Peculiar People 12a

"We've bought an old farm house," said Simon excitedly, to the friends he and his wife, Cynthia, were sitting next to in the church hall that Boris had hired. The farm had grown too small for the Sunday morning meeting.  "We're going to start a new Christian community."
"That's wonderful," said Karl.  "What are you going to call it?"
"We haven't got a name for it yet," said Cynthia.  "We really need to find a name for it."
"I have a word to you from the Lord," said Karl's wife Barbara.  "The name you give the new community house will be prophetic.  Whatever you call it, that's what God will give you, and you will have an abundance." 

 

That afternoon, Simon sat in his big armchair from the second hand furniture shop.  It was strong but looked a bit rough.  The Bible he had bought from a second hand book shop was strong but looked a bit rough.  That's the way it was in the farmhouse - an attempt to live simply, more simply than most.  Simon began reading from his Bible.  He opened it at the book of 1Peter, where a neatly folded gas bill made an effective placekeeper.  This was an exciting passage.  He ran into the kitchen to share it with his wife, who was preparing the dinner. 
"Darling, look at this.  I've got a wonderful name for this house.  Here it is in 1Peter chapter 2, 'But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.'  I like that."
"What do you like, dear?  What are you going to call it?"
"I'm going to call the house Peculiar People, because God has made us a peculiar people, that we should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.  I love the name, Peculiar People."  The next week Simon went to the glazier and had the words Peculiar People carved in white writing on a small window to go above the farmhouse door.  Whenever anyone came to the house, they would see the words Peculiar People.

 

In Newport Newtown a concerned family sat with their doctor, a police officer and the local MP.  Karen's brother Peter was living on the streets and they were trying to get him admitted to a mental hospital.
"What sort of parliamentary action would you like me to take?" asked the MP.
"If you could change the Mental Health Act," said Peter's brother, "you wouldn't just help Peter, you'd help lots of people."
"We're unable to arrest him unless he is exhibiting disturbed behaviour at that particular time," said the policeman.  "If he knows how to talk to the authorities, we've got no chance."
"Unfortunately, Peter is one of the most polite and courteous people I've ever met," said the doctor.
"He knows how to pull the wool over people's eyes," said Karen.  "We think it should be possible to have him admitted, under the mental health act, on the basis of his past history."

 

That night at the old farm house, Peter was crying noisily.  He could see an image of his dead father, black and white, like the picture on an old television, against the large timber garage doors.  He could hear his father's voice.
"I am very disappointed in you, Son, very disappointed.  All you ever do is take drugs and get drunk."  Peter kicked the garage doors three times.
"You wanted me to join the army, because they wouldn't let you in.  Well, I killed someone.  Happy now?" 
"Why did you always have to be the black sheep of the family?" asked the apparition. 
"Because you always live out your fantasies through me.  I'm not allowed to have a life.  I must live your life."
Peter started kicking the garage doors again.  Simon heard the noise.  He got out of bed, put an an old parker anorak over his pyjamas, and came out into the yard.
"Hello," he said to Peter.  "Come inside for a cup of tea."  Peter followed Simon into the kitchen, where Simon put a big metal kettle on to the gas ring.  When the kettle was boiled, Simon made a big pot of tea, put it on a tray with a bottle of milk and some cups, and sat down with it next to Peter at the table.
"How are you?" asked Simon, pouring some milk into two cups.
"I'm having some problems with my father."
"What sort of problems?"
"Constant nagging.  He keeps telling me how very disappointed he is in me.  I'm a bad son."
"Where does your father live?"
"He died ten years ago."  Simon looked alarmed.  "He still won't let it go.  He still keeps nagging me."  They each had a cup of tea and Simon said,
"Come upstairs.  I'll make up one of the beds."  Peter followed Simon, who entered one of the bedrooms and made up a bed for him to sleep in.

 

The next Sunday, Cynthia met a friend in church.
"Hello Cynthia," said Rachel, "I hear you're starting a new community house on an old farm."
"Yes," said Cynthia.  "The house where Pastor Boris lives is getting rather full.  We bought another house."
"I want to move in, with my whole family," said Rachel.   Rachel sat next to her husband and had her baby, Elijah, in the pram.  "Can we bring our cat with us as well?  She's called Pupa."
"Yes, by all means, bring Pupa.  Wonderful," said Cynthia.  "A whole family moving in."

