“Father Murphy, tell us a story.” Though the class of children didn’t know it for they were only six or just turned seven Father Murphy of the Holy Church of Gaia the Redeemer, to give him his full title, was their religious sciences instructor. He was a successful and well liked teacher who spent more time telling stories than on any other activity.

“Well now what would you like, Children? Shall I tell you about how the new Combined Heat and Power Cathedral was built here in Aberystwyth? There’re many interesting things to hear about that, and many of your grandparents were involved. Or shall I tell you one about the Twelve Tribes of Tree Planters who are still busy fighting the encroachment of the deserts? Or maybe even one about the Fish Recruitment Improvement Officers who live such adventurous lives on the high seas. Or how about how the Holy Order of Carbon Sequestrators and the Holy Order of Carbon Footprint Analysers came into being. Or maybe something from the Gospels of Gaia?”

“Tell us one about the olden days, Father,” a tiny little girl at the back asked. “A new one we don’t know.”

The old priest scratched his head, and finally asked with a huge beaming smile, “Now no story can be truly new you know, for it has already happened, but I may know one or two that would be new to you. Would the year 2019 OR, that’s of the old reckoning of the years, which is nearly fifteen hundred years ago, be olden times enough for ye, Naomi?”

“There are no stories that old, Father!”

“Indeed not many, Naomi, but there are some. Most are not told often, for many are incomplete, some just fragments, and often they disagree with each other. One of the most popular girls’ names for centuries has been Scowla, so would you like to hear of Our Lady of Niok and how Saint Scowla was visited by her with the passion in front of thousands and viewed by millions?”

The clamour of, “Yes, yes, yes,” went around the room as the children settled down, for the old priest’s stories were the highlight of their week’s schooling. It was Friday afternoon, and Father Murphy, unlike most of their teachers, liked the two hour time slot because children were never too tired to listen to stories, and he knew before the weekend was over hundreds rather than just the fifty eight in front of him would have heard the tale.

He was a respected and loved mentor, for he never talked down to them and used adult vocabulary which he was prepared to explain no matter how long it took. He was regarded as an indulgent grandfather, and never had any discipline issues to deal with, so he always took two classes together in the dinning hall and gave the other teacher and both classroom assistants the afternoon as extra free time, which they gratefully used to catch up on administrative tasks, plan lessons or mark [US grade] pupil work.

“Well now, let me see. I’ll tell you what the tales say, and as I go I’ll tell you what I think. There’ll be more of that than usual this afternoon because with tales so old things get altered and lost with the passage of time. Much was lost in the Collapse and anything from before that was only preserved as stories told round the fire at night. All written records were lost, and we are lucky that the ability to write and read was saved, or we’d have had to invent it all over again.

“Scowla was from the far north, part of the land the glaciers reclaimed a long time ago, when the cessation of the Atlantic conveyor triggered the ice age. That was the time of the whole series of super storms that killed tens of millions if not more. We have a good record of the first of those storms, it’s the subject of the story called ‘The Day after Tomorrow’. You mind cessation means stopping?” There were silent nods all around as the children didn’t want to interrupt the story. “There is probably a mile or more of ice now over where Scowla played as a little girl. The tales give her age when she received Gaia’s passion as anywhere between eleven and sixteen. I personally believe she was no more than eleven or twelve, and probably born in 2008 OR. Why do you think I believe that? Yes. Thomas?”

“Because that’s the age when girls first receive Gaia’s monthly visit, Father.”

“Indeed, but why is that significant? Helen?”

“The Gospels say, it’s usually just before their first monthly visit from Gaia that Gaia blesses her chosen girls with the passion and the visions of her will, but my sister Scowla was only ten when she had her first visit.”

“Excellent, good girl. That your sister was blessed early could be due to her being named after Saint Scowla, but in truth only Gaia knows.”

“My sister, Penelope was fifteen, Father. Does that mean she was not blessed nor considered worthy?” There were tears in the little girl’s eyes as she asked.

“Of course not, Aida. It merely meant Gaia had tasks for her to accomplish whilst she was still a girl. We will probably never know what those tasks were. It’s likely Penelope never will, for the workings of Gaia are always complex and mysterious.” Aida was smiling again. “But back to our story. Now Scowla had started to care about the warming of the planet and the changing climate before her gift of the passion, which is probably why Gaia chose to bless her rather than any other. Scowla had tried to get her people’s leaders to take the matter more seriously, but alas to little avail.

“Remember in those days the peoples of the world were tribal and each tribe had its own rulers. All the time somewhere in the world there were at least two tribes fighting each other, often over resources, and hard as it is to imagine often it was for water. It would be centuries before the Great Accords that effectively gave us a planetary government were drawn up.”

