Father Sandy O’Way, Church of St Generic Brand

Okay, here’s the deal, read parts 1 to 3 first then come back here.

Father O’Way – The Early Days 1

Father O’Way – The Early Days 2

Father O’Way – The Early Days 3

Okay, we all good, cat okay, lorry driver found yet, anyhoo, this trilogy has turned into fourthology so there goes the book deal. But look at it like this, if you stick it out to the end you can think to yourself “Today I have done a good deed.” In return for your deed you don’t have to go to church ever again, well not really just foolin’. Let’s face it there will be weddings, funerals and that thing where they poor water on ya noggin and I’m sure there are more but I can’t cope with more than I already know.

Okay, so the story goes, um, hang on just reading the last few paragraphs from episode 3, yeah, yeah know that bit, tell pokies, starts at ten, now I remember.

So ten comes and I head to my least favorite place, a church. As I turn the corner I see the church up ahead and it looks beautiful, restored and tastefully renovated, it was outstanding.

Billy was the gate and shouted “Come on Sandy lets meet Father Bent” and off we go. “So Billy what is it you want me to do today?” I ask sincerely, truly out of character. Pretentious I know, as we walk along the road to damnation, gee, so dramatic Sandy it’s just a friggin church I says to myself as I forgot to add the inverted commas.

“Dunno” says Billy in his usual non-chalant way. Now seeing that my spell checker doesn’t like non-chalant, oh, I see it wants me to put it as one word, fancy that, a spell checker running your life, strange story we are in, hmm. Maybe it isn’t a real word and what’s real anyway. Yet I digress. “Just tag along with me and see what I do today, it’s great you’ll love it” enthuses Billy.

“But Billy” I push bringing us to a halt, the anxiety was palpable like it was something that you could palp, anyhoo “ I don’t believe in God” I confess.

Billy goes pale in the face and dark clouds come over and blackens the sky. The wind starts to roar like a thousand lions, rain lashes our clothes and we are drenched to the bone. Billy rises in the air and revolves to turn and face me as if magic.

[Cut cut cut, Mike the editor here, you have just blown the special effects budget on that scene Mark. We had zero cents to start with now we have minus zero. Mark: Thanks mate, it matters so much to me ennui appears a more preferable option…]
[Billy here Mark, nice lead in, how’s my hair look? Mark: You’re cool dude…]

“Okay Sandy this is how we deal with God here in our church. There is nothing wrong with believing in God, that’s fine as long as it’s peaceful it’s cool. Me and you don’t believe in God, that’s cool too as long as we are peaceful, we don’t shove ours down them they don’t shove theirs down us. Okay, is that clear.” asserts Billy. Wow an assertive speech in a Father O’Way story, what is the world coming to or too but not two?

“Yeah but why be a church at all and for that matter why priests?” I ask sensibly which is incredibly rare.

“If I told you that I’d have to kill you” grins Billy “there’s lots more you need to know and anyway I can’t give away the whole story now can I” frowns Billy.

And yes we had a day to remember for sure. We guide each group to their own individual prayer room, well I was going to say chapel but for all the words that describe a room where people meet and say prayers, to their God, recite ancient texts to each other is a prayer room, okay, all good.

After the service, all the different groups gather under a large marquee where each group provides some food and drink on a giant table for everyone to eat. Not for the groups, it’s for the invited guests first, we serve them, assist them and when their needs are met we eat.

This weeks invitees are the residents of the St Porcine Nursing Home. Its just down the road and round the corner, so we bring them over in buses. Another bus will drive around the streets and ask any of the homeless to come over for a shower, meal and clean clothes. This is complex fiction here, hope you are hanging in there.

It just felt great, not like the taxing wing nut job. Now I’d wish I’d come over with Billy. “Sandy, come over and meet Father Veritas Bent, he prefers just to be called Veri. Now Veri is going to be promoted to Bishop and that means there is a vacancy for a ‘kind hearted boy‘ at the church.” informs Billy. “You would be great, you enjoyed yourself today I can read you like a book…

[Mark: Billy,working on a book but it’s a slow process. Billy: Cheers Mark, good for you]

“…and fancy having a job that is fun and that you can’t wait to start” continues Billy like all good proselytisers do.

But yes, I didn’t look forward to going to work and even though Madame La SpaghettiBolognaise has a genuine heart I didn’t look forward to there either, well not quite, her garlic and mushroom linguine was stunning.

So I met Veri and that’s how the whole thing began. I’m now Father Sandy O’Way of the Church of St Generic Brand, Inner Cyberia.

Billy Bishop holding this months copy of Big and Bouncy[1]

If you haven’t read parts 1 and 2 then this won’t make any sense, not that it does anyway. Dem is here,

Father O’Way – The Early Days 1

and if still brave

Father O’Way – The Early Days 2

We all sweet.

