Brain Drain FICTOID
For her sins they cast her into the depths of the convent, equipped only with a plunger and the instructions not to come back up until she unplugged the drain.
Sister Marie Celeste hiked her habit above her knees and tied a knot in the hem, hoping to keep hem out of the mucky water.
She wore the regular handyman’s oversized galoshes. He rested at home today, recovering from an infected turkey bite.
The galoshes proved futile, however. As she stepped into the icy cold water, it poured over the tops of the galoshes and into her shoes and stockings.
“Oh, blessings!” said Sister Marie Celeste through grit teeth, using the strongest expletive permitted in the convent.
She inched forward, tapping the submerged concrete floor with her toe, searching for the clogged drain.
Once she found it, she set to work in earnest, putting the plunger atop the grate and working it furiously like a butter churn.
“Haven’t you gotten it unplugged yet?” Mother Superior called down.
“No, Mother,” said Sister Marie Celeste, again through grit teeth,
“Well, hurry up,” said Mother Superior. “We shan’t hold up dinner for the others while you clear the drain. If you can’t finish in time you’ll just have to skip dinner.”
“Yes, Mother,” said Sister Marie Celeste.
The knot she tied to keep her hem up came loose, dropping her habit into the dark, foul water.
Sister Marie Celeste swore to herself – Add another ten thousand years to my time in Purgatory, she silently told God – and pumped away even more energetically.
Something dislodged in the clogged drainpipe. She heard the water gurgling out and pulled the plunger away to watch it drain.
It took a while for the flooded basement to drain, but Sister Marie Celeste knew she better not go upstairs until the job was completely done.
As the last of the water drained away, Sister Marie Celeste peered into the pipe to see if she could locate the cause of the problem.
There, deep down where the drainpipe made a ninety-degree turn to flow into the main sewer, she could see the pipe rusted through and a large rock now lodged halfway into the drain.
The grate wasn’t screwed on so she got down on her knees, lifted it off the drain, and reached down to grab the rock.
It took several tries but eventually she got her fingers around it and pulled it up.
Sister Marie Celeste felt surprised to see it wasn’t a rock but rather a lump of fire hardened clay. She carried it back up the stairs to her cell, dripping dirty water behind her.
Once she hid the clay lump she mopped up the mess she left behind so Mother Superior wouldn’t add new punishments to her penance, then got a spare habit and stockings from her meager wardrobe before going to the bathroom to clean herself and change.
She didn’t examine the lump again until after the rest of the convent retired for the night.
While watertight, the lump didn’t appear unbreakable and with a few hard raps on her cold cell floor, Sister Marie Celeste broke it open.
Inside sat a small rolled up beaded tribal scroll, the kind European settlers called wampum belts. Sister Marie Celeste knew the order built the convent atop the ruins of a First Nations village wiped out during a smallpox plague during the early part of Toronto’s colonial history; indeed, that very connection prompted her to join the order in hopes she might study any artefacts they might uncover, thus helping her understand her ancestry better.
She knew enough of the ancient tribal pictograms to decipher the story on the belt. It told of a terrible struggle between the village and a group of invaders called “hard hats.”
Sister Marie Celeste instantly grasped the meaning: Her ancestors in the Toronto area fought Viking raiders long before they encountered French or English explorers.
She knew what needed to be done. Tucking the scroll into her habit, she quietly crept out of her cell and down the long corridor to the massive front door leading outside.
Her history was too precious to share with the convent, but her people would know what to do with it.
© Buzz Dixon
