Excerpt from an almost finished short

Parts of the grass have been dug up by whatever tires the door belonged to. Some drunk kid, entitled as fuck I’d say, drink, drive and donuts. Either way the van city government are charging him for the repair work. We start at picking the tread marks, Andore asks if we’d be better off using the Stripper. Lucas doesn’t respond. Politely he asks again. No reply. I smile at the new guy and throw eyes to the skies.

                “The community asked us to do this slow, charge by the hour” Lucas says “teach the little piglet a lesson.”

                He stands by the car door and lights a fag. He doesn’t lift a pick. Sweat beads and rolls over my brows, stinging my eyes. I drop the pick and walk to the truck to get some water, I screw the top off and down some.

                “Who said you could have a break?!” Lucas shouts.

                “Thought you wanted to do it slow.” I yell back.

                Birdman stops picking and looks at me, biting his bottom lip to stop the laughter. Andore looks to Lucas, Remy keeps at the job. Lucas walks over to me carrying his bulk with clenched fists to the side. He stops a foot from me and stares, he grabs the water bottle from me and unscrews the top slowly. He begins drinking, water streaming down his heavy jowls. He keeps his eyes on me, head slanted until every drop is gone. He screws the top back on, hands me the bottle and glares.

                “Back to work” he says.

                I go back to work.           

                My arms start burning, heat rising off my biceps. Everything starts to hurt. Whenever I try to stop for a breath Lucas eyes me. Cumbersome isn’t the word at all. Lucky to get through ten inches in ten minutes. I start to see shapes in the ruffled dirt, people wrapped around one another, faces. Sweat dripping into tiny puddles beneath me, my breath heavy. I start to think about my childhood, ice cream lining my knuckles, da giving me maths grinds. He used to put me on his back in the pool before I could swim, holding on in the deep end. Floating. A cool breeze shushes somewhere behind my eyes. I feel the pick axe in my hand, my fingers calloused on the wood. An extension. I breathe in the leaves, the trees, the mark of the treads. Something is about to happen, I’m about to lift off the ground or be sucked into it and then Lucas shouts fifteen minutes and it’s break and I snap out. All the way out. Lucas walks to his truck, he never eats with us.

                “You doing okay Irish?” Birdman asks.

                “What’s the deal with Lucas?”

                “He’s got a mood thing, don’t take it personally. He feels worse about that then you do.”

                “You should have seen him before he kicked the drink.” Andore says.

                “He was a fucking demon.”

                Someone asks Remy what he did back in Montreal and to be fair the chap gives us the best answer ever. A Pedobaiter.

                “What the fuck is that?” I ask.

                “I would set up fake facebooks” his French Canadian accent is weak now “be a fifteen year old boy or whatever. Get them to say some weird shit and then tell them to put a grand in my account or I’d send all the shit they said to me to their families.”

                No one says a thing.

                “Snagged a cop by mistake, had to get out of Montreal.”

                The door on the truck opens, fifteen minutes isn’t a lot. He walks towards us. His torn dungarees caught in a mild breeze. We walk towards the pick axes, horizontal beside the treads. Lucas hands me a water bottle as I walk and nods. There is something terribly desperate in the way he looks at me, like a dog that shit the bed. Thanks I say and drink. He walks away before I can hand him the bottle.

                It’s mine now.  

Abortion In Ireland

The ‘Right or Wrong’

It would seem that Ireland is going to be brought, with some citizens kicking and screaming, into a pro-choice world. So far the main proponents of the debate are those with liberal attitudes and agendas and those who, for the most part, are right wing, conservative and religious. Unfortunately, as is often the case when debates start to gain public recognition, there is rarely a discourse for people who may believe or at least question elements from each argument.

