Growing Old 24 - The Trip to Weedon Reservoir

"Tony Fish Face," said Mikey.
"Hello Mikey."
"You didn't tell us that you were coming to Weedon Reservior.  Thereasa Bates should have been informed."
"There's always a few seats left on the mini bus," said Tony.
"No there's not," said Mikey.  "We don't even have a minibus."
"Thereasa, why did you get rid of the minibus?" asked Stanley.  "Why did you do it?"
"Church Transport said we could exchange the minibus for a 57 Chevrolet," said Thereasa.
"Oh good," said Pastor David.  "A luxury american car.  A 57 Chevrolet, like the one in the song.  Where is this?  Can I see it?"
"Pastor David, that is the 57 Chevrolet," said Stanley, pointing.  "The car is a Chevrolet Matiz.  It's one of the smallest cars ever made.  It was registered in December 2007, so it has a 57 in the registration number.  You can get 15 people in a minibus but you can't get 15 people into a Chevrolet Matiz."
"That would be really close fellowship," said Mikey.
"I wanted to encourage church members to bring their own cars," said Thereasa.
"Some of our church members are people living on the margins of society," said Stanley.  "They don't have their own transport.  If you lose such people, we are no longer a national church."
"I don't have a car and I'm not on the margins of society," said Tony.
"Tony," said Stanley, "you live with your great grandparents in a tiny little council house, eating soup made from tins of baked beans that you buy from the supermarket for 25p."
"We like living together in a tiny house and eating soup made from chewy baked beans."
"People living in bedsits," continued Stanley, "with bedrooms just big enough for a bed and a wardrobe."
"If it's big enough for a bed and a wardrobe it's bigger than the room I've got," said Lucy.  "I keep most of my clothes in a locker at work."
"It makes my blood boil with rage," said Stanley.
"Does it?" asked Lucy.
"Yes it does.  That's why I've joined the Christian People's Alliance."
"What are they going to do about it?" asked Tony.
"Nothing at all, but it helps him get it out of his system," said Thereasa.
"Ill drive the Matiz," said Pastor David.  "It looks like a great little car.  It's in excellent condition for something that's nearly thirty years old.  We can take Tony and this man with the black coat."  A man had appeared with a black coat, a black woolly hat and black gloves who no one had seen before.  Pastor David, Sarah, Tony and the man with the black coat got into the Chevrolet Matiz.  Pastor David drove out into the countryside.  He passed a sign that said, '13 people were killed on this road last year.  No overtaking.'  "The local MP campaigned to have this road upgraded to a dual carriageway for years.  All she got was that sign."  Pastor David looked at the man in the black coat in his rear view mirror.  "I don't think we've met before.  What's your name?"
"I'm deaf."
"Aagh!" screamed Sarah.  "Drive carefully dear.  Slow down.  Whatever you do, don't overtake."
"Can you speak up a bit," said the man in the black coat.  "I'm deaf.  I can't hear you."
"What is your name?" asked Tony, loudly in the man's ear.
"My name's Trevor."

 

Mikey had a bag of food with him.  He left the main party of people on the path around Weedon Reservoir and walked half a mile into the forest.  Here there were a large number of families living in tents.  Mikey walked up to a suitably scruffy looking man with long hair and a black beard.
"I've brought you some food.  I'm still looking for work.  I couldn't afford much."  The man with the long hair and the beard laughed.
"This kid thinks the people who live in the tents are starving."  Mikey took a tin of baked beans out of the bag.  The man looked at it in derision.  "Nobody buys the tins of beans in the supermarket that cost 25p.  They're just there to make people think, this must be a really cheap shop, the cheap beans and the cheap loaves of bread cost 25p.  But no one would ever eat such things.  They're just ornaments."  The man's girlfriend looked shocked and offended.
"Peter, don't be horrible.  It was a lovely thought.  The kid's got nothing himself.  He thought we were starving.  He was being kind.  What's your name?"
"Mikey."
"I'm Joan and this is Peter."
"Pleased to meet you."
"Mikey, let me explain," said Peter.  "The people who live in the tents by the reservoir aren't homeless."
"Yes we are," said Joan.
"What I meant to say is, the people who live in the tents by the reservoir are homeless but they aren't poor.  I have a job.  I'm registered with a doctor and a dentist.  My children go to a local school.  I have a car parked in a lay by where we keep all our stuff."
"Why don't you live in a house?" asked Mikey.
"Houses are too expensive," said Joan.
"Don't you get cold in winter?"
"Not a bit of it," said Peter.  "We've got a wood burning stove with a twin walled flue in our tent.  It doesn't cost much to run.  It's efficient.  It's safe."
"Don't you want the food then?" asked Peter.
"I'll take it," said Joan.  She took the things out of the bag and looked at them closely.  "Here's a £5 coin," she said.
"No, no, it's free," said Mikey.
"We've got more money than you, Kid," said Peter, laughing. 