As the old priest talked the children were silently taking it all in. He was a good story teller and knew how to tailor his rendition for his audience. He could draw them in, and as he spoke they became involved in his tale, they weren’t just listening they were participating. In truth he was in his element, for he was an academic cleric who had spent his entire life poring over the oldest of the written records and talking to those who knew tales of which there were no written records till he had written them down.

His health had forced him to retire from his arduous work which had kept him constantly travelling, but he had refused to retire altogether. Unbeknownst to him his refusal had reached the Holy Mother Agnes herself at the Basilica of Gaia the Redeemer. The Basilica was surrounded by the great research establishment and university of Victoria on the Maltese Island of Gozo. The Basilica was the headquarters of the global organisation that was the church which was in turn one of the three great arms of the planetary government. The others were the House of Law Givers which was in Delhi, India and the Planetary Courts of Justice which were in Darwin, Australia.

Father Murphy was a highly regarded man who had turned down any number of opportunities for advancement. Had he been so minded he’d have been a cardinal years ago, but advancement would have taken him away from what he loved, his work. The Holy Mother had taken the view that though he was seventy-three he should be allowed to continue working because it was what he wished to do and the church owed him so much that his wishes should not be questioned. When advised he could die working, she’d smiled and said, “He’s proudly lived his entire life for the church and will be proud to die in the service to it which has given his life meaning in his own eyes. He wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She knew he would refuse advancement in rank deeming it hollow, and the only change he would accept would be to a pastoral rôle, for he was renowned for his opinion that all too many priests had forgotten that was and should be their most pressing concern. She had personally looked into vacancies that would suit him without taxing him too much. She’d found that a supernumerary priest would be welcome at the Cathedral of Aberystwyth, so the others could have a little respite from their duties. As a priest at the cathedral he would have a suite of rooms in the monastery which would be cleaned and maintained and take meals in the refectory with the others. It was a perfect solution, he would have dignity and be looked after. Too, the vacant rôle of religious sciences instructor to the little ones at the Cathedral school was perfect. He’d resisted a little concerning the teaching rôle, but it hadn’t taken long before he would have resented any suggestion that someone else should teach the little ones.

“According to the stories, Scowla’s mother was a singer of saga and her father a player of the saga scenes, but you must remember the saga and scenes in those terrible days were not the rendering of the environmentalists’ Gospels into music and stage performances that you are familiar with because they didn’t have our enlightenment and ignored all guidance from Gaia. Who can tell me the names of some famous Gospel writers?”

The names came thick and fast, but some of the most often shouted were, Saint David of Attenborough, Saint Jean-Michel of Cousteau, Saint Patrick Moore of Greenpeace and Saint Rachel Louise of Carson. The priest nodded and smiled in approval for this was a good group who were learning well.

He continued, “Her parents considered what their daughter had to say to be so important they allowed her to cease her education and be a full time instrument of Gaia’s will. All the tales agree Scowla was ill educated and regularly taken to task for it. Some of the tales say she was afflicted by some sort of brain condition which has always been assumed to be epilepsy, but none know the truth of it. There are also tales that say she was of a great ugliness, but she had a lot of enemies, and such folk in those days would say anything. However, I think we can take it she was no beauty, for had she been knowledge of it would have survived in the stories. People always take note of beauty in a woman.

“There was a great meeting of elders from tribes all over the world in Niok in 2019 OR concerning climate change and damage to the planet. Some tales say it took place later, some earlier but most say 2019 and none say more than three years away from that. She travelled by boat from her home to Niok, so as to avoid the damage to the planet that air travel would have caused, but she took serious criticism, for the boat was a man made construct with a significant carbon footprint.

“When she spoke at the meeting the passion of Gaia took her over. The tales all agree she spoke as one possessed or having a fit, and the words ranting and even raving are used in some versions. She rebuked the adults greatly at length for their crimes against the planet and their theft of her future. There is a church there called Our Lady of Niok built in celebration of Scowla’s vision and passion. The great glacier that has completely covered the lands of the Canadian tribes is visible from the church now and there are plans to move the church to La Paz on the tropic of cancer in Mexico because the glacier is still moving south.

“There was a great backlash, for many said she only stood on the shoulders of those who had gone before who had made the life of privilege and plenty she enjoyed possible. She was told she was a silly little girl and should go back to school to learn the sciences, so she would know what she was talking about and would have enough knowledge to form a valid opinion and be able interpret the data when she had matured into an adult.

There are references in the tales to lewd and obscene pictures and videos of her that were freely available for all to view at the time, but the tales say that they were the work of a renegade tribe known by the unlikely sounding name of ‘The Deepfake Photoshoppers’ who were dedicated to the overthrew of all decent society by sophisticated manipulation of pictures and videos. She made many enemies, and was a very controversial person for all of her life that we have any knowledge of, but it is always thus with the saintly. What do I mean by lewd and obscene? Yes, Samantha.”

