Go to News Headlines

Big Bang Goes Bust

MUDCAT FALLS -- Mayor Alabaster and his administration are now occupying temporary offices in mobile home trailers set up next to the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Courthouse Square after the implosion demolition of downtown's Trinity of the Wilderness Pentecostal Church went awry, sending the steeple crashing down into City Hall.

"Gee, I've never seen it do that before," said a clearly perplexed Ernst Feuerklätzchen, Chief Certified Implosionist for the Gila Bend Demolition Company in charge of the project. "It was supposed to collapse in on itself, but . . . geeze . . . like . . . timber!"

The demolition of the church followed a hostile take over of the property by the Riverside Charismatic Episcopal Church of the Sacred Sunrise after the Pentecostals defaulted on their mortgage following a difficult struggle with declining membership and financial troubles.

The removal of the Gothic brick cathedral was to make room for a new star-shaped structure made almost entirely of glass and a spiderweb framework of white steel over 400 feet long and 200 feet across, rising some 12 stories above the ground, with an angular, mirror-like exterior, and a transparent, sun-lit interior featuring a jumbo-vision television screen and an altar of rich marble.

"We regret this unfortunate incident, but we are doing God's work," said Reverend Arnold Dieselspiel during the official ground breaking of his new Twinkling Tabernacle later that day. "And His will be done."

No serious injuries were reported, though several civil servants have sought out expert advise from local attorney Steve Dallas regarding the release of asbestos from the impact of the steeple against the turn of the century structure and their risk of developing mesothelioma cancer.

In a related development, the ACLU of Calabash County filed suit against the city in federal court for violation of the First Amendment establishment clause's separation of church and state, claiming that the presence of a steeple and a cross on municipal property "constitutes an impermissible and unconstitutional entanglement of government and religion."



©2005 MFTHPPPGT




www.mudcatfalls.com



Go to News Headlines