All Stories, General Fiction, Humour

Late-Night Theological Breakthrough by Michael Bloor

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The pub had closed, the last bus still hadn’t arrived, the thin drizzle gave way to rain of biblical ferocity. Jimmy stood sheltering in the entrance to the dress shop, like a novelty dummy, while Willie (his tongue loosened by seven pints of IPA) explained about the likely existence of A Deid Agnostics’ Processing Panel.

‘… Now, I’m nae saying Purgatory was an ideal solution. But at least it was somethin’. Before the Pope abolished it, I mean. Same as Dante’s First Circle of Hell for all they good pagans, like Aristotle and Plato. Nae ideal, but better than nothin’. Nothin’ – that’s what we’ve got now. If ye dinna believe in God, but ye dinna nae believe, if ye reckon there might be an afterlife, but yer nae sure, where ye gonna go? Where ye gonna go when ye pop yer clogs, hand in yer dinner pail, turn yer toes up?’

‘Dunno, Willie, it looks to me…’

‘Precisely, ye dunno. Cos there is nowhere that we know of. But that’s not to say there isn’t somethin’. Stands to reason that there might be somethin’. But of course we can’t know for sure. If we did know for sure, we wouldnae be agnostics, would we?’

‘Eh?’

‘Stands tae reason, Jimmy. Keep up, man. If we knew for certain that there wis an afterlife, we’d be strainin’ every sinew to get into Heaven, straight through them Pearly Gates.

‘Er, yeah.’

‘OK. Now, suppose yer a nice wee agnostic, always doin’ yer grannie’s shoppin’, etc, etc.’

‘Uhuh.’

‘And, all-of-a-sudden, Splatt! Yer a jam sandwich, run over by a fifteen year-old joy-rider on the pedestrian crossing outside the supermarket. Where ye gonna go? Ye were a nice, clean-livin’ agnostic, doin’ a good deed fur yer grannie. Where ye gonna go now? St Peter’s gonna bar the gates: ye werena’ a true believer. But ye were one a’ the good guys, like, er, Plato mebbe – it wouldnae be right tae send ye down tae the fiery furnace. And Purgatory’s been abolished. So where ye gonna go??

‘Mebbe to that First Circle ye mentioned?’

‘Och man, that’s just for pagans. Ye’ll nae be wanting to be spending all eternity wi’ a load a’ Ancient Greeks and Romans. Besides, there’s an awfy lot a’ us agnostics, these days. The whole business needs tae be managed properly, processing a’ the newly dead agnostics quickly an’ efficiently.’

‘So how’s it done?’

‘Well, I reckon they’ll have a kinda Deid Agnostics Processing Panel.’

‘In a central office, like the Job Centre?’

‘Aye, kinda. The panel would have all the info in front of ’em, about yer good deeds, fetchin’ yer grannie’s milk and tatties. And also yer bad deeds, like tellin’ that lassie in Blackpool that ye wis playin’ for the Rangers youth team…’

‘… YE BASTARD. Ye put me up to that when I wis pissed. I reckon ye knew somehow that she wis a Catholic.’

‘How could I possibly know that? Never seen her before. I wis ashamed that any friend o’ mine would so mislead an innocent young woman. Pretendin’ to be a footballer, an’ you wi’ two left feet… Anywye, back tae the Processing Panel…’

‘Who’d be in it? Who’d be the members?’

‘Weel, we’re talkin’ about Eternity here. They’d a’ be agnostics themselves, but ye canna expect ’em to sit on a panel fur ever. Wi’ the numbers o’ agnostics droppin’ deid these days, they’d need tae be sittin’ day an’ night. Where’s the fun in that? So each panelist would only serve a set term of office. And his or her fellow-panelists would select a suitable replacement from one of the recent corpses. Shouldnae be a problem: there’s loads o’ famous agnostics: I googled ’em.’

‘Name a few.’

‘Er, Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, Gene Kelly, Sir Edmund Hillary, er, Fridjof Nansen…’

‘Eh?’

‘He wis a famous Norwegian agnostic..’

‘Nae kiddin’.Who else?’

‘Er, Leonardo DiCaprio…’

‘Leonardo DiCaprio? He’s nae deid!’

‘Aye, well, he could be one of the panel replacements.’

In due course, ye mean?’

