Holidays in Hell 3. The World Shortage of Mocha Beans.

Holidays in Hell 3.  The World Shortage of Mocha Beans.

(Click on Follow My Leader at the bottom of this page to see other stories by Malcolm Lisle and the rest of this series.)

 

(Scene 1.  Pastor Daniel Beeston sitting in the chalet in Boogaloo with his wife.)

Pastor :-  Darling, I want to start a business to help people in Boogaloo.

Susan :-  That’s a good idea.  What it would do?

Pastor :-  I thought of some sort of export crop, but there’s already far too much coffee on the market.

Susan :-  What sort of crop can you think of, Dear, a crop that’s in short supply?

Pastor :-  Mocha.  You see chocolate everywhere you go in England, but how often have you seen a bar of mocha?  I’ve only had one once.  You can see coffee in all the cafes and supermarkets in England but only in the best coffee shops do you see mocha.  Mocha beans are very rare.  There’s a desperate shortage of them on the world market.  They should fetch a very high price.

 

(Scene 2.  Pastor Daniel Beeston stands on the air strip next to Dirk, who is with his aeroplane.)

Dirk :-  That’s a really good idea.  I’ve got a friend in Kenya who specialises in plants.  All you have to do is cross breed a coffee bush with a cocoa bush and you get a bush that grows mocha beans.  We can go and see him some time tomorrow.

 

(Scene 3.  Pastor Daniel Beeston and Dirk in the aeroplane together.)

Pastor :-  How long have we been flying for now?

Dirk :-  About 3 hours.  We’re almost there.

Pastor :-  Is that the place down there?  There’s a huge farm full of bushes.

Dirk :-  Yes, that’s him.  (The plane touches down on the landing strip.)

 

(Scene 4.  Pastor Daniel Beeston and Dirk standing in the farm with Dirk’s friend, the farmer, standing next to some small bushes in plastic bags on the ground.)

Farmer :-  These are the mocha plants.

Pastor :-  I’ll give you $100.

Farmer :-  For a hundred dollars you can have my farm as well.

Dirk :-  The local currency is worthless.  Can Pastor Beast have the mocha plants for $20?

Farmer :-  No.  $30.  He could make a lot of money on the world market with mocha beans.

Dirk :-  Yes he will, and he won’t take a penny for himself.  $25 dollars and he promises to build a school.

Farmer :-  $20 if he promises to build a hospital as well.

Pastor :-  Here’s $22.

Dirk :-  He would have given it to you for $20.

Pastor :-  I don’t believe in ripping people off.

Farmer :-  Anyone else would have made me go down to $15.  You are very generous, Pastor.

 

(Scene 5.  Dirk and Pastor Daniel Beeston loading the mocha plants into the plane.)

Pastor :-  Aren’t we overloaded?

Dirk :-  There are no trees at the end of the runway.  That hut is only ten feet high.  I think we’ll have reached a height of ten feet by the time we reach the end of the runway.  We’ve got four and a half hours of daylight.  If we fly low and fly slow we should make it back to Boogalou about ten minutes before it gets dark.

 

(Scene 6.  Pastor Daniel working in a field with some local people equipped with shovels and spades who are planting the mocha bushes.)

Worker :-  Pastor Beast, a letter addressed to you.  (Hands him an envelope.)

Pastor :-  It’s a paragraph of political propaganda, free the workers, liberate the masses, set Boogaloo free.  Then there’s a long list of all the people who work here.  It’s signed by three people, whose names are Karl, Boris and Galina.

Worker :-  Pastor Beast, Karl, Boris and Galina are terrorists.  They call themselves by Russian names because they were trained by the Russians.  That letter is a murder list.

 

(Scene 7.  Pastor Daniel Beeston at home in the chalet with his wife and Rosey.)

Pastor :-  We received a most unusual letter.  Is it from the terrorists?  (Passes the letter to Rosey.)

Rosey :-  (Taking the letter from his hand.)  I thought this might happen.  The terrorists see anyone who comes from America as a Christian, and any of their employees as a follower of the Bang-gong religion who has converted to Christianity.

Susan :-   What is a Bang-gong?

Rosey :-  The religion of the Rateater tribe.  The penalty for leaving it is death.

Pastor :-  I apologise.  I have brought this trouble on the people of Bougalou.  It is all my fault.

