The Temple (8 page)

“Ah, yes, that’s right, but I
don’t quite understand… I mean isn’t that bit about death some sort
of contradiction?”

“Not at all, my dear boy, not at
all. Of course Dryvellism is a religion of peace. We bring peace to
all humanity. But what about those who reject and deny Dryvellism?
Those lawless troublemakers and haters who incite against the Lord
and against Dryvellism? Their very act of denial is an act of
aggression. By bringing death to those haters we are doing no more
than restoring peace. And you would do well to remember what it
says on gravestones. Do the letters RIP mean anything to you?”

“They mean ‘Rest in Peace’,
don’t they?”

“Exactly. So by killing a
Dryvellism denier you are simply restoring him to peace. And there
can’t be anything wrong with bringing peace to people, can there
now?”

“Why, certainly not, Master
Jeremiah. I sure am glad that I met you. You’re always so good at
explaining things and making everything clear to me.”

United Against Hate

Pay attention to your enemies
because

they are the first to discover
your mistakes.

Antisthenes

The temporary success of his
Diana scheme had kindled big dreams in Jeremiah. Seeing crowds of
people flocking to his temple made him think of expanding, of
becoming the leader of temples all around the country, and even of
turning Dryvellism into the nation’s main religion or even the only
permitted state religion. In all of these dreams, or shall we call
them fantasies, he himself, Master Jeremiah, was the undisputed
leader, the revered father figure and possibly even statesman. “And
why not?” he said to himself. “Why not, indeed? There have been
plenty of other theocracies throughout history. Even in our own
modern times such a thing is still possible.”

As a consequence he became
withdrawn and left many of the routine everyday tasks to Sycko, who
had rapidly become his most trusted aide, while he spent his days
dreaming and scheming. The brethren had just begun to resign
themselves to this new state of affairs when Jeremiah re-emerged
and turned the temple into a veritable beehive of activity.
Jeremiah spent half the day on the phone and the other half giving
the brethren sundry instructions. There were banners to make, songs
to practise, flyers to print and hand out, and a score of other
things that kept everyone busy. Sycko found all the work a shock to
his nervous system. Where had his temple gone? The temple of quiet
smokes, drinks and meditation? Taking over Jeremiah’s sporadic
duties during the day was one thing, but being busy all day was
definitely too much. Finally he had an idea. He took a large
comfortable armchair from another room and pushed it into the grand
hall in front of Diana’s shrine. He sat down, lit a fag and gazed
at the Goddess. It wasn’t long before someone came to ask what he
was doing.

“I’m here in devout worship
praying to the Goddess to grant us success.”

From then on he was left alone.
“I can’t believe that worked,” he said quietly and contentedly blew
smoke into the air. “That’s the way to skive, in plain sight and
everyone thinks I’m doing something really useful. Ah, I love work,
I could spend hours watching others do it.”

And with Sycko praying so hard
for the success of their efforts it was no surprise that everything
went smoothly. An innocent outsider might have put it down to a lot
of hard work, but the brethren knew better. “What good fortune that
we had Sycko to pray for all of us,” they said.

Sycko just smiled when he heard
it and said “Ain’t life great”.

Before long Master Jeremiah’s
project was the talk of the town. Since the affair of the weeping
Diana the temple had acquired a certain notoriety and Jeremiah’s
latest idea was designed to have an overwhelming effect. With the
profits from the weeping Diana he managed to hire the town’s
largest concert hall and he even got live TV coverage for the event
he had planned.

But what was the big event to
be? Master Jeremiah had unleashed an enormous publicity campaign to
hammer home the message that Dryvellism and the temple were victims
of hatred. He invited the public to attend a grand show or at least
watch the live coverage where the public could see Dryvellism in
all its glory. Jeremiah had even promised some real miracles.
Public interest was huge and tickets were sold out on the first day
of sale indicating that the secret filming of the Diana refill
hadn’t left any lasting damage. For security reasons all tickets
were numbered and had names on them and entry was only granted
together with an ID card.