 

On Tuesday morning Cynthia came downstairs and saw where the cat had pooped in the lounge.  Rachel was making herself a cup of coffee in the kitchen.
"Rachel," said Cynthia.  "Can you clean up after your cat?"
"Has she had an accident?" asked Rachel.
"Yes she has.  It's all over the lounge."
"I didn't know.  I haven't been in the lounge."
"Is the cat like this all the time?  Is that why you call her Pupa?"
"A pupa is a caterpillar inside a chrysalis, transforming itself into a beautiful butterfly.  That is why my cat is called Pupa."
"So you didn't call your cat Pupa because she poops everywhere."
"Definitely not."
"It is getting to be a nuisance."
"I assure you, I would have cleaned it up just as soon as I had gone in there, it's really not difficult to clean up, she's always very careful how she does it.  We used to have another cat called Pebbles and she would always - "
" - I don't want to hear this," said Cynthia.

 

Matthew liked cats a lot, and prided himself on his ability to understand their psychology.  He had had a cat since he was a child.  On Tuesday night, after everyone else had gone to bed, he decided to put Pupa out for the night.  He switched off the lights except for one upstairs and closed all the doors.
"Come on crazy cat, follow me.  Pupa, Pupa.  You know what time it is."  He then gave Pupa a gentle kick with his sandshoe.  She began to wail and meeow.  She followed Matthew towards the door but looked at him strangely, as if to say, you're my friend.  Why are you doing this?  "You poo everywhere.  Want to stay in the nice warm house?  Learn not to poo."  Matthew pursued Pupa into the yard and slammed all the doors behind her.  At 3 AM Matthew and Karl were awoken by the sound of a fox and a vixen howling in the garden.  They stood together on the first floor landing, looking out of the window.
"I put Pupa out for the night because she poos everywhere.  Now the foxes have come.  I've killed Pupa."
"Do feed Pupa to the foxes," said Karl.  "Please do.  I just hope she doesn't make the foxes ill.  Goodness knows what sort of bacteria she's got in those guts."
"A fox lying by the side of the road," said Matthew.  "I ate a little pussy cat and it disagreed with me.  The vixen is lying right next to him.  She says, I hate that pussy cat's guts.  The fox says, so do I, they're full of E Coli."
"I can see Pupa," said Karl.  "She's jumped onto the fence.  She's climbing over the top.  She's safe now."

 

The next day, at breakfast time, Rachel's baby Elijah was sitting in his high chair at the dining table.  Rachel was feeding him with baby food from a spoon.  Elijah had a terrible cough.
"Oh dear, oh dear Elijah.  That's not a nice cough, is it?  We might have to take you to the doctor."  Later that day, the men in the field were digging potatoes.  Johnny began to cough.  Johnny took a tub of vapour rub out of his pocket.  He rubbed it into his face, above his eyes and in front of his ears.
"That feels good.  Into all the sinus points," he said.  He then took a small plastic packet of tissues out of his pocket and started blowing his nose.  Johnny had soon used all the tissues.  He began to cough again.  He slipped a small foil tray of tablets out of his wallet, pushing one of the hay fever tablets out and snapping it in half.  "Half a hay fever tablet.  Keeps the inflammation down.  It hurts your sinuses when you rub vapour rub straight into them."  He put the tiny half tablet on his tongue and swallowed it without any water.

 

Simon sat with Jonas and Julia, who were from Australia.
"You have stayed with us for two weeks," said Simon.  "It's time to discuss the rent."
"We're not going to pay you any rent," said Julia.  "God will provide for your needs."
"Trust the Lord," said Jonas.
"You want me to trust the Lord to provide me with the £200 a week that you should have paid as rent."
"Yes," said Jonas.
"Call me ignorant, but why doesn't God provide you with £200 a week so that you can pay the rent?  Isn't it usually that way round?"
"God is going to bless your farm enormously and give you an abundance," said Julia.  "You won't need any rent from us."
"If God is going to bless the farm enormously and give it an abundance, why doesn't he do it for you?  Then you would be able to pay the rent."
"We're simple people," said Julia.  "When we were in the Australian outback, we used to live in a tent."
"If you live in a tent in England," said Simon, "when the winter comes, it's going to get really cold."
"You can easily survive the cold English winter if you move your tent under a pylon," said Jonas.  "You can tap it for free electricity.  Just climb up the pylon with a mains extension lead, and tie it in exactly the right place.  The electricity couples just enough to come down the extension lead, into the tent, without blowing everything up."
"It's great for microwave ovens, deep fat fryers and little cookers," said Julia.
"We had electric lights and electric heaters, last winter when it snowed.  It was great fun," said Jonas.
"That's stealing," said Simon.
"Is it?" asked Julia.
"Yes, it is.  If you had to pay for that amount of electricity, it would cost you a lot of money.  Your church believes it's a sin to work.  Think for a moment.  That electricity.  Wasn't it put in the wires by people who work?"
"We don't think it's a sin to do any kind of work," said Julia.  "Only if you get paid for it."
"So people should build a farmhouse for you, provide you with food and provide you with electricity and never get paid?"
"In the ideal world, they'd be doing the same thing," said Jonas.  "They wouldn't need money either."
"Don't you think it might cause some people to have a lack of incentive, that actually, they'd never do anything?"
"They wouldn't do absolutely nothing," said Julia, "they'd do a tenth of the work that they do now.  That would be excellent.  We produce too much, we consume too much.  The world is desperately polluted, and it's running out of resources."
"If you believe these things, you should come and work on my farm, and pick vegetables, potatoes and fruit, without being paid for it."
"And you would let us live in the farmhouse without paying any rent?" asked Jonas.
"Excellent idea," said Julia.

