CHOWCHOW AND A BRIGHT STAR

What would a man of God do to convert a monkey?

“You’re all right now, Father,” trilled Artemis, “the girl’s on her way to help and she’ll know what to do. I promise. So until she comes why don’t you try to convert our little monkey friend? After all, he seems to be fascinated by the story of the Christ child being born in a stable...”

And that much seemed to be true. Chowchow was still staring at the stained glass window through which the morning sun shone as if it was the star of Bethlehem itself.

“But it’s a monkey!” he protested.

Artemis smiled at him in a way she knew he found irresistible and beguiling.

“Why, Father,” she murmured quietly, “aren’t you always telling us that all of God’s creatures are worthy of our love and care? And isn’t this one of God’s creatures? Maybe a little lower on the evolutionary ladder than the rest of us, but still one of his creatures.”

The Reverend Peter Pringle wasn’t now and never had wanted to be a member of the Catholic clergy and it rankled when he was referred to as Father. But it rankled even more when one of his favourite parishioners started referring to evolution as if it was a proven fact (which, to his eternal shame, he didn't realise that it was) when he had a completely contradictory conviction.

“This monkey isn’t one of God’s chosen people,” he began, “he is a foul and filthy creature, lower than a cockroach! I couldn’t begin to convert him to the right belief even if I lived to be a thousand!”

“But look at him, Father: he is gazing upon the stained glass nativity as if it was speaking to him! Maybe a few words from you...”

The Reverend Peter Pringle wasn’t in the mood for an argument because he was suffering from conflicting forces battling away inside his mind and body until he thought that the whole conflict might send him crackers. To start with, one of the tenets of a faith he’d warped until he believed it was being dismissed as if it was less than a whisper in the wind, and secondly he was getting excited in a physical way by the sincerity he perceived in the woman Artemis’s voice.

In fact, he was being more than excited, he was being aroused.

So he did the only thing he could do. Despite his own prejudices and beliefs he decided that yes, he would discuss high spiritual things with this scruffy primate, and he would do it, not because he knew it would do any good to the creature’s immortal soul because he didn’t know anything of the sort, but because it might represent a route into the affections of this desirable and critical woman who was standing ridiculously close to him.

“Monkey,” he began nervously, “have you thought about your place in the eyes of our Lord? Have you considered his very love for you and the joy in his holy heart when he knows that you also have love for him in return?”

He felt both foolish and brave as he uttered those words, and he glanced at Artemis to check that she approved, and she most obviously did. The smile on her face revealed that much, and it filled his heart with an almost uncontrollable lust.

He returned his gaze to the monkey Chowchow in order to escape the worst effects of his baser instincts, though he had no idea what it’s name was or even that it had one.

“The Lord just needs an acknowledgement from you,” he went on, “just a word or a sign that you acknowledge him and love him.”

This is ridiculous, he thought, expecting a filthy furry creature like that to acknowledge anything more noble than his next meal…

But then something happened. The creature looked up and gazed with curiosity through its huge dark brown eyes at him, and its lips quivered. A strange little grunting noise terminating in a clicking sound came out of its mouth, and he was absolutely certain that the money smiled at him!

“I see,” he whispered, “you might not be a man or any kind of real person, but you do love our Lord...”

“Sally will be here in a moment,” put in Artemis, “when she’s here can I have a word with you, in private, please?”

The Reverend Peter Pringle knew what she meant by a word with him in private because they’d had quite a few words in private before, and those words usually took on a physical form as the two of them, in deep conversation, grew closer and closer together and basic unforgivable instincts deep within him began to surface and he suddenly found himself on the horns of his most perpetual dilemma and on the verge of succumbing to it before she noticed the physical manifestations of it in his trouser region.

“Of course,” he choked, “anything you want, dear lady, anything you want at all...”

“There’s only one thing I want,” she smiled, and then she winked most deliberately.

Chowchow saw the wink and began to wonder if it meant the same here as it did in his beloved forest when a b***h winked at him, and in his wisdom (if that’s what it was) he decided probably not.

The vicar and his parishioners, meanwhile, were drifting ever closer together as though a hidden set of magnets were at work, and just in time to rescue him from an eternity in the pits of hell the door swung open and Sally walked in.

“Oh Chowchow!” she exclaimed, “there you are!”

He looked to see what the interruption was and work out whether it represented any danger to himself, and when he saw Sally his heart soared and he stood up on the pew (which gave him considerable height), and tried to explain in his awkward and inadequate language the pleasure he felt in seeing her again.

Sally beamed at him. “Where have you been, you naughty boy,” she said, and his indecipherable reply sounded almost affectionate to her.

“I’ll take him away,” she said to the Reverend Peter Pringle (who she mistrusted because of the way he looked at her when he was visiting her school and taking religious instruction lessons).

“I wish you would,” nodded the Reverend gentleman, “he seems to like you.”

“Come here, Chowchow,” called Sally, and the monkey made his way, half walking and half crawling along the pew, until he was right up to her.

Then, the moment their hands touched there was a sudden nothingness.

Neither monkey nor schoolgirl were there, though the smell of monkey persisted for hours after they’d gone.

But that didn’t matter because the Reverent Peter Pringle and his parishioner Artemis were soon on their way to a room off the front of the church where they intended to have a deep spiritual conversation.

Or something like that.

© Peter Rogerson 22.11.19