Then the big day arrived. Sycko
walked into the concert hall and looked around. Above the stage
hung a huge banner:

United Against Hate

Elsewhere there were balloons,
moons and sundry other decorations that gave the impression of a
carnival rather than a religious gathering. The brethren took their
places around the hall, in part to help the public and to maintain
order, and in part to act as security around the stage. Due to his
weeks and months of hard prayer practice Sycko was given the job of
sitting on stage and praying while the public was entering. He made
himself comfortable in the middle of the stage. There were ‘No
Smoking’ signs everywhere but Sycko conveniently overlooked these
and lit a fag. Soon the doors opened and the public began pouring
in. Smoke curled up from the stage and the brethren acting as
security around the stage chanted an inspiring holy song. They were
all dressed in the same black suit and tie with a white shirt but
only Jeremiah, who was still waiting backstage, wore a top hat.
Members of the audience could be forgiven for thinking that a lone
man sitting cross legged and smoking on stage with others in front
of him singing curious songs looked a bit like a hippie.

Then the show got under way.
Sycko happily retired from the stage and Master Jeremiah entered to
a rapturous applause looking resplendent in his frock and sacred
top hat.

“Ladies and gentlemen,
Dryvellers, dear guests,” Jeremiah said. It is the greatest
pleasure to have you all here with us tonight and I’m sure you’re
going to have a wonderful time, in every sense of the word
wonderful. We Dryvellers have long been peaceful and honest members
of our common society and there are many contributions we have made
and are still making that help us all. Sadly the hatred and
persecution against us in some countries has of late spilt over
into our own country. It gives me great pleasure to see so many of
you here today who value our common history and who are ready to
stand united against the haters. Without any more ado – let’s get
the show started. There was polite applause followed by the first
of a number of musical performances designed to entertain and draw
the audience in.

More than an hour later the main
part of the evening came. It was Jeremiah’s great surprise everyone
had been waiting for. Master Jeremiah came back on stage with a big
smile. “Glad to see you all having such a swell time. Now is the
time for members of the audience to ask me questions. Don’t be shy
folks, ask me anything you like.” He looked around and chose a man
in the third row. “The gentleman in the third row, no don’t tell
me… you’re Mike Watson, aren’t you.

The man looked surprised. “Yes,
but…”

“How did I know? Well, I
promised you all some miracles tonight and this is just the
beginning. Now Mike, what do you want to know?”

“Can you tell me the lottery
numbers for the next draw?”

There was laughter from the
audience.

“I could tell you, Mike, but is
that why the Lord speaks to me? Does He want me to spoil the fun
for millions of good folks who’ve bought tickets and give away the
result so others can have an unfair advantage? Would that be
honest? What do you think, Mike? Would God want this?”

“All right, all right, you got
me there,” Mike said to general laughter and sat down.

“Now then, folks, serious
questions please.” He pointed to a woman in a bright red dress.
“Ah, yes, let me see. You’re Alice Hopkins, aren’t you?”

She smiled. “Yes, that’s right.
Do you know why I’m here?”

Jeremiah tilted his head to one
side a little. A moment later he said “I believe you’re here
because of your daughter. Is that right?”

“Yes,” she said looking
astounded while gasps and some applause could be heard.

“A very sickly little girl,”
Jeremiah added.

Alice Hopkins put her hands on
her mouth. “Oh my God, how do you know that? I haven’t told anyone
here.”

“The ways of the Lord are
mysterious, Alice. You’re asking yourself why your little girl is
suffering from cancer. You’re asking why you keep fighting and
taking her to doctors who can’t help her. Now Alice, I’m a man of
my word and I won’t be making you any false promises or give false
hope like some would. But I can invite you to join us in our
temple, bring your girl and now here’s something I will promise. I
promise that we will pray for her, we’ll beg the Lord for mercy;
and who knows, miracles have happened before, Alice.”

