Digging Up Saint Swithin On Saint Swithin's Day

Renfield R. Renfield had construction signs placed up all around the area of the High Altar in Winchester Cathedral.

That way no one would find his work suspicious as he used a jack hammer to cut through the floor.

Amadeus Emanon was walking back from having High Tea in a nearby hotel. The hotel had been the site of a famous cat who back in the late 1960s used to watch his own television program.

The cat would enter the sitting room at the same time each day, go over and turn the TV on, switch it to his favourite channel if one of the hotel guests had had the audacity to change channels and then the cat would sit back in his favourite chair (occasionally he would have to spat at one of the hotel guests if the said culprit had had the audacity to sit in his favourite chair) and watch his show.

The cat had thrown a major spaz attack 40 years ago around this time when hotel guests insisted on watching the launch of the Apollo 11 moon mission.

Amadeus Emanon had had tea and crumpets sitting in the long departed cat's favourite chair.

"What are you doing digging up this place?" Amadeus asked as he bit into a Devonshire cream and strawberry jam laced crumpet from his take-out bag.

"I'm hoping to dig up the body of Saint Swithin, Britain's patron saint of the weather," Renfield answered.

"Isn't such an act considered a desecration?" Amadeus asked.

"Oh, probably," Renfield continued digging, "but that's the wonderful thing about being a psychopath. One never feels compelled to justify one's actions."

"Why are you digging up Saint Swithin anyway?" Amadeus inquired.

"To bring him back from the dead and ask him to do something about the weather this year," Renfield explained, "I've been reading in the gutter press about some South African witch doctor who's been bringing people back from the dead this year including Jack the Ripper. Remember you and your friend Angelique Dumont saw the spirit of Jack the Ripper taking possession of that wax effigy of himself in that wax museum you visited last month. Anyways I'd ordered a copy of the book that witch doctor is said to use to bring people back from the dead. And now I'm going to try it out on Saint Swithin."

"Where did you get a copy of the book?" Amadeus asked, "from an occult book store?".

"No," Renfield shook his head, "I picked it up in the library of an Episcopalian seminary when I was visiting the U.S. last week."

"I believe today is Saint Swithin's Day," Amadeus noted.

"It is," Renfield spotted some bones, "this must be the old boy himself. That's why I'm digging up his body today- I thought it would an ideal time to do it."

"They certainly thought Saint Swithin's Day was a good day to open Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in movie theatres worldwide," Amadeus wiped his chin, "although personally I don't know why they didn't pick Saint Vladimir's Day."

"When's Saint Vladimir's Day?" Renfield looked at Amadeus quizzically.

"Tomorrow, July 16th," Amadeus responded, "which incidentally is also Harry Potter's birthday. That's why I thought they might have chosen Saint Vladimir's Day to open his new movie."

"I thought July 31st was Harry Potter's birthday," Renfield replied.

"It's J.K. Rowling's birthday but in one of her books, I remember a reference to July 16th," Amadeus opened a can of Lipton's Iced Tea.

In the meantime, Renfield opened the book and invoked a spell over the bones.

"Nothing is happening," Renfield sounded disappointed.

"Perhaps," Amadeus explained, "you can't bring back spirits of the departed from Paradise or Heaven. Perhaps you can only summon them back temporarily from Hell or Purgatory."

"Did you say Purgatory?" Renfield gazed in shock at Amadeus.

"Yes," Amadeus sipped his iced tea.

"I don't believe in Purgatory," Renfield spat, "it goes against my Calvinistic instincts."

"But I thought you were an atheist," Amadeus added a lemon to his iced tea.

"I am," Renfield replied, "but I'm an atheist with Calvinistic instincts."

To be continued.