Omissions and Interpretations

'Barbara isn't here this morning', Betty told me at Tuesday's mid-morning mass, 'She had a fall and didn't feel able to come. She's staying over at the Day Centre this morning.' 'Oh goodness, once we're done here I'll pop over and see her', I said. Of course I forgot, so tried to give Barbara a call yesterday morning. I had no idea she was quite so deaf: 'I can't hear, you'll have to write a letter', she hollered, and hung up. So I called round in the afternoon. 'I haven't fallen over, how did she get that idea? I'm fine,' she insisted, and certainly didn't look like a nonagenarian who'd taken a tumble. 

That afternoon a warm drizzle descended as we waited to begin a funeral at the church. The deceased was only 49: a gentleman who'd had a variety of vicissitudes in life, and keeled over taking something out of the oven. 'Can we hold on for Oscar?' asked the deceased's brother as a small knot of people loitered in the Day Centre car park, 'He's doing the eulogy'. 'That's fine', I said, having made sure the undertakers didn't mind, 'we can wait a little while'. Regular updates came by phone: Oscar was only coming from about half-a-dozen miles away but making heavy going of it. Finally he arrived: our organist's fingers weren't quite rubbed raw but he'd been twiddling inconsequentially for about twenty minutes by this stage. 'Have you got your words?' I asked Oscar, and was answered with a horrified look. 'I'm not saying anything', he stammered, looking at the brother for support, 'I mean, we talked about it, but it wasn't settled'. Ah. I think the brother pressed something into service that he was going to use at the wake.

It was Church Club that put things into perspective. The story was the Parable of the Lost Coin and the initial puzzle included a picture of the lady in Our Saviour's tale searching her house for the errant currency. Arnie pointed towards the big wooden door in the picture. 'You need a door like that to keep out bad people, like Zombies', he informed me, 'If they tried to get in, they might get splinters.'