 

One morning Karl came down to the kitchen for breakfast, where Matthew was chopping a banana into tiny pieces and mixing it into a large bowl of bran flakes.
"I've been trying to get my short wave radio to work for months," said Karl.  "Last night, I heard a French radio station.  When I woke up this morning, Pupa had pooped on the radio."
"Have you got the circuit diagram?" asked Matthew.
"She pooped on that as well."  Gary came into the kitchen, coughing loudly, where he saw Johnny, who was making a cup of coffee.
"Have you got any of your killer cure?"  Johnny left a spoonful of coffee and milk in the cup, went to his bedroom and returned with a jar of vapour rub, a foil packet of hay fever tablets, and a plastic packet of ten tissues.  "Thanks very much," said Gary, and disappeared into another room.  As Johnny sat drinking his cup of coffee, the sound of Gary's voice could be heard screaming.  "Aagh!  This is strong!"  Johnny took the coffee into the other room, where Gary was, and took a foil packet of paracetamol from his pocket.
"Take a couple of paracetamol," said Johnny, "as well as half a hay fever tablet.  It gets rid of the inflammation."  Brian came into the kitchen.  He took a couple of slices of bread and put them into the toaster.
"I asked Tony what he would do if he had a cat that pooped everywhere," said Brian.  "He said he wouldn't waste any time trying to cure it.  He'd take it to the vet to have it but to sleep."

 

The next day Matthew was standing in the kitchen, mixing the bananas and bran flakes together for his breakfast.  Karl came in.
"Is it possible for a cat to be suicidal?" asked Karl.
"I don't know," said Matthew.
"Pupa has just pooped all over Brian's jacket, after what he said yesterday about taking her to the vet and having her put to sleep."  Rachel was sitting in the dining room with Elijah in his high chair.  The room stank of nappies and poo.
"Poor Elijah," Rachel said to Cynthia.  "He's got a bad touch of the runs.  He's been going all night."  She held some baby food up to his mouth in a spoon.  "Now he can't be bothered to eat anything." 

 

That lunch time Cynthia came up to Brian in the kitchen as he was warming up a pie in the microwave oven.
"Can you do the bread run this afternoon?" she asked.  "Everyone else has got terrible sickness and diahrrhea."
"I wondered where everybody was."
"Brian, you're the only one who isn't laid up in bed."  At four o' clock, Brian got into the car to go to the bread shop.  As he drove out of the car park, Pupa walked right out in front of the car.  He could have stopped, but instead, Brian said to himself, 'Now to save some vet's fees.'  He allowed the car to drive right over Pupa.  He came back with a car full of bread in black bin liners.  The other men came to help him unload it.  Rachel came as well.  She was fuming with rage.
"Pupa was found dead in the car park.  She had been run over.  I don't believe it was an accident.  We all heard what you said yesterday Brian, about wanting to take her to the vet and have her put to sleep."
"I was trying to save you some vet's fees."
"Brian, Pupa had a lovely nature," said Rachel.  "She was friendly.  She liked everybody.  She meeowed to be stroked."
"I have had cats all my life," said Matthew.  "Pupa is the only cat I've ever had who has never scratched anybody."
"You're making me feel terrible," said Brian.  Peter was helping the men unload the bread.
"If you run over a cat in the car," said Peter, "its black and white spirit might follow you around for the rest of your life."
"It was a ginger cat," said Brian.
"Its ghost is black and white, like an old television picture, like the ghost of my father, who torments me."
"Is that why you're always talking to yourself in the middle of the night?" asked Matthew.
"You mistreated that cat and it will return to torment you," said Peter.  "You will see it tonight.  In fact, it will follow you around forever after you die."