The Unfolding Story of the Holy Grail and other stories

Author: Leonard Schembri

Self published / 2024

Pages: 181

 

This is the last story in this recently published collection but, in my opinion, it is by far the best.

It focuses on one specific ward in an un-named hospital and describes with a wealth of detail what is it that has brought them to hospital and what happens to them there.

The first patient is Abigail, seven and a half months pregnant who had to urgently enter hospital as a precaution because of a mild bleeding episode, brought in by her very caring husband.

The second patient has a stillborn child and the dead baby has to be induced to be removed. She too is lucky to be assisted by a caring husband.

The third patient is a 15-year-old child who never knew what sex was and who never realized she was pregnant until her parents found out. At first they wanted her to have an abortion but then the child's mother argued it was the family's duty to gather round and support the girl.

The fourth patient, Cassandra, was quite straightforward - she wanted an abortion and qualified according to the law of the land to have it even though it would have been her third abortion.

But when the counselor started to tell her to be more careful in the future, she left the clinic angry and grumpy and told him to stop preaching. The next day she thought more about her situation in the light of the advice she had been given, relented and accepted to have the abortion but in a different frame of mind.

The fifth patient, Lara, had a complication - an ectopic pregnancy and thus had to have a delicate operation.

The sixth patient was a Catholic nun who had been attacked and raped while out shopping at a nearby supermarket. The other patients were not told she was a nun and she had now reached full term.

The operations over, the patients are brought back to the ward to rest. They start to bond with each other. Those who have had babies experience love to a heightened degree and those who in one way or another lost their child or foetus become determined to go forth to a new experience.

Even Cassandra gets influenced by the atmosphere inside the ward. She decides to go and visit her parents who she had not seen in a long time. They did not know her real job - she was a stripper.

When she knocked on their door, they welcomed her and would have taken her in but when she went to get her things, she became discouraged. At the end she was saved but only by the sight of a mother pushing her child's walker.

The first story in this collection is coming from the apocrypha about Christ and his disciples. Christ and Mary Magdalen are lovers. Judas would have loved to take Mary as his lover but when he sees her squandering money to buy perfume for Jesus, he is overcome by anger and thoughts of revenge and he ends up betraying him. The realizing he had messed everything, he commits suicide.

Mary, meanwhile, escapes with the Holy Grail and lands near Marseille.

There are other stories. A chance encounter between an artist and a woman he had never met before. And a story about a greedy and selfish wife.

Lastly, a message from beyond the grave, in a pre-recorded tape.