© Denis Fitzpatrick, 2015
Elijah was seriously tempted to give himself a good kick when he discovered that the kitten which had adopted him and his family was actually a lady. This was discovered when she gave birth to kittens of her own. Naturally Elijah and all of his family were delighted with these cute, furry additions. They also all knew, however, that they were a burden, financially and otherwise, more so in the motor home they were travelling Aus in, the motor home not being as big as it first appeared. One of those kittens could well get underfoot at the wrong time and cause a nasty fall. Yep, they were all agreed that the kittens had to go. They would have to be surrendered to the nearest AuSPCA and may God have mercy on them.
Luckily they were in the large but still
country Ballarat and there was an AuSPCA shelter. They gave Lucy, formerly
Luke, or Lukey, two weeks with her six young, but when that time was over
everyone involved was very upset about having to break up the family. It had to
be done. They all turned up to the local AuSPCA wanting to get the whole thing
over with as quickly as possible.
The AuSPCA, despite their pleas, couldn’t
help. They were full. It was a few days after Valentine’s Day and they were
bursting with unwanted puppies and kittens. For some reason this year’s
Valentine’s, 2014, was worse than usual for them. In fact they were so full
that most of their staff had taken some of the wee fellows home.
When they had all returned home with the
kittens, and deposited them with their mother, they all instinctively moved to
the kitchen table in order to come up with a plan to avoid feeding this new
family. Their own family could only afford the one pet.
‘Well,’ opened Elijah, ‘we can’t really
look after this family and we can’t just abandon them. Have you met anyone, Blanche,
in this park who would be willing to take them?’
‘Not really, Dad,’ replied Elijah’s
daughter. ‘There is an old lady I met, who told me she’s living here on the
proceeds of some rental properties in Sydney. She has a cat of her own but
she’s also always been drunk when I visited her and I think Lukey . . . Lucy
needs someone more stable.’
‘Why don’t we give them away on Speaking
Nights, use the Nights to give them better homes?’ Janette d’Israeli was often
capable of such clear thinking in times of crisis. Elijah thanked his wife,
also saying,
‘You could probably sell them
single-handedly, Janette, after such clear reason.’
Thus it was decided that they would
proffer the unwanted kittens to the public, while they all preached upon a
street corner, asking everyone to find the loving Christ within them right
there and then, and all were sure of their success. They spent the rest of the
day with Lucy and her family, saying goodbye again.
*
Naturally they were all
excited when they all turned up under a randomly chosen streetlight to listen
to Elijah preach about the truth in Christ they had all realised throughout
their travels, specifically the truth of charity. Elijah was indeed eloquent in
his portrayal of such, clearly pointing out that science has shown that giving
lights up the same area of the human brain as receiving does. And here are some
kittens, brothers and sisters, newly born to the world and looking for good
homes, good homes that Elijah could see many of them portending, promising
unfettered love.
But there were no takers. The unnamed
kittens remained unnamed, remained unsheltered in a home that did not welcome
them. Janette and Blanche both very much wanted to join their words with
Elijah’s, but at the same time they knew that they would throw him off.
They left early this night of charity
ignored, charity despised. They also left feeling that perhaps humanity wasn’t
worth saving, that maybe the whole human population was only concerned with
their own hip pocket, only concerned with how much that they could maximise
their own pleasure. Everyone else can go to hell. They, instead, could only go
home to constraint.
*
Before the next Speaking
Night the family all naturally found themselves around the kitchen table again,
two hours before dinner at six pm. They were all keen to see if any of them had
come up with an idea to safely evict the cats. They were each reluctant to
start, probably because they all felt so cheap at not being able to safely rear
Lucy and her children.
‘The only way we can advertise them,’ said
Blanche after Elijah had plainly raised the topic of disposal, ‘is with our
Speaking Nights. But people will still think we’re crazy. We need a way to show
them that we’re just a normal family. A normal family that is under stress and
needing another sturdy family’s help. We need to attract such a sturdy family
to take these poor orphans.’
‘But they’re not orphans,’ interposed
Janette. ‘We’re abandoning them since we can’t look after them.’
‘Isn’t that every orphan’s story?’
‘I’ve got it!’ suddenly exclaimed Elijah.
‘What? What?’ replied his family.
‘What does everyone want?’ His wife and
daughter stared at him blankly.
‘Money!’ he exclaimed.
His wife and daughter still looked at him
blankly.
‘We’ll just offer the good passers-by some
solid cash to take our kittens. Everyone loves cash.’
‘We’ll disperse them in no time. With
money for their food. Dad, you’re a genius!’
‘No, just mildly cynical.’
