Banging away at "The Smoke of Satan..." and big news about my parish

[matrixrefugee]

I've gotten some fairly substantial work done on the climactic fight-with-demons-in-the-church scene, from a later chapter. I tried poking at Chapter Four, but that's still like slogging through mud: It wants to be set in Los Angeles, and I'm fighting it.

A little bit of fanon that seems to have popped into my head: Beeman, Constantine's nerdy little friend who appears to be an arcane scholar, is a former Dominican monk who was asked to leave the order, possibly because of those arcane studies of his. I also get the feeling his first name is Max, short for Maximillian (maybe because the actor who played him looks a little like a healthier version of St. Maximillian Kolbe?). Don't ask me where that idea came from, or why it makes sense to me. (Is it any more wierd than a nerdy little guy who lives behind the ball return in a bowling alley?)

Fannish musings aside: The Truth about my parish's closing has come out. Our pastor mucked up the books, so to the Archdiocese bigwigs, it looked like it wasn't collecting much for donations, which made it seem like it couldn't support itself. So... the pastor is about to get a visit from an auditor as well as someone from the Massachusetts Attorney General's office, investigating possible fraud (Remember why the fictitious diocease in "The Smoke of Satan..." was in trouble???). This just might buy Holy Trinity some time to stay open. Keep praying, people.

And then there's the funny-wierd story that made me suspect that there might be more truth in my fiction: A couple weeks back, some reporters from one of the local news stations showed up to interview some members of the parish, on Sunday morning. Our pastor, Father Manning (not his real name, of course), spotted the members of the Fifth Estate and started yelling at them to go away. According to those who saw it happen, he was acting like he was insane, screaming expletives and nearly getting physical with the camera crewmen. It's a good thing I wasn't there, thanks to my dad having to work that Sunday, because I probably would have tried to see if Fr. Manning was possessed, by trying to get close enough to touch him with the crucifix I wear on a chain around my neck.

Since I don't have a Holy Shotgun, I'm tempted to show up at Mass carrying a Holy Molotov Cocktail (A glass bottle full of holy water: I just made it up).

Comments

[veilofveronica.livejournal.com]

possession would be more interesting, but it sounds more to me like they caught a priest in a grouchy mood that didn't want a camera in his face :)

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

It's hard to tell if this particular priest is in a bad mood or not, since he's *always* cranky. The reporters had showed up a couple times before, but he'd basically ignored them/avoided them then, which makes that noisy outburst even more spectacular.

[(Anonymous)]

While the HMC is a pretty cool idea, it wouldn't be very effective since you'd have to throw it really hard for it to break and you'd only be able to use it once. One of those mini-super soakers would be better (I say super soakers since they have more capacity then a normal water pistol. I speak as someone whose watched too many vampire movies). It's unlikely that the priest was possesed, this reality just isn't that interesting.

Weaver