The Miracle

We shouldn't laugh at Corky's owner for her god thing. I had a god thing happen to me once, well it wasn't really a god thing, let's say it was inexplicable.

It was about fifteen years ago it happened. I was wearing yellow rubber gloves.

We'd had bacon for dinner and there was bacon stuck to the bottom of the pan, hard baked-on bacon, difficult to get off. I was doing the washing up. I scraped at the hard baked-on lumps of bacon with my finger encased in the finger of the yellow rubber glove.

I finished the washing up and took off the yellow rubber gloves. And then I saw it. A piece of disintegrating bacon stuck under my fingernail, the one I'd used to scrape the bacon with. But the fingernail had been covered at all times by the rubber of the glove.

I was astonished. But I thought perhaps there had been a hole in the yellow rubber glove. I examined it closely. I couldn't see a hole. I looked and looked. There wasn't any hole. The only possible conclusion was that the bacon had travelled through the rubber.

For half an hour I was in a state of believing the miraculous. It was regrettable that my miracle only involved the transmission of bacon through solid yellow rubber. But a miracle was a miracle, nonetheless.

So there you have my god thing. As I said it wasn't really a god thing, but it was inexplicable.

Turned out it wasn't even inexplicable. There was a hole in the finger of the yellow rubber glove after all, I had just missed it. But I haven't forgotten the feeling of being faced with the ineffable. That is why I would not laugh at Mrs Corky.

Transfer of Information is Complete

I've finished The Wonderful World of Dogs! I said. Hoorah! Now I can wrap it up.

So what was your final impression? asked Pliny. Did you find it to be meritorious?

Oh very meritorious, I said. And I have a third favourite story.

What is it? asked Pliny.

It's the story of Corky, I answered. And it is quite spooky. Corky was very old and collapsed one day in the kitchen He was taken to the vet's where he was pronounced untreatable. The owner and her husband agreed that he should be put down. The vet said it would be done in twenty minutes. They said their goodbyes and went home.

Why didn't they stay? asked Pliny.

If they had, I said the following would not have happened. At home the owner turned on her computer to search for some photos of Corky. As she was searching she got an alert message and heard a voice say, "Transfer of information is complete". She'd never had a message like that before. It was very clear and quite deep. Then she got a call from the vet to say that Corky had died. The time of death was exactly the time of the voice message. Her husband thought it must be a God thing, and that "Transfer of information is complete" was a message to say that Corky was already in heaven.

Did she think so too? asked Pliny.

She said she would like to think so. She said the voice had not been mechanical, but had sounded quite human.

Then clearly it could not have been God, said Pliny.

She didn't say it was, I replied. She said a God thing. She didn't even say it herself. She said her husband said it.

This is a confusing story, said Pliny. I don't know why you liked it.