So Billy went and became a trainee priest at the Church of St Generic Brand and we lost touch. Sad actually, Billy was my best mate for years and now I could no longer go home I was all alone. Isn’t sadness a funny thing because if you have never had happiness you won’t know what sadness is. Crikey, that’s a worry, that even made sense anyhoo I’m going to skip sadness and stick with happiness from now on, er, um, whatever that means.

[Mark here Sandy, get on with it, you’re using up the word count]

Darn the truth hurts sometimes. Verbosity was never my strong point, can’t think why, maybe my low literacy skills might have something to do with it but I doubt it. As my English teacher once said, oops, hang on, I never listened to him so lets just drop that one. And if I ever see the truth in one of these stories I will tell you and that’s a lie. You can trust me on that one for sure.

Anyhoo, I got a job making wing nuts in a factory down the road with board and lodgings at Madame La SpaghettiBolognaise’s Commorancy. Its next door to Glenda’s House of Pain and around the corner from the hotel, the Window Dressers Arms Pig and Whistle better know as The Pigs Arms.

The job was really hard, it took peak physical fitness, extreme intelligence and a high level of dexterity and of course I had none of those qualities therefore I was a perfect fit for the job. So you put a nut and a wing together in a machine, push a button and hey presto you have a wing nut. Thirty in one go and watch dem fingers and toes, it’s considered appropriate to fully check each digit before going home, hmm. I think gender may determine that count but lets not go there although I’m finding it difficult to resist.

Madame La SpaghettiBolognaise was a wonderful mother to all us challenged boys and you were able to tell which day of the week it was by the flavour of the sauce, curry, chilli, garlic and mushroom all with pasta de jour but Sunday night was always chicken roast, yumbo. A hearty breakfast and sandwiches and fruit for smoko and it was all ten times better than Sow End High but then again that wouldn’t take much.

Madame La SpaghettiBolognaise took all our wages and gave us some spending money for the weekend, generosity to the max, for sure. Anyhoo, I spent most of my spare time down the park kicking the soccer ball and dreaming about building another robot just like when I was a kid. Then I saw this man approach me in a weird suit, like the one you would get from a weird suit shop but it was a priest, collar and all.

“Gidday Sandy” said the bloke, well I guess he has done his home work. Didn’t you hate that as a kid, come home from school and continue working. Dear oh dear, what sort of world did we grow up in. Anyway I digress which is the only thing I’m good at.

I looked hard at him, so hard in fact that my eyes were hurting. My eyes were telling my brain to go way and procreate but in some other words that may be considered rude. Go on brain think of something to do however my neural pathways returned this message “Unfortunately your operating system is going to shut down. Press any key you like, it won’t make any difference…”  Notice the dots at de end, why day do dat?

I awoke on the ground with my head between a priest’s legs. I was groaning, I could feel this throbbing sensation in my head umm, umm, but is was Billy, Billy Bishop, my best mate. Billy was helping me up off the ground and you thought! well I never. He still had that wicked grin sort of like a Cheshire Cat but not full breed, maybe half-breed that had luckily been run over by a lorry.

“Billy how the sexual intercourse are you?” I cried with joy. Billy looked really well, happy and by the look of him well fed. We hugged and shook hands. This was unbelievable and this is fiction and even I’m believing it’s real, wow.

“I’m great, the church is a fantastic place. Look tomorrow is Sunday, come over, watch the

Sister Horribleness and Father Veri Bent

service and have lunch. It will be a great day out and you and I can talk all the bulldung we like. Starts at 10” says Billy. Notice how the boys are keeping the language down, someone under 45 may be watching this. Believe me this 45 thing is real. One never knows, anyhoo I, um, yep, you get the picture.

“Well Billy, you know that me and sexually intercoursing Church’s was never my strong point” I speak, with tongues, not really but sounds wicked don’t it. And to be honest I never made Churches a point to start with.

Billy pulls out the old grin trick. Apparently your mouth can form into a semi-crescent of some kind and the other apes think you are showing you like them. Even I don’t  believe this.

“Well okay then” I say “but please don’t shove this down my throat and yes it would be great to get together and tell porkies about how great we once were.” I commit.

Laughs all round. We shook hands and Billy headed off to the church which by the way is just down the road and round the corner, just like everything else in Inner Cyberia.

We think therefore we are sand.

Authors Notes:

Comments between square brackets [ ] are usually conversations between the character and the author, or some other character like Mike the Editor. Don’t be alarmed be alert.

[1] Billy has assured me that Big and Bouncy is a basketball magazine, for sure, I mean this is fiction and even I don’t buy that, well not until next time.