A QUESTION OF IMAGE

A clergyman is curious about the creation of man.

The elderly clergyman, the Reverend Percival Pinkerton, searched in the huge-print copy of his Bible that he kept on the small church of Saint Agnes’ lectern, and sighed. It was well-thumbed, because that’s how he liked it.

He was quite sure it was somewhere in the big book but he couldn’t for the life of him find it. Was it as the end, in Revelation? Or one of the interminable letters from the early followers of his faith to this or that nation or church or chapel or even individual?

He knew it would be there somewhere. He knew he’d read it, how there was a beginning and the deity he believed in with all his mind (or what was left of it) had declared there must be light, and there was light, suddenly, like never befoew. There were bits about the firmament (whatever that might be… he had known once, but couldn’t quite bring it to mind at this moment) and the young naked Adam with a fig-leaf to preserve his modesty. And the lovely Eve. His God had created them as the first man and the first woman, and they both required fig leaves in case someone came along and spotted their naughty bits and pieces. Or maybe it would be dodgy if they saw each other naked… that was probably it. Adam must, at no cost see Eve in her naked glory, and vice verse or their hormones might come to play and then who knows what would happen.

He knew quite a bit about hormones. When he’d been younger he’d been threatened with treatment for them, though he couldn’t remember why.

But back to the Bible. Somewhere in the book it said something about the two first people being created in God’s image. He was sure of it. And Adam was created out of the dust of an empty universe first, complete with all the bits and pieces that the first man might need, as well as a nearby supply of fig leaves..

When he’d been a boy and before he’d seen the light he and Shane Marsh had sniggered about those bits and pieces like small boys often do. They’d even compared notes behind the bike sheds at school, and that had been both amusing and silly. And they’d got to asking each other how big a fig leaf might be on account of neither of them having seen one, and that had caused an outrageous amount of giggling.

Anyway, Shame Marsh had come and gone as friends at a young age often do and Alison Warbles had occupied his attention because she, like him, was fascinated by history, and they had been so close in their debates and discussions that his very religious parents had started worrying, sent a few prayers skyward, and that was where they had started mentioning his hormones when they thought he was getting sinful idea.

There had been one inevitability in those far off days and that was the irreversible fact that when he grew up he’d go to college and learn how to be a clergyman like his dad, and it was at college that his interest in Tudor history in particular had drawn him to Michael Stokes, who replaced Alison when he felt like discussing things of an academic nature that interested him.

Michael Stokes was a bit of an odd-ball, though, because he spent far too much time contemplating personal flesh matters despite Percival’s indifference, and as a consequence of being discovered actually doing something disgusting with himself that Percival couldn’t understand, he was kicked out of college in shame and had to make his way in life outside the world of deep thought and true belief.

The last he heard of him Percival gathered he was making his way up a ladder in the political world.

When he was almost thirty Percival became reacquainted with Alison Warbles, and by that time he had a clerical collar marking him out as special (his own definition of himself). Alison, though, was making her way as a historian writing and illustrating a range of books for children to discover their country’s often inglorious past throughout the Christian era or, to put it more simply, over the last two millennia.

Somehow or other he married Alison and to his own surprise she soon grew large with child, and had a daughter soon after their knot had been tied. They called the child Eve on account of that name representing his opinion of the appearance of the lump on Alison’s stomach from which Eve had magically appeared. Meanwhile, Alson continued with her literary work and her books sold quite well, especially those dealing with the power of both kings and queens to order that heads of critics be chopped off.

His life had progressed in a small way. When their marriage was seven years old Alison went on a personal pilgrimage in search of a reported illegitimate ancestor of Henry Tudor. She told Percival that she might be a long time as evidence was at the best flimsy, hinting that it could be years before she succeeded in he task and for him not to be worried The reality was he never saw her again. She, on the other hand, managed to give Penny, who she left with Percival, two half siblings who she would never meet.

So the Reverend Percival Pinkerton moved quietly to his last position in the church never letting anyone know that he was a married man with an absent wife, and now he was dying. His doctor had let that particular cat out of the bag after examining him. And before he died Percival wanted to find out one thing.

So he made his way from lectern to the front row of pews and sat down before lowering his knees onto a rather worn kneeler and gazing with hope and adoration at the image of his saviour suffering in torment on a cross.

“Please tell me ,sire,” he mouthed, “if you created we men in your image, do you, as we do, suffer from dementia?”

And outside there was a sudden crack of lightning, barely visible where he knelt, and a roll of thunder, but if it was a reply from on high he had no idea what it meant.

© Peter Rogerson, 14.11.24

xxx