‘Aye. In due course. There’s an awfy lot o’ livin agnostics, like him. There’s Sting, Uma Thurman… Andy, the barman at The Black Bull…’

‘Andy? He’s just a sort-of-convenient agnostic cos there’s both Rangers and Celtic supporters drink in there.’

‘Well, that’s him bein’ smart, see? Andy’s a smart guy. So, whadya think? Here’s the bloody bus, about bloody time.’

‘Looks pretty bloody full. What do I think? I think they’re awfy smart, they agnostics, but they cannae mak’ up their minds about anythin”

Michael Bloor

Image by Sudarshan Poojary from Pixabay – monotone image of the stairway to heaven with gates at the top – or is it?

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Published by literallystories2014

33 thoughts on “Late-Night Theological Breakthrough by Michael Bloor”

  1. Love this! Irreverent and fun. It’s like The Broons meets Nietzsche! Great dialogue and I can really imagine these pished, old duffers swaying to the booze in their bodies as they have this conversation they’ll no doubt have forgotten by the morning. Great stuff.

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  2. Mick
    That is as a sense making afterlife as any! But agnostics are almost as corrupt as the faithful. Soon enough there will be scandal and bribery. I imagine that a politician winding up with a good board rating will be the first tip off.
    Anyway, very witty and somewhat fitting for both US president election day and Mr. Fawkes day. I might just spend the rest of the day hiding under my bed.
    Another fine work for your rising list.
    Leila

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    1. Ah yes, Leila: afraid you’re dead right. I can just imagine Boris Johnson weaselling his way to a Pass Grade, like Richard Nixon claiming to be a Quaker.

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  4. I found this an entertaining piece of banter on a subject that perplexes even sober academic minds. However, after seven pints of IPA (do people still drink that stuff), I can only imagine the thoughts of heaven and hell are important because you may not wake in the morning.

    My local paper shop keeper answers me with “Ouch, I’m fine. Still above ground.” Just the sort of cheery reply I need at 0730Hrs.

    Of course we all know if you want the correct answer, you need to ask the right question. So do you believe in God? maybe should be replaced with, Does God believe in me? Which ever way it is asked, banter at a bus stop will always irritate the heaven and hell out of other passengers.

    I enjoyed this.

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    2. Given the explanation of heaven from theologians and the popular version of playing harps in robes on a cloud, their version is at least as reasonable. The processing of the dead in Beetlejuice was good.
      We always look for a dark beer, something with a bite. Recently tried three places in San Diego with no luck.

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      1. Change and Decay All Around I See, Doug. It’s pretty much the same in the UK: even many so-called ‘Real Ale’ pubs are serving their beer chilled cos it keeps longer. If you want to drink beer at the temperature nature intended you have to buy bottles (and not store ’em in the fridge). Just sayin’.

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  6. Hi Mick, for an Englishman (I think you once told me that you were originally from Derby when I mentioned Archie Gemell???) You have got a fair hold on some Scottish dialect…More East Coast I think???
    The two left feet line is very clever and open to interpretation for those who know. (Spades folks, spades is where it came from!!)
    I had to say YES! to this.
    In our early days and even the days of ‘Shortbread’ only myself and Tobias appreciated a story that all hinged on one line. Nik and Diane would look at the whole thing so they were ‘maybe’s’ but Adam was always a no! But I still like the one line idea if it is done well, with intelligence or stupidity, it doesn’t matter. I keep going back to ‘Short Straw’ which was all about the last line even though there was so much more to it.
    Overall this is just one of those daft conversations that you end up having eight haufs in. The more you DON’T think about it, the more it makes sense. There was a brilliant Scottish columnist called Rickie Brown who wrote about a conversation he listened to in the pub. His pals, both Celtic and Rangers fans were arguing about god and they came up with the idea that we would know if god was a catholic or a protestant after that Saturdays Old Firm Game. If Celtic won god was a catholic and if Rangers won he was a protestant. Mr Brown finished his column brilliantly by saying – ‘I need to get new pals!!!’
    I suppose in a deeper sense, it does make you think on, ‘I don’t worship, I’ll never fucking worship but surely if there is anything there I’ll be alright as I’m a no-bad person????

    Loved this my fine friend.

