Saturday's Storyteller: "It turns out seventh-century saints don't much like being reanimated."
by Belinda Roddie
It turns out seventh-century saints don't much like being reanimated.
Especially not Ursicinus of Saint-Ursanne.
In fact, he was rather bewildered. Even terrified. As if the devil himself had raised him up and then very casually shoved his horns so far down into his head that they were incognito lumps on his scalp. Like cysts instead of marks of unfiltered evil.
I hadn't even expected to find his body, much less exhume it. It had started with a lovely trip to Switzerland with my wife, where we discovered there was much more to the country than skiing, chocolates, watches, and politicians' secret bank accounts. We had wound up in Délamont, within the Canton of Jura, where many people spoke French. Which was nice because my wife spoke French, being pure-blooded Texan but still managing to work as a French teacher at a quaint little high school nestled in the strict confines of Danbury.
I, on the other hand, was a California nerd with a Bachelor of Science in neuroscience and behavioral biology - a strict fan of Funyuns and sweet alcohol, with a penchant for watching PBS on Sundays. And with that came the many special shows regarding martyrs, saints, and prophets.
I don't know why I became interested in the concept of Christianity, especially when, until now, I had been strictly atheist. After reanimating this quivering Irish missionary, this pure hermit who surprisingly, through the revival process, was slowly retaining a fresher, youthful look, regenerating, as it were - I wondered what I was now.
Wiccan? Maybe Wiccan. Some kind of Pagan.
My wife stood with jaw gaping, devoid of the words they had hurled at me over and over, laced with warning. Don't go in there, she had said. Don't touch the sarcophagus. Do you want to be arrested? Or in her voice, "D'y' wan' be 'rested?" But now, nothing. Not even as the dusty tome I had bought from a screaming street urchin who claimed he had unholy power dropped to the ground.
And yet it still took me a while to digest the fact that the saint whose name was invoked to reduce tension in one's neck was staring back at me, wordlessly, as color returned to his limbs and cheeks and he stretched out his hands as if attempting to push dreaded spirits away.
I tried to speak.
"So..." I curled my lip. "No lilies?"
This week's prompt was provided by Daniel Bulone.
It turns out seventh-century saints don't much like being reanimated.
Especially not Ursicinus of Saint-Ursanne.
In fact, he was rather bewildered. Even terrified. As if the devil himself had raised him up and then very casually shoved his horns so far down into his head that they were incognito lumps on his scalp. Like cysts instead of marks of unfiltered evil.
I hadn't even expected to find his body, much less exhume it. It had started with a lovely trip to Switzerland with my wife, where we discovered there was much more to the country than skiing, chocolates, watches, and politicians' secret bank accounts. We had wound up in Délamont, within the Canton of Jura, where many people spoke French. Which was nice because my wife spoke French, being pure-blooded Texan but still managing to work as a French teacher at a quaint little high school nestled in the strict confines of Danbury.
I, on the other hand, was a California nerd with a Bachelor of Science in neuroscience and behavioral biology - a strict fan of Funyuns and sweet alcohol, with a penchant for watching PBS on Sundays. And with that came the many special shows regarding martyrs, saints, and prophets.
I don't know why I became interested in the concept of Christianity, especially when, until now, I had been strictly atheist. After reanimating this quivering Irish missionary, this pure hermit who surprisingly, through the revival process, was slowly retaining a fresher, youthful look, regenerating, as it were - I wondered what I was now.
Wiccan? Maybe Wiccan. Some kind of Pagan.
My wife stood with jaw gaping, devoid of the words they had hurled at me over and over, laced with warning. Don't go in there, she had said. Don't touch the sarcophagus. Do you want to be arrested? Or in her voice, "D'y' wan' be 'rested?" But now, nothing. Not even as the dusty tome I had bought from a screaming street urchin who claimed he had unholy power dropped to the ground.
And yet it still took me a while to digest the fact that the saint whose name was invoked to reduce tension in one's neck was staring back at me, wordlessly, as color returned to his limbs and cheeks and he stretched out his hands as if attempting to push dreaded spirits away.
I tried to speak.
"So..." I curled my lip. "No lilies?"
This week's prompt was provided by Daniel Bulone.
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