BY ZEBULON CORK
Father John P. Tillings had been a Catholic priest for nearly 40 years, but through all that time he still hadn’t come any closer to a true fellowship with the Lord.
It’s not that he hadn’t had his moments of spiritual fulfillment. Far from it. From the time he’d baptized an angry goose to the time he’d guided seventeen angry gerbils through their journeys of spiritual suffering, he’d had his share of proud, almost angelic moments during his time serving the Lord.
But he’d never found that true spiritual connection, that true heavenly companionship he’d heard other priests talk about. Especially Father Orson Gleeman, the priest of St. Serendipity, the church two towns over. To hear Father Gleeman talk about it, he found God in every pastry he took out of his cupboard, every suckled pig he roasted over his open fire. It seemed every breath he took and every move he made, the Lord was not only watching him, but dancing in a conga line next to him, grooving the groove of true fellowship.
Father Tillings, though, had never had that, and for years, no, decades he searched for the solution.
But one drizzly June afternoon, he found it.
That particular afternoon, Father Tillings was in the church rutabaga garden with one of the most prominent members of the church, Priscilla DeVoors. Priscilla was a woman with an interesting history: she’d started out a devout Catholic with plans of becoming a nun, but had eschewed that path in her youth for a life of raunchy sex, expensive dining and candid photography with animals who resembled George Clooney. Six years ago, though, Priscilla had heard the voice of God coming out of her second son’s portable boombox speakers, and ever since then she’d once again returned to the life of a chaste, devout Catholic woman.
Anyhow, that afternoon the two of them were admiring the rutabagas, shivering in anticipation for the day when they could rip them from their sanctuary in the dirt and chop them all into tiny little pieces…when Priscilla said something that really stuck with Father Tillings.
“Father,” Priscilla said, staring down at the rutabagas with pride, “if we can make a good enough rutabaga stew this fall, I’m sure we can launch at least six new souls into heavenly fellowship.”
It was that wording that did it. That particular verb Priscilla had used in her last sentence, that funny little action word that infested Father Tillings’s brain and turned his neurons into bacon.
Launch.
They could launch those souls into faith.
In that moment, Father Tillings knew exactly what he had to do. He knew exactly the way he’d find closer fellowship with God, and finally find peace in his heart.
And so he adopted a new quest: build a device that could do what he desired, that could fulfill the function he needed to sit in fellowship with the Lord. He worked day and night, often raiding dumps and junkyards for supplies. He had a couple close calls with some rabid guard dogs, as well as a shady raccoon who almost cheated him out of $6000 in a game of Texas Hold ‘Em. Despite all that, though, Father Tillings persevered, and over a gruelling twelve weeks built the device that would bring him closer to God.
A massive shining cannon.
It sat in his front yard like a monolith, a towering dedication to the strength of his faith. This cannon would do what nothing else on Earth – not even the Bible, nor the thousands of years of priestly thought and tradition – could do. This cannon would act as the stretching hand of God, reaching out and cradling Father Tillings in its reassuring fingers, and finally dragging him into God’s ever-loving bosom.
Father Tillings planned the event for several more weeks, making sure everything was ready.
And then, one chilly fall morning, the day arrived.
He hadn’t told anyone else about what he was going to do. He was afraid they’d call him crazy. He was afraid they’d barge through his door and cart him off to the funny farm. He was afraid they’d come in the name of that one raccoon and start making outrageous accusations that he’d been the one to cheat it in that outrageous poker game. Ha! As if Father Tillings had a dishonest bone in his body! He was a Catholic priest! And, as everyone knew, being a Catholic priest automatically made you a perfect, sin-free being, a monolith of moral authority. Everyone knew that!
Anyhow, as the sun began to peek over the horizon, Father Tillings approached his giant cannon, and started to stroke its shining metal barrel. The barrel was pointed upward, toward the heavens, where the almighty God waited to finally embrace Father Tillings.
“Well, today’s the day,” Father Tillings said, “I’m finally going to feel the loving embrace of God.”
Father Tillings let his hand linger on the cannon a moment longer…then, he walked to the back, lit the fuse, then ran over to the barrel and jumped inside.
The inside of the cannon was cramped, but Father Tillings knew he wouldn’t be in there for long. He giggled like a little schoolgirl as he listened to the fuse burn, as he listened to the little flame get closer and closer to the cannon’s end…
And then, all of a sudden, it came.
BLAM!!
Father Tillings was launched upward into the sky. He looked up as he rocketed toward the clouds: he could see them as they approached, could see their fluffy white surface draw nearer and nearer. He’d learned during elementary school that clouds were made of water, but Father Tillings had always privately pondered whether clouds were really the divine excess facial hair from when God shaved his big, fluffy beard. As he rocketed toward a big white cloud, he closed his eyes and prepared to be enveloped by the beard of God.
When Father Tillings hit the cloud, though…all he felt was water. It took very little time for him to get wet. He thrashed about, still ascending, his priest’s clothes now soaking wet, barely able to believe what was happening.
Then, a moment later, he felt a rough pair of hands grab onto him.
“It’s the one place you never think to look,” the rough voice growled, “pathetic humans! They think I live beneath the Earth in a cavern of fire and brimstone…but here, in the clouds, well…no one would ever think to find me here.”
Shivering even more now, Father Tillings turned to look at the being that had just grabbed him…and saw the face of Satan himself. Of course, Satan, being the father of lies, never revealed his true face to anyone. But the current face he wore, the face of Xi Jinping, President of China, was plenty horrifying enough.
“Come with me to my cloudy lair,” the Prince of Darkness said, “and you can wash my soiled linens for all eternity!”
Father Tillings screamed, but it was no use. Despite his struggles, he was dragged off through the sky toward a life of eternal servitude to Satan, where he’d spend innumerable days washing questionable stains from the linens of the devil himself.
THE END