Rosey :-  Pastor Beast, that is not the kind of Christianity you taught us.  “They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”  One day we will be pillars in the temple of God.  Does it matter if we’re covered in concrete and holding up the city dual carriageway now?

Pastor :-  I find it easy enough to risk the lives of me and my wife but should I really expect it of other people?

Rosey :-  Jesus expected it of other people.  Have you ever considered following Jesus?

Susan :-  That’s how the terrorists want you to feel, Dear.  You might have noticed that our names were not on the list.  They want to break our morale by killing our friends.  Well, those terrorists won’t receive an apology from us.  We came to help these people.

Pastor :-  We came here on holiday.

Rosey :-  Did you?

Pastor :-  We bought this as our holiday home.  We didn’t mean to cause any trouble.

Susan :-  Oh shut up!  None of this would ever have happened if we’d just sat drinking Martinis on the beach and wearing designer sunglasses, just like all the other comfortable Christians, and the world would be starving and going to Hell, and we would not care.

 

(Scene 8.  Yaromek visits Pastor Daniel Beeston at home.)

Yaromek :- Pastor Beast, I am very upset.  My name is on the hit list you received from the terrorists.

Pastor :- I am not pleased that you are there either.  This is very upsetting to me.

Yaromek :- But even more so to me.  Pastor Beast, I am a Bang-gong.  I am passionately devoted to my religion.  I bang my gong five times a day, I diligently practise my magic and cast lots of spells on people, I’m always talking to the Bang-gong Priest, who is very good at communicating with my dead grandmother, and on my grandmother’s birthday I go down to her tombstone and I burn a stick of incense.

Pastor :- Yaromek, you don’t have to work for me if you don’t want to.  If you feel it’s too dangerous, that’s up to you.

Yaromek :- Pastor Beast, you don’t understand.  I could get a perfectly good job growing vegetables on my father’s vegetable patch for $1 a week.  If a terrorist killed me, I could live with that, well no, perhaps I’d get used to it, I mean, if a terrorist killed me I’d be able to accept that.  I don’t want to be shot for being a Christian.  I don’t want to die the death of an infidel.  My family would think that I had become a Christian.  No one would come down to my tomb to burn a stick of incense for me on my birthday.  I’d be unhappy in the afterlife.  My family would shun me.

Pastor :-  We could bury you.

Yaromek :- You would bury me with a Christian funeral.  Who would come to it?    I would be regarded as an infidel.  No one would ever ask the Bang-gong Priest to contact me in the next world.

Pastor :-  Why don’t you become a Christian?  Believe in Jesus.  You will have eternal life.  You won’t have to worry about your family burning little sticks of incense at your tombstone.  You’ll be with Jesus and the angels and millions of Christians in Heaven.  Wouldn’t that be better?

Yaromek :- Pastor Beast, I believe in my religion just as much as you believe in yours.  We are all spirits.  When we die, we simply pass from one world into the next. There is no judgement, there is no Hell, and Jesus is just one of the 57 prophets of the gong.  Have I made my theological position clear?

Pastor :- Very interesting.  What do you want me to do?

Yaromek :- Go and speak to the terrorists.  Go and tell them how deeply committed I am to our tribal religion.  Tell them I don’t want to die an infidel.  Ask them to take me off the list.

 

(Scene 9.  Pastor Daniel Beeston visits the terrorists’ office.)

Pastor :-  One of my employees asked me to see you.  His name is Yaromek.  He wants to be taken off the list.

Karl :- I think they all do.

Pastor :-  No, listen.  He is a very faithful Bang-gong.  He bangs his gong five times a day, he practices his magic diligently and casts lots of spells on people, he is always talking to the Bang-gong priest, who is very good at communicating with his dead grandmother, and every year, on his grandmother’s birthday, he goes down to her tombstone to burn a stick of incense.

Boris :- What a faithful soldier of the gong!  One rarely sees such dedication.  Yaromek does not walk the way of the infidel.  He must not die.  I will take him off the list.

Galina :- He does not walk the way of the infidel.  Why do you walk the way of the infidel?  If you love Jesus become a Bang-gong.

Pastor :- It is the most dull, negative religion in the whole world and I can’t imagine anyone following it by choice.

Karl :- Are you looking forward to going to Heaven, Pastor Beast?  You might get there sooner than you think.

Boris :- We are no more legalistic than some Baptist Christians in America, and we’ve got a far more compassionate attitude to our enemies.

