The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2833 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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In the UK, the day after Christmas day is Boxing day, not because everyone dons big gloves and bashes each other but from the days when many working people had jobs working for wealthy families and had their Christmas on the twenty sixth and were given their Christmas boxes. These days things are so different. My two staff David and Amanda are accepted as members of our household, almost family and invited to take part in our celebrations. Neither seemed to have anywhere better to go and they were both on double pay, so they possibly got more out of Christmas than I did, other than having a chance to read and contemplate what I was reading.

I won’t dwell on the origins of Christianity again, it fascinates me but bores or angers some others who had a different take on it. I let Trish make her birthday card for Mithras but told her on no account was she to take it to school. She grumbled as she wanted to show it to Sister Virginia or Sister Vagina, as the girls all call her. I forbade it and also if they were asked to tell what they did at Christmas, she wasn’t to say she’d been making a card for Mithras as she was likely to be labelled a devil worshipper.

That did the trick, she began to look quite worried, “He’s not the devil is he?”

“There is no devil, though the early Christians labelled anyone who believed anything they didn’t or didn’t like as devil worshippers. They even called Gnostic Christians it and then persecuted them. So no, Mithras is not the devil but that needn’t stop other people accusing you of such things, if you get my drift.”

“So I can be accused of something I’m not because they don’t understand what I’m saying? That’s like when I was a boy and said I was a girl really, people didn’t understand and called me all sorts of horrible things.”

“Did you look Mithras up on the internet?”

“No, I was too busy doing him a card.”

“Why don’t you go and do it now and at least you’ll be able to say you know what you’re talking about if the subject arises.” It won’t as long as you don’t start it, kiddo. She went off to her laptop. As she is quite capable of researching by herself I wandered along a little later and found she’d printed off an entire series of articles and pictures about Mithras and his cult and of the temple or Mithraneum they found in London in 1954 or thereabouts, while they were building some office block. I believe they moved and reconstructed the whole thing somewhere else in London. Can’t say for certain because I haven’t been to see it.

When I saw her she was punching holes in her collected articles to fit them in a ring binder which had previously held her collection of Hello Kitty drawings. This looks serious. She showed it to me with great enthusiasm and said she was going to worship Mithras instead of becoming a Jedi. I told her in no uncertain terms that, while I had no problems with her ambitions, that she’d have to wait until she left the convent and also until she grew up as a man.

She was horrified. “I’m not going to grow into a man, am I? I want to be a lady like you.”

“As things are you’ll grow up to be a woman but the bad news is that if I recall correctly, the Roman Mithraic mystery religion was a male thing. Women couldn’t join it as worshippers.”

“What? That’s like the bloody Catholic church,” she said throwing her ring binder backwards over her head where it nearly hit Cate who was wandering past.

“Women can become nuns,” I said though in reality I shared her disgust.

“Who wants to be a freaking nun?” she declared loudly, “An’ end up like Sister Vagina—not me, that’s for sure.” I should have taken her to task but couldn’t move for laughing, suppression of which would surely have caused a hernia.

Trish was therefore, probably the briefest convert and adherent to the cult of Mithraism in history. Now if she’d turned cannibal, she could always become a confirmed member of the established Christian churches and gone every week to eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus, which is what they celebrate at mass/ communion.

Returning to Boxing day, I gave Amanda and David some time off and I think she might have gone to see family, David borrowed some DVDs and went back to his cottage. I also told both of them if they could cope with my catering they were welcome to come for tea at six in the evening. Other than that, the only thing to report was rain. We had plenty of it but thankfully with different consequences to York and parts of Cumbria where they had more flooding.

According to the internet and papers, there were the usual disasters and murders. Various places became locked down as they perceived threats from Islamic militants and the post Christmas sales started—not something of which I partook despite emails and adverts on my computer.

I longed for dry weather and shorter nights but both looked to be some distance away at the moment. I also had to consider what the priorities would be back at the university and what the vice chancellor had been up to in my absence. There were times when if the opportunity arose, I’d take Sussex if it was offered but Herbert was likely to be there for a few more years yet.

The problem was my extra responsibilities were locked into the university as well, such as Billie’s visitor centre. If I left I wasn’t sure what would happen to those and at the moment I felt too close to things to even want to think about it. I have a feeling that the bank owns them but the university administers them, or something like that.

Life always has complications. James phoned to say that Brown had gone back to the States so was well enough to fly. As far as he was able to ascertain, the three other members of the gang hadn’t been found but the police and security services were still looking. I suspected they’d gone back to Israel. Sadly that didn’t mean they wouldn’t try to undermine any peace talks again wherever they were being held.

I got the tea ready, I did a huge pot of turkey stew which the locusts devoured as quickly as I could ladle it out. David came back in time for some and just in case I saved a dish of it for Amanda should she want some when she came back.

David helped me clear up. “That was pretty good you know,” he said, which I presumed was about my stew.

“Daddy complained it wasn’t curry,” I replied as I loaded the dishwasher.

“You can’t please everyone all the time.”

“I know, but you can piss off everyone at the same time.”

“That would take some doing, even for you.” He chuckled dirtily.

“Watch this,” I replied, “Right, I’m off duty now, if anyone wants anything else tonight they can get it themselves.” This was followed by moans and groans and muttered complaints. “See?” I said and he laughed.