 

Mikey took the £5 coin and put it in his pocket.  He returned to the main group walking around the reservoir.  Thereasa was gazing at her mobile phone and talking to Pastor David.
"Have you seen this video on Youblog iplayer?" she asked.
"Is it about the Anti-Christ?" asked Sarah.
"How did you guess?"
"Thereasa," said Pastor David.  "I don't want to hear any more.  You're obsessed with the Second Coming."
"I think Jesus is going to come in my lifetime.  I really think he will."
"The Anti-Christ could be eating a tin of baked beans at this very moment," said Mikey.
"Hello Mikey.  I didn't see you there.  Do you believe that Jesus will come again in your lifetime?"
"I don't expect he will."
"Oh Mikey, you must be careful.  If you don't expect Jesus to come back in your lifetime he will.  Jesus will come when you least expect it."
"Thereasa, that means that if you expect Jesus to come back in your lifetime he definitely won't."
"I do," said Lucy.  "It's a family tradition to believe that Jesus is coming back in your lifetime.  My Great Grandmother believed it.  She used to be in the Children of God.  We've all believed that Jesus is coming back in our lifetime since 1972."
"If your family have believed that Jesus is coming back in their lifetime for more than sixty years," said Mikey, "they can't all have been right.  Some of them are now dead."
"Christians have always believed Jesus is coming again in their lifetime," said Pastor David.  "Look at that old book in the library, the Anti-Christ will be a Napoleon, then it was Hitler who would put up a radio transmitter in Monte Carlo so he could broadcast his speeches on 666 KHZ, then, while it was still around, it was the European Union.  Now it's a bloke in Africa who claims to be a prophet."
"Have you seen this video before?" asked Thereasa.
"No," said Pastor David.
"Then how do you know the Anti-Christ is a man in Africa who claims to be a prophet?"
"It's like all your other videos, Thereasa," said Sarah.
"Will you watch it with me?" Thereasa asked Lucy.
"I certainly will," said Lucy.
"Can I watch it as well?" asked Mikey.  Thereasa turned on the video.  Some Africans were on a farm.  They were standing around a creature that looked like a baby goat with a human face.
"What will you give me for this genuine fawn?  Half human, half goat?" asked a man standing in the field.
"It's mother sat on it," came a shout from someone off screen.
"Shut up."  The Africans held bank notes up in the air and began shouting.  "Sold to the man with the English £20 note." 
"How can a goat be the Anti-Christ, even if it does have a human face?" asked Mikey.  "Can the goat speak to people?"
"You'll see," said Thereasa.   A still photograph of the goat appeared next to a still photograph of an English man aged about sixty.
"Today the goat is twenty years old.  Daniel Joseph Prophet claims to communicate telepathically with the goat and believes that it has a message for humanity."  Daniel was standing at the front of a church next to an African pastor in a suit.
"What does the goat say?" asked the Pastor.
"It says that you've got to buy me a motorbike so that I can go into the mountains and tell all the different villages about the revelations of the goat."  A cloth offering bag with wooden handles was being passed around the church.  People were putting bank notes into it.  Now Daniel sat on the screen by himself, sitting on arm chair in a private room.
"What sort of things does the goat tell you?" came a voice from off the screen.
"It tells me that all religions are the same and people just have to be good.  We all believe in the same commandments.  We all believe in prayer."
"Now you know he's the Anti-Christ," said Thereasa.
"No you don't," said Sarah.  "He might have said the same thing if he was a vicar in the Church of England."
"Do you realise that your name is an annogram of the words Earth, Sea, beast?"  Mikey asked Thereasa.  She looked terrified.
"Don't tell me I'm the Anti-Christ," said Thereasa.
"You couldn't possibly be the Anti-Christ," said Sarah.  "You're a Christian."
"The Bible says that in the last days believers will be deceived," said Thereasa.  "Don't think it'll never happen to you."