    Hugh

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  7. Thanks, Hugh. Writing dialogue is always a challenge for me, especially dialect dialogue as a non-native. Fifty years ago, I married a Highland Lass, but as you know, Highlanders always claim to speak the purest English on the planet. I worked in Aberdeen (east coast) and Glasgow (west coast) and my partner, Doreen’s, an Ayrshire lass. So I’ve picked up a dialect stramash. And, in any case, you still have to bowdlerise the likes of ‘jelly piece’ as ‘jam sandwich.’ Thus, I’m taking your approval as a high compliment.

    Glad you liked ‘the left footer.’ For any that are puzzled: ‘Left footer’ is affectionate Scottish for ‘Catholic.’

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  8. Hi Mick,

    My friend…Not sure if half of Glasgow would agree with your term ‘Affectionate’

    HAH!!!! And not sure what half!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    To emphasise how much I don’t give a shit about all that bigoted nonsense, I once said that, ‘The only thing I hate more than a staunch catholic bastard is a staunch protestant bastard and the only thing I hate more than a staunch protestant bastard is a staunch catholic bastard.’

    I swear this is true – I was asked why I said catholic first!!!!

    I worked in Auchinleck for years and there is a hatred between them and another village less than a mile away, Cumnock. I was asked by a customer, ‘What do you think of those Cumnock cunts?’

    I said, ‘I’m from Ayr, so I don’t understand the hatred. However, my customers are from both places. You think Cumnock folks are cunts and they think you are cunts. You are right, you both are.’

    All he heard was, ‘You are right’

    ‘Gid oan ye big man’ was his answer.

    …Go figure.

    This story was excellent Mick!!!

    Hugh

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  10. Mick
    That settles it. I’m leaving the ranks of the non-believers for the side of the don’t knows, where I belong — pretty likely.
    Your wonderful story reminded me of a scene outside Rockey Sullivan’s in NYC ridiculously early one Sunday morning watching the Celt vs. Rangers Match. The only Ranger fan in attendance was removed onto Lexington Ave. while still sitting in his chair. He may have thought he was still inside the bar because, thank God, the traffic was light.
    Gerry

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      1. Well, Mick. I wasn’t much of a football fan, but if I was Jimmy Cagney himself, I would not root against Celtic in that particular bar expecting to end up anywhere but Lexington Avenue. Just another of life’s simple lessons. — Gerry

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  11. Mick
    It’s worth pointing out in the context of your lively story that Dante placed all his personal enemies (of which he had many) firmly in the realms of deepest Hell, and made the woman he loved (who wasn’t his wife, and who he barely ever met) into the surrogate for Jesus of Nazareth. And John Milton gave Satan many of his own qualities and attributes, like a voyeurism worthy of Pablo Picasso and a mad sexual jealously about the happiness of Adam and Eve.
    “How high that highest candle lights the dark,” wrote Wallace Stevens in one of his greatest poems.
    The situation, humor, dialogue were all excellent in this tale! Also a high intelligence behind the writing pulling the strings. It was interesting how you incorporated all the famous names into the context of the inebriated talker waiting for a bus. The thin drizzle that gave way to a rain of biblical ferocity was a great line, making the setting, along with the bus, say as much as the speaker.
    As Whitman said, “I effuse my flesh in eddies, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun. If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles…I stop somewhere waiting for you…who knows but that I am as good as looking at you…even now.”
    Dale

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    1. Thanks Dale, it must be sixty years since I read Dante (in translation), and when I see the term ‘First Circle’ I’m more likely to think of Solzhenitsyn’s wonderful book than Dante. So I’m happy to go along with your report that Dante was rather petty in his allocation of souls to the different circles. I do remember that he was awful fond of Virgil, so he couldn’t ‘ve been all bad.

      Glad you liked the line about the ‘rain of biblical ferocity.’ Personally, I was best pleased with the following line about Jimmy sheltering in the dress shop entrance ‘like a novelty dummy.’ But I accept that the writer is not the best judge. And I always enjoy your comments.

