The Bishop Tripped, Episode 6

©Randall A. Beeler, 2011

This installment of theComedy is part of an original novel I am writing, called The Bishop Tripped: the story of a man, who, disillusioned, seeks to escape his life, only to be mistaken for a bishop--all the way to the miter, crozier, and diocesan bureaucracy.

None of this writing is edited. It is written as it happens, with every post I blog. No premeditation, other than a story trajectory in my imagination and the characters who will take it and run with it.

To start at the beginning of the story, either scroll down to, or click on, Episode 1.

So, live and as it happens, here is the next installment of The Bishop Tripped …

… and not himself. At least not himself as he looked now--but the self he'd been when he'd taken the freeway exit to go to Love Field instead of to AmiCorp. He was the Archbishop now, an archbishop who looked incredibly like himself.

… and the gardener was … who was this gardener? Michael knew it was himself in the mirror two weeks ago. But who was that man now?

"You musta been stung already, 'cuz yer not saying a thing. What are ya in anaphylactic shock or sumthin'?"

That voice definitely was not his.

"Who are you?" Michael demanded.

The gardener just smiled and whispered to him, "Michael …"

Michael shook the scales from his eyes. "You!" he nearly shouted, then looked about to see if anyone else was in the garden.

"Don't worry," the gardener waved his hand. "There's no flaming swords around here." Then he wobbled his head and scanned the garden in a gesture of summation. "Of course, there ain't no trees of life here … yet."

"You!! You're the Bishop--from the airport!"

The gardener chuckled. "I can see that you still haven't shook off the--what'd they call it?--oh yeah, 'trauma' you suffered in the airport restroom. He's real astute, this one."

Sarcasm was the last thing Michael expected at this moment, but, then again, he'd thrown away expectations when, at that moment of truth with Matt last week, he'd adopted the rôle of Bishop. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

The dungaree-covered version of Michael held his arms opened wide (a shovel in his right hand) and scanned the garden. "I'm the gardener!" he hollered.

"Sshhh! Maybe we should take this outside the garden--"

"Hah!" guffawed the gardener. "He wants to take it outside! Boy, we're already outside! Anyway, you don't much seem to fancy flying the cover of this coop. Of course, covers are what yer all about, eh?"

"SShhh," Michael hissed. "I mean, take it outside the garden, into my, um, study."

"Your study? Boy, he's taken on airs!" Michael got the disturbing feeling that the gardener wasn't talking to him so much as to an audience surrounding them in the clouds. "That is, if you were being honest with yourself (and others) my study. And this is my garden that yer pecking around in. You're here on sufferance, son. Anyway, I ain't too keen on goin' anywhere with you. I'm liking this little role-playing I'm getting to do a lot more than I'd liked being a bishop. That's your job now."

And Michael could never remember how it happened, but the gardener turned around and was gone. He didn't *poof*, didn't walk away. He just turned around and was gone.

From the other side of the grape arbor, he could here the snipping of clippers. He raced around to find the gardener but saw only Miguel.

"Good day, Bishop Christopher," paused Miguel over the hedge he was clipping. "Are you alright?"

"No, I'm not really feeling myself," Michael said and stumbled away, never naming himself for Miguel.