief.

Jack opened the door and saw his elegantly thin wife Simone riding her bicycle along the pavement without  even holding the handlebars

That is absolutely and utterly wrong, he told her rudely yet patiently.

You are giving a bad example to the cat and to many other people who may be looking out of their windows or driving along this intriguingly bland suburban road

Louisa grinned like a Cheshire cat would

Don’t be  so ridiculous  she cried, cats can’t ride bicycles. Their legs are not long enough

You’re missing the more subtle point that you are breaking the law in a particular way Now the cat or any cat, a dog or a human being may not be able to ride a bicycle but they can break the law.

Well of course they can because we all have free will or we are just too lazy to think she cried merrily.

So if you ride a bicycle along the pavement especially when there are people about you are giving the impression that you do not have any thought for the good of others. In modern terminology you are a narcissist or in Christian terminology you are a sinner although it’s not a mortal sin unless you kill somebody deliberately and wilfully. Who knows who is guilty of mortal sin ?

Don’t ask me I’m only a writer

Oh dear Jack you are so scrupulous. I have never done it before but it was so inviting when I came around the corner I felt like a child. I thought how lovely it will be to ride along the pavement

It’s very sad Jack sald that people see being an adult as a deprivation of pleasure. There are adult pleasures of course that we can’t talk about those in front of the cat can we?

Why not, the little cat wondered to herself. I would like them to talk about is in front of me.

The elderly couple rolled into the sweet little  kitchen on their milk bottle like legs and their cruelly deformed feet and rolled onto the wooden bench behind the kitchen table. But close to the grand piano as well

What are we having for our tea?

Jack said, I found a teapot in the dining room so we can have tea in the pot instead of in mugs with tea bags I think you will enjoy that my dear

I definitely will. I love a nice teapot. And have you made a cake?

I’ve made a lot of cakes but they are potato cakes!

Well my mother used to make those in the 1950s or was it the 1960s ? We still had a coal fire with an oven at the side. Those were the days.

Jack put the potato cakes on the table along with some co-op best butter.

Then little Louisa climbed onto the table and licked the butter with her red tongue.

See I told you that you were leading the cat into sin and now she’s been licking this butter. I will have to throw it away m

A cat can do something wrong but is it a sin?

Are there cats in hell?

But she didn’t see me riding on the pavement, his beautiful  brave wife exclaimed with a subtle yet obvious hint of violence.

Unfortunately the cat has got second sight being half Irish and she definitely did see her mother riding the bicycle along the pavement breaking the law with every turn of the pedals

What the cat was thinking was this:

is doing something illegal automatically a sin and is something legal always good?

The second question is easier to answer because we know that in world war two many things were done in Germany that were legal under their leader Hitler but they were definitely not good to put it mildly

To be plain they were evil

But breaking the law by riding a bicycle along the pavement is not in the list of sins in most Catholic missals

I suppose in the time of the Apostles there were no pavements and there were no bicycles so you would have to look for a general principle.

Give unto Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is God’s

After that Jack got some fresh butter from the fridge and he and his wife demolished the potato cakes along with   some  bacon and egg

And so would all of us

Who would feed the cat?

In the desert grey I walked alone

I was great with child, my heart a stone.

Betrayed by love, who can we trust again?

0 God protect us from the wiles of Man

The stress and strain made my full womb contract

The pains of birth are easy to detect.

Here there is a doctor dressed in black

He has no face, no courtesy no tact

My baby dies, the father is a lack

The doctor throws my baby on a pile

Babies, children killed without a trial.

Hitler’s still around disguised, I’m cold.

Evil runs the world, so mad so bold

I know I too will die unless I leave

Postpartum grief so rarely will deceive

But when I gaze upon his holy face

My baby smiles and waits for my embrace.

Even here in hell there is some good

In the muck and dust of human blood

I do not know where I can walk from here

I walk into the darkness with him near.

Sad and lonely, yet I must go on

I must not fail until my life is done

Why do they sell rock at the seaside?

They can’t sell the sea.

Why is the UK not a republic?

It’s private

Why do we believe in God?

It’s like the vanishing point in Art. It doesn’t exist but we can’t do Art without it

Do children need to learn cursive handwriting?

No it’s easier to teach them to curse by imitation.

Are sausages British?

Only if they have no meat inside.

What are the advantages of a fountain pen?

You can spray ink onto your enemies then write love letters. If you have anyone to love.