They
all decided that they would offer ten dollars cash with each kitten taken home
and they had an uncertain number of lookers-on. Nonetheless the kittens all
found new homes after Elijah proclaimed that the ten dollars cash that he was
giving away with each kitten would set them up finely for future life. Sure,
Elijah was aware that there might have been a junkie or two who would pick up a
kitten for the cash, but Elijah was also sure that this same said kitten would
wield the necessary charm upon the junkie. Who knows, maybe these kittens would
allure a few junkies away from the junk.
But throughout Elijah’s speech bringing in
people to purchase their kittens Blanche was very disturbed. Very disturbed
indeed. She was very disturbed because her father was declaiming that the
filthy lucre of money could easily buy love and happiness. Her father also
pointed out to passers-by that their evil thoughts of this day could be
channelled into good, the good of taking home and loving a completely innocent creature,
especially since good and evil are the only definitions of each other.
Was Blanche’s father now teaching evil as
a source of redemption? Sure Right and
Wrong were mutually interdependent but surely her father was not now teaching
evil as a path to righteousness? This certainly looked to be indeed the case.
Blanche was mortified. And terrified. This was her worst nightmare, her father
and mother working for the cause of Satan, his evil leading to a sham brighter
life.
Blanche though found her voice at home.
‘Dad, we’ve done wrong. We’ve preached
wrong, we’ve preached that evil means can lead to a good end.’
‘What do you mean?’ responded her father.
‘We shouldn’t have given away money with
each of the kittens. You shouldn’t have told them that money, rightly-gotten or
otherwise, could buy love and joy or that Right and Wrong rely on each other:
adopting Lucy’s children won’t counterbalance any evil. Dad, we’ve invested
money we really can’t afford in what will probably be more unhappiness,
ourselves now all facing lighter meals. Money really can’t buy anyone’s love,
and good doesn’t rely on evil, or vice-versa.’
‘Maybe not,’ replied Elijah, sure that the
kittens had gone to safe homes. ‘But it could well lead those who picked up the
kittens onto the path of love.’
‘It might be best if we all take a break
from the Speaking Nights,’ said Blanche. ‘I really do think we need to regroup
and figure out more about what we plan to preach, since we’ve begun teaching
that evil can result in righteousness.’
‘But we’ve only been preaching good,’
responded Elijah.
‘I’m not so sure, Dad. You have to admit
after all that money can’t buy one happiness.’
‘Those kittens will make anyone happy, even
the most devout misanthrope. I’m sure of it. Heck, even I miss them and I was
the keenest to get rid of them.’
‘Still, money can’t get one lovin’. Real
lovin’. I think we need to plan our
Speaking nights more. You know yourself, Dad, that we’ve been far too glib in
saying that buying those kittens will bring unbounded love.’ And Elijah,
despite himself, agreed.
‘Let’s just take a break from the Speaking
Nights for a few weeks,’ said Blanche. ‘That’ll give us all time to settle our
heads, give us all some time to set up what we really want to say. Give us all
time to deny the hatred sold by Satan as wholesomeness. We can all repent our
sin of abandoning Lucy with filthy lucre.’
And repenting did them all good, but only
for the first few days. After dinner of their fourth day’s abstemiousness they
didn’t know what to do with themselves, watching the TV but speaking to each
other in an attempt to lead them to a better life, speaking to each other as
they spoke to the public. It was Elijah who first raised their need for
Speaking,
‘We need to peach again, everyone. Working
only for brightness, aware that evil may be used to shroud brightness, working
for the joy of a bright cause appealing to everyone. Let’s express that
immensely, throwing ourselves into something greater than we suspected. Let us
all show each other that we are greater than we expected. Let us show the
filthy lucre as the least of our worries, celebrating with everyone in the joy
of causing brightness.’
His family naturally agreed but it was
Blanche whom provided a sensible warning: they would have to write out their
speeches for each Speaking Night from now on, planning on how they were going
to influence the crowd whom usually ignored the small family. By planning their
speeches beforehand Blanche was easily able to show her parents that they could
avoid Satan’s hope of their ad-lib proclaiming evil means as leading to good.
And once again Elijah and Janette d’Israeli thank the Lord for their clever
daughter.
~~~
If you have been enjoying Fitzpatrick's stories here you may also enjoy his short story collections, and other books, available online as both Kindle books and paperbacks (go to http://amzn.to/1NfodtN). Other ebook and paperback options are available at http://bit.ly/1UsyvKD Fitzpatrick is also having a collection of short stories, Aberrant Selected, published by Waldorf Publishing in 2018. You can follow its journey at www.aberrantselected.blogspot.com