                We live in an era of scientific knowledge and beliefs that refute various religious ideas. This has seen a profound number of people stray from their local parish in the past twenty or so years. The Catholic church, for its part, has remained an archaic institute which refuses to change as social attitudes and customs do. It has fallen from an immensely powerful structure in society to something that has become relic like. While this seems true for many religious institutions the Catholic church is alone in the fact that it has been publicly disgraced for its transgressions again and again. Many people have turned away from the institution primarily for this reason while for others the community of church and belief is important and they recognize that it wasn’t ‘their’ priest who was involved. It has become obvious through recent inquiries and media attention that the upper echelons do not act with the interests of community at the forefront rather interests of appearance but the fact remains that religion can be a source of warmth and healing to people. Many others would argue that they are spiritual to some extent or believe in something transcendent though what they couldn’t tell you. The truth is that there is no way to prove or disprove any of these ideas and the act of endeavouring to do so often causes more damage than good.

                A growing number of societies and governments have decided that a foetus’ life cannot be called a human life and in doing so have paved a way for abortion. There is no point getting into the idea of a human spirit or soul being housed in a foetus or at what moment it becomes active. I can’t know this, neither can you. But one thing we can accept is that a foetus has the potential for human life. A foetus can grow from child to adult and live their lives whatever way they deem fit. To create life is a legal responsibility and those found guilty of neglecting their children face legal ramifications. As a society we have accepted that once the baby has been delivered it has the same rights and legal standing as any other citizen. We have not decided to which point this legal right extends before birth. I have no statistics on what point a brain develops but the fact that the potential for these things exists should bring a bigger argument than it’s a woman’s body, a woman’s choice. From a humanitarian point of view abortion would be unethical should we extend the same rights of a foetus to a child. Where then does this stand when we consider that a foetus is the potential for a child? And then of course darker arguments begin to spring up: what about cases of incest or rape, mental or physical illness or death? We can say that a foetus has the potential for life but also it has the potential to cause a devastating effect on life that already exists. Also there will always be cases where abortion is used flippantly. I would never argue that people would knowingly use it as a source of contraception, that argument seems shallow. However I do believe it relieves people of a certain amount of responsibility that they should have, but then the reality is that these people will probably make far better parents when they are ready, whether than is together or apart. There is also the argument that abortions cause people to experience depression. This is probably due to stigma and the fact that an abortion itself is a traumatic experience rather than evidence of anything inherently evil about it.

                Should abortion be made legal? I myself would not want my partner, sex buddy or one night stand to get one. I believe that the potential for a child is an important thing and without knowing if a foetus has some kind of cosmic or otherworldly energy I couldn’t stand by a decision to abort one. But that’s me and I don’t have the right to extend my sensibilities and ideologies to anyone else. Just because I believe in something does not make it real. I believed in Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, I even believed in the Abrahamic God I grew up with. The reality is that abortion should be legal for those that feel they need it for whatever reason that may be. Anyone who believes a foetus has a soul will not get one anyway. Whether this is right or wrong is a purely subjective matter. But if abortion does become law, we as a society, must stress that an individual be responsible. We must give them all the ideas, all the beliefs and all the mental and physical factors that go into getting an abortion. I’m sure many more people regret having abortions than children, and we should have a detailed list of the various coping mechanisms available to pregnant mothers. Above all else we must approach this with compassion for the person involved and not judgement. For most people the decision to get an abortion cannot be easy and times may well be tough in the preceding months that one has been completed.

                The abortion argument should not be about who is right and who is wrong. It should be about compassion for people regardless of which side of the line they stand on and a recognition that no matter what your beliefs are they don’t transcend the experience of being human. If you were brought up Catholic put yourself in the shoes of a young woman who isn’t. If you’re not spiritual or religious consider the possibility that the foetus may be more than growing cells or at the very least consider that it holds the possibility for life. When you have considered all these things and the various other ideas and arguments not expressed here make your decision but you must have the integrity and responsibility to consider these things. Once you do there is no one on either line of the argument that can convincingly say you were wrong.

  

               

               

      

                  

Curracloe

Little one for the summer...