Why do we eat ice cream at the seaside?

Because there’s nowhere to boil the cream.

Why did people like to go to Blackpool for the day?

Because we only used to get one day’s holiday a year and we had to see the seaside to buy those rude postcards and scream on the big dipper.

Work is not good for you after all does God work?

He doesn’t answer prayers any more.

I wonder why I m thinking of this now?

https://cafod.org.uk/News/International-news/Oscar-Romero-life-timeline

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Sometimes religious people do what Jesus did and then they are executed
To shoot a priest saying Mass in el Savador a Catholic country is not just murder it is sacrilege
because Catholics believe that the Bread and Wine become Jesus himself
I hope the USA is not on this track

Protest

Violence increased in El Salvador by the mid 1970s, as the government and army began killing poor people who stood up for their rights. When the army killed three people in the village of Tres Calles in Romero’s diocese, he comforted the families and wrote to the President to protest about the murders

Archbishop of San Salvador

Romero became Archbishop of San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. Some rich people were happy because they thought he would stop priests from helping the poor to stand up for their basic rights. But a few weeks later, his friend Fr Rutilio Grande was shot and killed, along with two companions. The following Sunday, Romero allowed only one Mass in the whole diocese – at the Cathedral – where he spoke out against the murders.

Death

In his sermon on 23 March, Romero ordered the army to stop killing people: “In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I beg you, I implore you, I order you, in the name of God, stop the repression!” The next day, a shot killed Romero as he said Mass. A UN report later found that Major Roberto D’Aubuisson, had ordered Romero’s death. Thousands came to the funeral. The army fired into the crowd. 30 people died and hundreds were injured. The civil war in El Salvador continued until 1992

As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

H/Menckin 1920

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/nov/18/michael-morpurgo-war-poets-reason-i-left-the-army-became-writer?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

When Mary got home she tried to find her key but it was nowhere to be seen. Then she remembered that she had another key with her.

I must have dropped it in the cab she thought to herself I will ring them up tomorrow, Emile her large black and white cat ran towards her very fast.

You won’t believe this, Mother..

Emile I have told you before I am not your mother.

Why do you take everything so literally, the cat asked her in a manner that reminded her of the French psychoanalyst Jack Le Con.

If I am on the autistic spectrum she said to him, that might explain it.

Well you have to take a test to see if you are on the spectrum

But I have got comfortable with you  and I don’t want you to change your personality just because somebody says that you’re a bit odd.

Don’t tell me somebody has been spreading rumours about me. Who says I am odd at all depends on the definition doesn’t it? I may be odd in some ways but surely that’s what makes people interesting if they have a lot of differences from  everybody else you know

Well Jesus was very odd and very old wasn’t he ,because God was his father?

Do you think God was my father said Emile ?

I’ll ask him next time I see him said Mary cruelly.

Are you going to see God, can I come with you?

Let me put the kettle on and make some tea and then I will have to get some food out for the supper. Do you fancy some sardines from a tin?

Well I won’t say no to a sardine wherever it’s come from I know that God would never put them into tins

Next time I go to church I will start laughing because they are talking to God as if he is a being from another planet but I will be imagining him on top of a mountain putting a sardines into tins although being on top of a mountain it will be quite difficult to find sardines.

Nothing is difficult for God but he doesn’t sound very practical :I expect some angels would put the sardines in to tins if  he asked them to do that

Here you are said Mary and she put a saucer of sardines in front of the cat while she 🦐heated up a tin of chicken curry from Waitrose,

Around the kitchen she looked with sorrow because if Stan wete alive he would never have used a tin of curry for her dinner. Why am I so bad at cooking? I suppose I’ve never spent enough time doing it and also when you live by yourself it takes away the incentive

The Amazon assistant switched on the radio and they heard the end of the news.

Boris Johnson has an army and they are marching on London from Framlingham Castle because they can’t suffer the Home Secretary any more. When she compared asylum-seekers to insects even Boris Johnson was shocked. And Boris is a very rich man now so soon he will be the King.

Oh that will be very exciting. I believe

I think we’ve had enough excitement here since the referendum what we all want is so hot cocoa and an early night. I hope it’s not too late for that.

But will the citizens of London be able to sleep knowing that Boris Johnson is leading an army from Suffolk although if he meets beautiful women on the way he might take longer to get here. Let’s hope hes not fathering any more children. London is overcrowded already.