Galina :- Tell me your educational level.

Pastor :- I have a degree in Theology and I had a book published.

Galina :- Surely you can see this Christianity is a load of rubbish!

Boris :- We’ll give you a big gong to stand in the front room.  It’s a very special gong.  It will have the names of the 57 Prophets of the Gong and the 57 Spirits of the Gong written on it.  You can hit it with a good quality oak batten 5 times a day.  We’ll give you candles for your magic spells and a free stick of incense every time a deceased member of your family has a birthday.

Galina :- Become a Bang-gong and we tear up the list.

Pastor :- Tear up the list?

Galina :- That’s right.

Pastor :- Become a Bang-gong and no one will be killed?

Galina :- Yes.  Become a Bang-gong and we forget all about it.

Pastor :- No, no, definitely not!  (Rushes out of the door and slams it behind him.)

 

(Scene 10.  Pastor Daniel Beeston in the fields with the workers who are harvesting the mocha plants.)

Pastor :-  We have a big order from Marks and Spencers.  They want to start selling jars of instant mocha drink.  We have a big order from Cadburys.  They want to start making big bars of mocha.  Until now, there’s been a shortage of mocha beans on the world market.  You only get mocha in posh coffee shops, and you only tiny bars of mocha in charity shops.  We will make mocha as ordinary as coffee or chocolate.  With the money that we make, we will build a medical clinic, a school and a church.

Worker :-  A church?  Did you say a church?  A Christian church?  Is that what you want to build?

Pastor :-  Yes.

Worker :-  You came here to change our religion.

Pastor :-  You can change your religion if you want to.  I’m not forcing anyone to change their religion.

Worker :-  Pastor Beast, in our tribe no one is allowed to change their religion, and no one is allowed to tell anyone to change their religion.  (The worker is holding a long, sharp sickle with which he is cutting the mocha bushes.  He begins waving it at Pastor Daniel Beeston.  The other men in the field stop work and look at the pastor.)

Singing From Crowd :-  Jesus Christ, fish heads and rice! Jesus Christ, fish heads and rice!  (Pastor Daniel Beeston runs and they chase him several miles back to the chalet.)

 

(Scene 11.  Pastor Daniel inside the chalet with Rosey and Susan his wife.  The workers from the field have surrounded the chalet.)

Singing From Crowd :-  Jesus Christ, fish heads and rice!  Jesus Christ, fish heads and rice! 

Susan :-  (Locking the door, which is being pounded and kicked by the men outside.)  Father, for what they are about to do, please forgive them.  Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.  (The lock on the door finally snaps.  Sergeant Mandela and another officer burst through the door, which is now wide open.)

Pastor :-  Sergeant Mandela, am I glad to see you.

Sergeant Mandela :-  You are being arrested for your own personal safety.

Pastor :-  How kind of you.  (The two policemen handcuff Pastor Daniel Beeston, Susan and Rosie and lead them away.)

 

(Scene 12.  Pastor Daniel Beeston, Susan and Rosie are in a shipping container with 25 other prisoners.  It is morning.  A little chink of light penetrates the container.)

Pastor :-  I apologise if I have put anyone in danger.

Rosey :-  Shut up.  I don’t want to hear it.

1st Prisoner :-  Breakfast time.  Here comes the toast.

Pastor :-  What’s that brown stuff on it?

1st Prisoner :-  Chocolate spread.

Pastor :-  (Bites into a piece of toast.)  Ggn, agh, this isn’t chocolate spread.  What is it?

Rosey :-  I think the camp guard likes to take the stuff from the toilet and spread it on the toast in the morning.

Pastor :-  Why did he tell me it was chocolate spread?

Rosey :-  He didn’t want to hurt your feelings.  It’s an African thing.

2nd Prisoner :-  I thought it was mocha.

Sergeant Mandela :-  (Enters the shipping container with another officer.  Handcuffs Pastor Daniel Beeston and Susan.)  I’m having you taken to the airport and flown home for your own personal safety.

Pastor :-  Thank you, Sergeant Mandela.  Always so concerned about our personal safety.  Rosey, you’re going to spend years here, and it’s all our fault.  I apologise.

Rosey :-  Pastor Beast, why do you always have to be such a coward?  Remember what you taught us?  “They overcame him by the blood of the lamb.  They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”

 

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