This an attempt at a short story. It is partly true but I have imagined scenes that I did not see first hand
At 6.28 am Headmaster Father Grimes always drove his car in first gear for the two hundred yards to P.E. Every school day started at 6.30 am with Physical Education. He would stand at the corner of the school field while the pupils did whatever their bleary eyed teachers told them. Sometimes he would shout across the field at a pupil by name, “Stretch Waiswa – get on with it can’t you!”.
At 7 o’ clock the first lesson started for staff and students. Father Grimes went home for his light breakfast. His car was the only one on campus. But today he was intercepted. As he got to the mission door. “Father, my father is very ill. Can father Zon take him to hospital?” .. “Father Zon is away”. “Send for Mr. Sejabe while I have a cup of tea”. Mr Sejabe was the school medical assistant.
“Father we can’t find Sejabe. He’s not at the school. Nor is he he at his house”. “How ill is you father?” asked Father G?”. “Oh very sick. He’s very sick”. “I’ll look at him, where is he?”. “In you car”.
“Father Grimes glowered as he walked up to his car”. “He looks dead to me”. “No father! His heart is still beating .. Look”.
Checkmate! If the old man didn’t need a doctor he would certainly need a priest. So he was driven the twenty miles along the rutted dirt road to the nearest hospital. He was dead on arrival. So Father Grimes returned the body to his home to his family in the village.
That evening after the session when the students did evening prep, When Father opened the car door a chicken dashed out in a cloud of feathers. “Godammit!”.
Father Grimes had been told that when people died the spirits that had possessed them got loose and would possess any other person or creature they could get into. Rather than a person it is better a chicken should become posessed. The old man had almost certainly been possessed. Otherwise wouldn’t have had died. But Father Grimes had also been told that to be sure of catching the evil spirits the chicken needed to be present all night.
The next morning as Father Grimes left his house his smelly black mongrel dog Odo went with him to the car. Father Grimes claimed the dog Odo was named after the bishop half brother of William the Conqueror, but the school staff thought Odo was short for odiferous. As Father Grimes opened his car door the chicken flew out amid more feathers immediately to be pursued by Odo and then the cook. Amid much squawking and even more feathers Odo caught the chicken. The cook caught Odo. The cook stood up with the chicken in his hand.
“You’re here early”, said Father Grimes to the cook. “Yes Father”. Father Grimes was two minutes late for P.E.
After breakfast Father Grimes said to his cook. “Have you still got that chicken you bought this week”. “Yes Father”. And get those feathers out of my car right now”. “Yes Father”. “And cook that chicken today. We’ll eat it tonight!”.
As usual, even although it was in the tropics, dinner at the mission started with soup. But nothing else appeared. “Didn’t you cook that chicken?”, Father Grimes asked. “Yes Father”. “Well where is it?”. “Odo ate it”.