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      1. Mick
        From what I’ve read about some of Dante’s personal enemies who ended up in his Hell, they belonged there if they belonged anywhere: due to their boastful, grasping, grabbing, greedy natures, not to mention their taste for violence and revenge. Dante was given two options: leave your hometown (now) or be burned at the stake (alive). He quietly gathered his things and slipped out the back door for good, only to pen, in the last 12 years of his life, the greatest single poem that’s ever been penned by any single individual human: by far. Perhaps only Shakespeare can be mentioned in the same breath as poet.
        Thanks also for mentioning Solzhenitsyn, another great hero of the free world and independent thinking! As Neil Young said, Keep on rockin’ in the free world!
        Dale

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    1. Thanks David! Yours and Hugh’s comments about the dialogue are heartening. So I’ll persevere with what I take to be the most difficult task in fiction – writing good dialogue.

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  13. Theological entertainment of the first order.
    Elvis Presley was once asked by a hotel security guard why it was he was wearing a Star of David pendant, a mandala, several crucifixes & other religious symbols, to which Presley replied, “Er . . . well, I don’t wanna miss out on heaven on a technicality”.

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    2. Honestly
      THANK YOU for this hilarious, and telling, story about one of my great heroes that I’d never heard before. His movies from the 1960s are horrible with few exceptions. Aside from that, his greatness is beyond compare, both as person and as musical artist. One thing many folks don’t know about him is that he was a great, and even obsessive, reader, studying the works of Kahlil Gibran for example and even writing profuse marginal notes about his work that add up to a kind of commentary. As a singer, not even Sinatra can compare, and he was still doing some of his best work in this field until weeks, or days, before his death.
      Dale

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      1. Thanks, Dale. I’d quite forgotten that he had to flee into exile. I guess he was entitled to a bit of point scoring. You’ve made me think I’ll look out the book again – any thoughts on which is the best translation? I remember Clive James saying that he learned Italian to read it, but that’s a step too far for an old git like me.

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    1. Hi Mick
      Returning to Dante is a great reading project. Every time I go back to him, I learn more and more. I’ve been reading him for over forty years very much off and on, and I can say that he’s EASY to read, even though I’ve never made it through the whole thing end to end. (The Inferno once, but never Purgatory or Paradise all the way). My 17-year-old twins read the entire Inferno in the John Ciardi translation last year in a humanities class at the public high school, and they, and most of their fellow students, did not have a problem following the story. And it’s really 100 separate stories strung together by a through line, kind of like the Arabian Nights. Every canto = a short chapter, which can also be read on its own as a separate story and it makes perfect sense. Part of what makes it a masterpiece!
      The John Ciardi translation looked pretty good to me. I also like the one by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which is probably the most poetic of any English translation I’ve seen, mixed in with a lot of old-fashioned flourishes and adornments and plenty of stilted language to bog it down in places. Since Dante’s poetry is much like prose from what I’ve read about it, except for the rhyme, which is easy to do in Italian, I think almost any English translation = probably fine.
      The overall plot is superbly simple: Dante goes to Hell and Purgatory with Virgil, and Heaven with Beatrice (and then returns to tell the tale). Dante’s admiration for both Virgil and Beatrice is perhaps the main driving force of the whole thing. One does not need to share Dante’s theology. He doesn’t even ask his reader to do this really. His religion wouldn’t even be considered religion by most religious people. He loves Virgil and Beatrice as much as he loves God (which is what he believes God commanded us to do).
      One of the wildest things about the poem is that Virgil was born 1,200 years before Dante and now he’s hanging out with him as one of the most realistic characters in literature, and Beatrice is behind all of it in ways that only get revealed at the end (no spoiler alert).
      Thanks for asking, let me know what you think of it!
      Don’t know if you’ve ever seen them, but William Blake’s illustrations for the Divine Comedy are mind-blowing, especially the ones in color, as good and wild as anything in Picasso or Van Gogh! These also stand alone as separate, self-contained works, and/or can give one a great idea about the poem without even reading it…
      Dale

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  16. I’ve had similar conversations on the bus, but in a different accent. I could hear this conversation. It would seem indeed that heaven/purgatory/hell would have to be organized, and one well might contemplate where he or she would fall. The first circle for pagans sounds like a pretty interesting place. Maybe I’ve been there already.

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  17. Thanks Harrison. Sorry I was slow picking this up. Perhaps you really have visited The First Circle already. If so, you may well have bumped into pagan Heraclitus, who will have told you that ‘no man crosses the same river twice.’ So alas, you cant go back to the same place. Sorry also to be the bearer of that sad news, but best wishes, Mick.

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