A Peach Skinned Boy

De gants de putain c’est past sal. The Witness stood tightlipped staring at the ceiling, the hole letting in a bucket of rain. Next to him sat the other rector’s assistant, a gaunt man with graying hair and paper-thin lips. Next to him, beside the rectory bench, where the rector’s son spat up his first wafer, the congregated, yawning, listening to the fader proclaim the Feast of the Mormon Table, sat the other rector’s assistant’s assistant, a peach skinned boy with parboiled eyes that could see beyond the present into the immanent. Cardenio the curate wanted to quit his life of misery. Next to him, tightlipped, stood the ferryman, pulling hard on the halyard, his face boiling. ‘…castoff…?’ snarled the ferryman. Wheezing, his legs unbuckling, the Witness snookered to the left, the sky opening up like a catcher’s mitt. ‘…get out of my way you buzzard, I’ve got a ship to catch…’ he hollered, the ferryman splitting a gut. ‘…the first wafer’s the toughest, after that its clear sailing…’ snickered the ferryman, the rector’s other assistant pulling on the towline, a birch of keel-wood floating to the surface. ‘…get a load out…’ bellowed the Witness. ‘…the Mormon table fills up quicker than a preacher’s dance-card…’.