“Thank you so much,” Alice said
with tears running down her face.

There was loud applause from the
audience while TV audiences were invited to help by making a
donation. Bank details appeared on the screen.

For the next hours Master
Jeremiah took question after question. The audience were amazed how
he invariably knew who he was talking to, how he knew about
people’s problems and lives. In the end there wasn’t a soul,
including journalists, who wasn’t convinced that he had special
powers, a gift from the Lord, or that a miracle had occurred. The
audience was in ecstasy and it was a jubilant and triumphant Master
Jeremiah who finished the event. All the while donations from
around the country kept pouring in from many good folks who wanted
to be part of the Lord’s miracle and do their bit to help Master
Jeremiah in his mission. There were some large donations from the
wealthy and many smaller ones from people like Ruth Sanders. She
had spent forty-five years working as a nurse and now lived in
retirement on a meagre pension that barely enabled her to get by.
She donated half a month’s pension even though she didn’t know how
she would manage on the little that was left for her. “I’ll just
have to eat less,” she said. “What a wonderful man Master Jeremiah
is, helping all those poor people. It just shows that there are
still good hearts, even in our day and age.”

At the end of the event Jeremiah
went backstage and removed the earpiece with which he had received
all the necessary information about the people asking questions.
One of the brethren, Brother James, had watched the hall from
hidden cameras. When someone asked a question he cross-referenced
the seat with the information that person had given when buying the
entrance ticket. With the help of networking sites he found a lot
of private information that enabled Master Jeremiah to deceive the
whole country into believing that he had special powers from
God.

He rubbed his ear and yawned.
“What a load of gormless sheep,” he muttered. “No wonder they need
a good shepherd like me to guide them in their lives. And what more
could sheep hope for than to be fleeced.”

The
Museum

The just man is most free from
disturbance,

while the unjust is full of the
utmost disturbance.

Epicurus

Master Jeremiah was ecstatic
with the results of the nationwide TV broadcast. In one night the
temple earned millions. In fact they received more money than
during the entire previous existence of the temple, at least as
long as he had been there. He looked around his confined quarters
and shook his head in disgust. “That won’t do,” he said. “That
won’t do at all. How ever did I manage to live in this dingy little
room for so many years? It’s almost Spartan, and most certainly not
becoming of a person in my station.”

With no one to oversee the
temple’s finances Jeremiah had no problem solving such little
personal problems and not long after he was the proud owner of a
luxurious mansion that used to belong to a factory owner. The
abandoned factory building came with the mansion and Jeremiah
immediately saw how he could put it to good use. It was a long
brick building with a grey slate roof. There were two floors and
the inside was a long open space where machinery had once stood.
Jeremiah hired workmen to refurbish the building and to put in
walls to create numerous rooms on both floors. Then the real work
began. For several weeks the brethren were busy painting, drawing,
writing and making various models. It was Master Jeremiah himself
who made the finishing touch, a large sign that was hung above the
entrance. It read:

Museum of Creationism

During the absence of the
brethren from the temple Sycko was busy doing what he was best at –
he sat guard beside the weeping Diana and relaxed with his drinks
and cigarettes. The day before the grand opening of the museum,
which was widely advertised throughout the city and on TV, Jeremiah
couldn’t resist taking Sycko on a tour of his new achievement. The
building was painted a gleaming white and featured fake Dorian
columns on either side of the entrance. Sycko stopped in front of
the entrance and looked up at the sign. “What is creationism?” he
asked.

“You don’t know?” Jeremiah said
incredulously.

Sycko shook his head in
silence.

“But my dear fellow, that is a
most serious gap in your education. I can’t believe we’ve never
talked about this before. Well, to make matters short, it’s the
science of how God created the world and everything that’s in
it.”

“So you’re saying God made us,
too?”