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Thank God I'm An Atheist : Excerpt: Part II



The following submission is Part II from the book "Thank God I'm an Atheist" by Ron Thomas. Go back and read Part I of this excerpt here.



Some of the Cardinals flung their arms over their heads; others ducked; some yelled to the Pope to duck, Cardinal Grumpadim threw himself onto the highly polished table, scattering plates of fruit, and bowling over jugs of cold drink as he skidded towards the Pope in a vain attempt to catch Morris before he could harm Pope Luther. Morris pulled out of his dive, buzzed Pope Luther’s fruit plate, scooping up one of the apple quarters before his powerful wings carried him swiftly up into the high roof beams. He parked there and started to chomp on his ill-gotten prize.

‘Get that damned bird down!’ Cardinal

Finagle screamed. ‘NOW!’

He might well have saved himself the effort for, hardly had the words stopped ringing in everybody’s ears when Morris emitted another ear-piercing squawk which preceded him as he plummeted down in a manner more like a Ju87 Stuka sturzkamfflugzeug than a bird. He hit the floor with a squishy sort of loud plop, and a bounce something like that of a much over-ripe watermelon.

Morris had bombed out! He was soon to be Rigor Morris.


Cardinal Narcisa was inconsolable. He gently lifted his dead mate Morris and hugged him. He sat weeping convulsively blinking through tears, crossing himself with his free hand, while rocking back and forth. The small pieces of down floating down triggered Cardinal Adchoous’ allergy, which resulted in a violent sneezing fit.

Cardinal Grumpadim who was shaking his wet cassock started yelling that it was all too much, and was giving him a horrible nasty headache. Cardinal Careah wasn’t sure what happened, and had to have it explained to him later. Cardinal Felix broke into a nervous laugh which he knew was wrong under these most unpleasant, suspicious circumstances, but he could not control himself. Cardinal Abidah was cleaning his glasses at the time, and missed the whole event. Cardinal Barabbas also missed what happened, and didn’t like to ask anybody for fear of seeming to be silly.

Finagle leaped to his feet and excusedhimself saying he needed a toilet break. He
strode quickly from the hall.

Cardinals Verchoose and Stroonz watched Cardinal Finagle as he left but neither spoke. Meaningful stares passed between them.

Outside the hall Finagle flung his violet silk biretta on the floor and stomped on it, yelling out ‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’ He continued this process for at least a full minute.


The chief of police, a top forensic scientist, and a veterinary surgeon were assigned to investigate the apple, and conduct a post mortem on Morris. They found no
evidence of any poisonous substance. They were completely baffled.

The Coroner’s verdict was that “Morris had carked and fallen off his perch for a reason, or reasons unknown.”

Pope Luther was shattered to think that somebody almost certainly had tried to do him in. Of course, he did not eat the remaining pieces of apple. In fact, he thought, he would never again eat an apple as long as he, ah, lived.

Chapter 40

‘That was a close one Zoogs, God said to the startled Pope Luther. ‘Now you have to hold another address which was to be broadcast to the World.’ God had spoken to him, and it was God’s will. Against the advice of all his advisors Pope Luther realized he had to follow the will of God, and here he was again in front of those cold microphones, and reporters, and camera persons stimulated by his last juicy outburst.

‘Dear brothers and sisters.’

Pope Luther hesitated, stared directly into the television cameras, and crossed himself.

A hush came over his audience while he struggled to gather his thoughts and tried to think what he should say after the “World Communications Day” disaster.

God spoke to him: ‘Hold on tight Zoogs – hang in there.’

The Pope coughed again into his curled fingers.

‘Please excuse me brothers and sisters I uh... I.’

And then he found himself voicing words he had no intention of ever saying:

"The church has always prohibited women from becoming priests. Well, the church has been wrong. And we intend to correct this wrong immediately." Upon hearing the words "church" and "wrong" from the lips of the reigning Pontiff, several staunchly Catholic male reporters fainted dead away; several not so staunchly Catholic women swooned, and one atheist decided to convert. Stunned into silence, nobody in his audience moved nor spoke. Everybody stared at Pope Luther, waiting to hear his next words. Was this some sort of ecclesiastical joke which nobody yet understood or was it liturgical lunacy? A wave of whispering wafted through the crowd in a sort of Mexican sound wave.

Pope Luther slapped himself soundly on the face, trying to stem the tide of his involuntarily heretical words, but he succeeded only in eliciting another general gasp of astonishment from his audience. The newly converted atheist saw the Pope's self-slap and promptly decided to abandon his recent conversion.

“Thank God I’m an atheist," he called out and rolled his eyes back.

A woman’s shrill voice, with an unmistakable Tasmanian accent, speared across the heads of the lauding throng.

“Good on yer mate.”

A ripple of nervous giggling followed a short silence. Lots of “hear, hears” rang in the confused Pope’s ears. Women clapped wildly, while most men looked solemn. Pope Luther held his arms aloft, and blessed his audience before shuffling off. He unlocked his private lift, and went directly to his study, thereby escaping the others.

Safely in his study once more he collapsed in his large leather chair and promptly polished off a profligate pile of Papal Marshmallows with the coffee Sister Agacia had left for him. His mouth watered as he looked at the gold salver with several petits fours placed temptingly on a lace doily. Maybe later, he thought tapping his tummy. He pushed them aside, licked his fingers; kissed his papal ring, and with three of his now cleaned fingers started to stroke the soft white lamb’s wool of his Gamarelli8 Pallium9.



8 Gamarelli maker of Pope’s and bishop’s clothes
9 Pallium is 3 fingers wide



Ron Thomas has served as an Australian Airforce Officer and also served in the Malay Emergency in the 1950's.He won inventor of the year 1988 for a method for typing Chinese characters with only five keys. It is now used by Chinese persons for typing sms text in mobile phones.





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