Curracloe

The cars looking for parking and granddad saying out past the sand bank are basking sharks. That he used swim with them out in Dungarvan and he gives a wink. Young lads green coming off the waltzers and through the P.A. there’s a seat left on the Future Dance. The roar of holiday money thrown to chippers and arcades, pin balls smashing records. And in the marram grass the big fella is climbing up on the missus, half clothed the big red neck on him. Little men with ice cream snots dripping off the top lip shouting and bawling as a skinny chap in atomic green togs, water to his ankles, wonders the point of it at all. And granddad says they’ve no teeth on them but by Jaysus they’d swally ya whole. And now the big fella, covered in lumpy sweat apologizing to the missus, just gimme a few minutes says he and I’ll be ready again, the sand plastered up his inner thigh tearing the hole off him. Mothers with sun screen palms and everyone trying to make memories, forcing too hard, some. But we lie down and bask in it all, melanomas and our skins not able. And there he is now a little bit further out, shaking with the cold and the waves turning black. The chap in atomic togs swimming with sharks.

VAN CITY 2

These are barely edited, jaysus they're as raw...enjoy it anyway


VAN-CITY 2

May as well be times square for a Wexford boy. Streets gridded across each other and buildings so tall you go ant like. But god love them these poor lads don’t know how to name places at all. Future Shop one of them was called and Chronic Tacos was another. There’s a dose of punky looking one’s begging for money with a cardboard sign that reads: Too honest to steal, to ugly to whore. The tranny goes by sitting in the back seat of the squad car and I throw a quarter, or a dime or, a nickel down. No idea. The tiredness of the world is heavy and I duck into Bulldog Coffee ordering an Americano. The coffee’s two dollars but I get charged twenty cents more. I’m about to start something but then I remember the tax. I sit down by the window and open a book about enlightenment. I’m trying to understand it but it’s tough going like. Full of these stories that don’t make sense and how you’re already enlightened and if you strive to be enlightened you won’t be enlightened. If you meet the Buddha on the way kill him. But I keep at it and if I’m truthful I don’t understand a word. That’s the point the book says.

                When I get back to the hostel Beano’s after leaving a message in with the dudey-man that sold him the mushies. It doesn’t say much:

                Couldn’t hack it man, went home. Good luck.

                So that’s that, half way around the world by myself with three full packs of lexapro and two grand.

                You’ve never seen Guinness poured as quick and those country boys aren’t lying it doesn’t fucking travel. Nearly eight quid for the pint before tax and yer one has the gob open for tips all afternoon. And don’t even start about the pub, a ‘sports bar’ with some eejit on the telly spinning the handle bars of his BMX. Beano’s probably waiting on a plane now, heart sunk on his ma’s dinners. Might even be right what?

                It’s six when I get back to the hostel, eyes jet lagging, wankered on four pints. Leonard’s gone and it’s just me in the room. Nicer jails out there I’d say. Four green bunks, four lockers and a wooden floor. Walls are just stacked bricks like the dorms back at DCU. I drop two sleeping tablets, an antidepressant and wait to fall asleep. My heart starts hurting like it sometimes does, those sour pints of Guinness turning bad in me. Sadness looming, the heart tighter, sure what have you to be moaning about? Half way around the world and a small fortune. I’m reminded of my own weakness born of nothing in particular. I fall asleep gasping and fart some stout.

VAN CITY

gonna turn this one into a short story but right now it's kinds working as flash fiction.

VAN CITY

The air hostess brought me four party cans, one after another before I dropped two sleeping tablets. Twenty minutes later Beano taps me on the shoulder saying to come to the tail of the plane and look at all the ice. He asks me why I’m stumbling and I give him two sleepers. The nine hour flight to Canada breezes by, us with our heads dog-like at the windows and half closed eyes. Beano starts talking to some contractor who tells us he can set us up with a tree planting company if we ever go to Alberta. He’s slurring his words though, the sleepers coming on strong and him going on about how he’s republican out and out. I interject, try and keep the old boy onside should we ever decide on Alberta. I don’t remember the rest of the journey. Beano and me head to the luggage bay after the landing and he goes:

                “Jaysus boy you were slurring your words some bad back there.”

