One For The Road – Ashes to ashes…

The tale I am about to tell relates the borderline-criminal acts committed by an auntie of mine, one locked-down Ash Wednesday, at the height of the pandemic.

Like any good story, there is danger in its very telling. But the stakes are higher with this one than most, dealing as it does with the most emotive of subjects; obedience – or rather disobedience – of the lockdown laws.

So, to prevent my auntie’s public flogging and, more importantly, to lessen the likelihood of me receiving an emasculating, punishment beating for grassing on her, her anonymity will be preserved throughout.

Let’s begin…

It started the same as every Ash Wednesday that had come before it: She awoke with an empty feeling between her eyebrows.

With the view of putting the feeling right, she decided she would call into a local holy-house for a prayer, hoping on the off-chance that somebody might be there doling out a few ashes.

As she made for the chapel, she met a man with a fine head of ashes. He explained that he had burned a bit of palm and rubbed the ashes in with holy water. She complimented him on his ingenuity and headed on.

She then met a second man wearing a fresh patch of black between his caterpillars. She asked how he had got them and found his method was the same as the first man’s.

After hearing from the two boys, an idea was sparked. She decided that when she got home, she was going to burn a piece of hay she stole from a nativity crib at Christmas time, and, with a drop of holy water, she would rub the ashes into her own scone.

Just as she was finalising the details of her not-so-good Christian contingency plan,
she met a Travelling man at the doors of the chapel. He wore a blob of shining ashes on his forehead.

My auntie enquired where he got them, and he told her that a Travelling woman (who happens to be a neighbour of my auntie) was giving them out, just down at the back of the chapel. She headed to the back of the chapel but the Travelling woman had vanished. When she went back up the chapel, the Travelling man had also disappeared.

As she walked across John Street toward her car with the intention of going home to sanctify her own forehead, who pulled up alongside her only the man she met in the chapel.

“I see you didn’t get the woman you were after,” he shouted out the car window.

“No such luck,” replied my auntie.

Telling my auntie to stay put, he pulled in to the curb.

“I’ve a drop of holy water here,” he explained. “Sure, what if I pour a bit on your finger and you can have a lock of my ashes.”

Pleased by his offer, my auntie nodded and held out her finger to be anointed, and your man duly produced. Then, casual as you like, she rubbed a few ashes from your man’s head and applied them to her own head.

“Good job?” said your man.

“Grand job,” said my auntie.

Then she was free to worry about whether it was going to be cod or salmon with the spuds that evening. And that is as true as God.

My auntie justifies her actions by the rationale that she only broke the ‘close contact’ law by observing an even higher one. I’m not so sure if I’m with her or not, but it’s not a bad excuse.

Anyway, sometimes it can be hard to tell whether sufficient time has passed to render a once-toxic story safe for telling, or whether it still holds some of its old radioactive power. But, here, as the man says, that’s something you only find out when it’s too late.

So, auntie, if you get a knock at the door later and the man comes to take you away, sure, look… at least a few readers got a good laugh out of it.