“Nakedness and acts that would be socially acceptable in private between people in love, but inappropriate for public viewing, Father.”

“Excellent, Samantha. I must be a better teacher than I realised. Collect five points for the trip to Gozo at the end of the lesson. One of her most noted opponents was Geronimo Carson. Geronimo seems to have been half native North American of the Apache tribe and half Northern Irish of the Catholic tribe. He spent his youth fighting both the American and British in his tribes’ independence struggles. How he did both is not clear, but that is what the stories say. Eventually peace of a kind was established with the other American and the British tribes, and he became a noted media entertainer of wide scope in both America and Britain. Using the stage name Frank Carson, he was a popular comedian of close to the edge, if not abusively over the edge, humour in Britain. He was also a famous presenter of a British media shew called ‘Top Gear’ where he crashed any number of fossil fuel powered vehicles called cars, which is why the media dubbed him Crash Carson which he subsequently used as his stage name for the shew.

“There is one story that says using a different stage name, Johnny Carson, he presented a media shew in America for many years, but most of the elements in that story are difficult to believe or even interpret. However his real claim to fame and the only reason we know of him today is, at the time of the Niok meeting, he was deeply offended by Scowla’s passionate attack on his generation and famously referred to Scowla as ‘A spoilt brat in need of science education who threw public temper tantrums.’ He said when she spoke at the meeting she had threwn a temper tantrum in front of the entire world. In some of the tales he is referred to as Judas Clarkson but the significance of that has been lost.

“Another of Scowla’s notable opponents was Donaught Wallman Trump, who was the leader of the North American tribes at the time of the Niok meeting. Donaught was a wealthy man who had profited, some stories say profiteered, from the buying, developing and selling of property. He too like Geronimo had been a media entertainer and notorious for intemperate, inflammatory remarks. He was the one who completed the building of the Wall between North America and Mexico which successfully saved the Mexican tribes from being overwhelmed by the North Americans fleeing the first of the super storms that I mentioned a few minutes ago. By the time the Americans had readied to move south the cold was upon them, and most of them died frozen solid by the storm. Many Mexicans hold Donaught up as a Saintlike person and regard him as the saviour of their people. It is hard to interpret such tales from so long ago, and you must remember the world was different and people had very different values from yours.

“It is not clear when Scowla died, some tales speak of assassination by her enemies, others that she was caught up in and died in a food riot, one even hints that she was eaten by a starving mob, but none speak of her in old age. As the climate became more extreme in every aspect, dryer, hotter, longer droughts, worse and more frequent floods, longer and colder winters, more violent and destructive wind systems, deserts started to grow as did the unstoppable glaciers. Growing food crops and raising meat animals became so difficult millions starved. In the face of such calamity many started to pray for Scowla to intercede on their behalf with Gaia. What is known is as a result of the thousands of claims that she had successfully interceded with Gaia on behalf of those who’d prayed for her help she was eventually beatified by the Holy Mother in the year 2157 OR.

“She was elevated to sainthood in 2192 OR as a result of the deed for which she is best known. The captain, whose name we no longer know, of a large ship carrying thousands of passengers was sailing in waters where icebergs had never been seen before. Suddenly he was on a collision course with a huge iceberg that came up on him out of the mist. He prayed to Scowla for help, and at the last minute the berg sheered off and a major disaster was averted saving thousands of lives. The ship has different names in different stories, Titanic is the most common one, followed by Sir Galahad, but there are others. “It seems curious that her name should be what it was, but Gaia doesn’t make mistakes. And that children is the story of Saint Scowla Turnberg and Our Lady of Niok.

“Now we have twenty minutes left and I would like you to draw and colour pictures of the ship and the iceberg before you go home to enjoy your weekend. I shall see you in the cathedral on Sunday where I am not taking the morning service, Father Jones is doing that, but I am taking the Sunday school where I intend to shew you a video of the reforestation efforts in the Amazon by the Legion of Gaia and their cohorts. I will take this opportunity to remind you that in three and a half weeks you have Wednesday off school. Does anyone know why? The clue is that it is connected to today’s lesson.”

A chorus of voices answered, “It’s Saint Scowla’s day.”

“Yes. and her statue has been freshly repainted for the parade from the Cathedral. This year the route will take in the fish and invertebrate hatchery, the seaweed food factory, the tree nursery and the children’s reuse, repurpose and recycling centre. Now finish your work and pack up ready for my blessing in the name of Gaia before you go.”

“Yes, Father Murphy.”