                The lad on the desk at the hostel asks if we want some dried mushrooms. Mexican he says and scratches his stubble, dandruff in his hair. Just the room I say and Beano says fuck it, takes two stalks worth heads on them like UFOs. There’s no elevator to the rooms, I manage lugging a two year visa worth up the stairs, arms cramped up and raw. Each room has a flag painted on the door, I’m staying in Argentina with a Swede called Leonard. He’s a fifty odd chap, smell of money off him too flicking through pages on a tablet. Hello I say, realising how long it’s been since I used that particular word to greet anyone. Yup, Story, Craic, newly useless. He smiles and puts his head back to the screen, half eaten apple there like a medal. I take another sleeper out of my bag wash it back with a sup of water and my antidepressant. I fire everything into my locker and lie on my bunk the springs moaning with pressure.

                In the morning there’s still no sign of Beano. I head down to the restaurant for a free breakfast, rashers me hole, bacon like a bag of tayto. Fucking bagels and something called wonderbread. The apples are savage though to be fair. The waiter comes over to me and starts going on about bagels with jelly and cream cheese. “Cheers” and he stands there eyeing me like the conversations not done. Okay then he says and fucks off. It’s playoff season and the Canucks are doing well, a pride parade is due next week and its ten years since they caught Robert Pickton. They nabbed him before he had a chance to do his fiftieth prostitute, bits of the rest of them out with the pigs. I walk out onto Granville St, and there’s two hoores boxing the chops off each other by a greyhound bus. I watch from a safe distance, they both look crack hungry, one of them muscled and toned. Square jaw tense as she’s throwing another dig and then I see it, all because her skirts riding up her leg. The little mickey head-banging between her thighs. The cops pull in and break it up, stick the made up fella in the back seat the other one crying out loose teeth.

                Van-fucking-couver sahn.     

The Tulpa: a weird little story about weird (and normal) little things

Here's a new story folks! Bit of a call back to the sort of weird stuff I used to write when I first started out. Please feel free to enjoy yourself

The Tulpa

Zomibies will eat you. They will never, ever try to conduct a conversation with you. And there’s hope, good lord there’s a chance you might get away from them. Nut one straight between the eyes before it gets a chance to bite. Break their bones with animal ferocity and stamp the sinew right into the floor. Go down in a cocktail of adrenaline and fear. Beautiful. Heroic. Nobel. I’d kill to be in a tank full of bull sharks right now. A lamp glimmer hope that I might make it.

                Nothing lives in this dead green box. Hooked fish lined up for slaughter. Conveyer belt bringing us all closer to God. Here, in this snake coil queue we give thanks, we break bread. We tell the woman that we haven’t worked in a month. We sign the blue slip. We leave after our communion. Feet dragging over white and black tiles. Dirt caked in grids. That same empty feeling as we sit back at our pew and wait for it all to end.

                Thanks be to God.

                Another welfare cheque.

                I’m that damned demographic. We had it all, every sauce we wanted. College admissions handed out to every IQ over seventy five. And if we couldn’t do it? Don’t worry your tiny forehead. Drink father’s money, indulge in fuck and drugs. If the weed makes you anxious take a hit of the Xanax. It was the renaissance and we were the artists. Smearing shit on the canvas and calling it modern. Part time job be fucked, we were going to own it all until they went and burned down Rome.  

                Ah sure. The reason we’re not all burning out cars and throwing pipe bombs into the Dail. Ah sure, that stupid Irish sentiment rendering us useless as fuck. No jobs, neo-feudal system and blatant corruption. Ah, sure.

                I take the one eighty eight. Should I be out there with a no-to-austerity-sign? May as well be denouncing the moon landing or pulling a Corr on it and talking about the shadow government. Us Irish are so deluded we think it’s weird to protest.

