Free Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories by Various

heat I just didn’t have it in me.
    Right after the Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession, toward the end of the service, I paused and stared as bubbles thick as dirty motor oil simmered on the Presbyterian blue carpet. I cleared my throat and announced the final hymn, “Rejoice, O People,” number 299. In that moment the bubbles swirled together and a white lamb slurped up out of the floor. It shook its floppy ears, skipped down the aisle and sprang up onto the pew beside Mrs. Miller.
    Mrs. Donnally fainted into the aisle. People rose from their seats. “It’s a miracle!” Hands waved, palms to heaven. People stepped over Mrs. Donnally to get a better view. “Amen! Hallelujah!” Shouting drowned out the first chords of the hymn.
    The lamb blinked again, then morphed into a woolly behemoth of mucilaginous slime, howling and towering over Mrs. Miller.
    Someone in the choir said, “Holy shit!”
    It reached down, clamped a shaggy limb onto Mrs. Miller’s blue-tinted head, then lifted her right out of the pew, and shook her. Slime spattered the wall. The Board of Managers just had the sanctuary painted a delicate robin’s egg blue the month before.
    Parishioners scrambled to get away—tumbling over the backs of the pews, or scrabbling on all fours underneath the pews. Somebody snatched Mrs. Donnally from the path of the faithful rushing toward the doors.
    The sour-smelling fingers held Mrs. Miller under both sides of her jaw and behind her recently-coiffed head while she hung there, kicking. Stubborn, she dug her hands into the slimy wool and tried to pull herself free.
    Then the creature plopped Mrs. Miller onto her butt-worn pew and shrank back into a lamb. It leapt off the pew and darted up the aisle, melting into the carpet as it ran. Oily smutches rippled to the four corners of the sanctuary.
    Mrs. Miller scraped mucilage out of her hair with her hands.
    I thought I was dreaming. I just kept thinking, Mrs. Miller—good choice! Quite unbecoming of course, but she and I had had our battles, and had settled on a polite, seething truce for the past few years. But I dream about her often. Usually she does not fare well.
    So I figured this was just another one of my tabloid-style dreams. Slime Lamb Attacks Church Elder in House of God. Nothing unusual.
    But no, this actually happened.
    The sanctuary was empty now, except for Mrs. Miller and me.
    She raised her arm, like God in Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, although I don’t think creating was what she had in mind. She pointed at me. I was barely protected by the pulpit.
    “You!” she hissed. “This is your doing!”
    I’ve come to realize over the years that there are parishioners in every congregation who view the minister as responsible for whatever ills befall the family of God—poor attendance, tight budgets, fallen angel food cakes (“It was a mix, it should not have fallen, would not have fallen if you hadn’t let all that cold air in, Reverend.”). Mrs. Miller was one such bane.
    “Me?” I said.
    “Yes, you. I’ve known all along. The handiwork of the devil.”
    “You don’t even believe in the devil, Mrs. Miller. You told me so yourself.”
    She eased to her feet, back straighter than usual (a little bit of free slime-chiropractic work never hurt anyone, I thought), and stalked out of the sanctuary to meet the approaching wave of sirens.
    I sat down in the chair behind the pulpit.
    I’ve read that God exacts retribution: locusts, floods, plagues. And I admit, Mrs. Miller can indeed be trying. So maybe that’s what this was, godly retribution.
    Or maybe there is a devil. Ha. Maybe he’s looking for recruits—little spindly blue-haired ones.
    Well . . . maybe it was me. Maybe I did let my fear of her get the better of me. If I’d—
    Now just hold on a minute. We’re talking a lamb grew out of the church floor and turned into a slime creature. Yeah right, in my dreams.
    I shrugged to myself.