                Fionn is waiting for me in the field just like he said. Standing around the football like a goth in P.E. Astrophysics. Ask him how much the moon weighs or the trajectory of an asteroid and the chap will give an answer autistic-spectrum fast. Good banter but no one wants to pay for that shite. Fionn’s been on the nat-king-cole for two years now. Family are all minted but the ‘wow’ factor of a Trinity degree got stale fast.

                “Have you heard about the ancient aliens?”

                That’s another thing about Fionn. Aimlessness got his mind wandering. Fifth dimension ghosts, hollow earth theory, lizard people. That’s the tip, take it with a grain. There’s a leftist view in psychology: when one reality becomes inhospitable we create another reality. Often times resulting in delusional thoughts or fantastical ideation. It’s harmless until you turn schizophrenic. Big pharma cites chemical imbalance as the problem but that just helps them sell the tablets. Jesus listen to me I’m starting to sound like him.

                “The pyramids and all that shite?”

                “And all the stone carvings of lads on rockets and how current architects wouldn’t be able to build anything like that.”

                “Sure Newgrange is the same.”

                He half laughs.

                “Anyway fuck all that, you ready for this?” I continue.

                “You’re sure it’ll work?”

                “I think so.”

                “And what about your man?”

                “He’s loaded, doesn’t have enough life left to spend it all. It’s barely robbery.”

                The Dalai Lama says life is suffering. Every moment in Samsara, no matter what you’ve got on the end of your erogenous zone or how many of them you’ve got plunged up it, is suffering. It would make sense then that we have to go through a bit more suffering-suffering to get some happiness-suffering. Injury is the name of the game. If you’re willing to go down in the veg isle and snap an ankle the reward isn’t all that bad. Fionn’s an astrophysicist and I’m an armchair philosopher, psychologist and critic of esoteric essays. Or graduate of Arts to dress it down. People like us do not steal. We plot.

                Right now we’re standing by the Devil’s Tree. Every town’s got something like it. Comes in all sorts. Chairs, cliffs, rocks and roads. Wiry-spider-tree in the middle of an otherwise empty field. Nothing grows on the branches. Village whisper stories about a woman giving birth to a winged baby under the tree. Stay out past late and you’ll see it perched on the branches. Red eyed and sharp of tooth. East of the field is an old house with an old man and an old dog. People tie up oldies and rob their shit left and right these days. Few back hands, what have you. That’s the activity of a morally bankrupt individual. The old man’s on death’s doors, no next of kin and the dog’s practically blind. When the old man dies the state is going to inherit all his money.

                The state...

                Fuck that.

                “So just the same as we talked about then?”

                “Yeah, just wait for Mrs. Driscoll to go by on her walk.”

                “We should kick around a bit then?”

                “No harm, have it all set up for when she goes by I suppose.”

                We’ve been at this for about three months now. Passing the ball back and forth. Fionn’s actually getting alright at the taps. Can do that thing where you catch the ball on the back of your neck and everything. Mrs. Driscoll takes the Yorkshire thing for a walk everyday at ten a.m. We get to the tree at least four days a week. She sees us and waves. We wave back. In court she’ll say something like ‘They loved the old football, always at it.’ And she’d be right for three months we were.

                “The Montauk Monster is another one...”

                Fionn starts clammering, I nod and throw the occasional ‘yeah’ his way. It’s been four years now since I graduated. Second class honours and all I did in third year was get high and sleep. Get high and sleep.

                “...maybe prehistoric, but maybe just a badly decomposed racoon...”

                The getting high and sleeping was as important as the studying. Not in a hedonistic way but to help you think laterally. You can’t learn anything in school you couldn’t get from the internet. Everyone thinks you need a PhD if you’re going to have an important opinion but that’s bollocks. Anyone with a PhD is as brainwashed as any religious zealot. You shouldn’t believe anything.

                “...but it might be a manifestation of our own belief in crypto zoology...”

                But then you can’t whole heartedly believe in not believing. It’s like one of those koans the Zen chaps are mad about. If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it can I have a biscuit?

                “...like if there’s a news bit on UFO’s and then everyone starts seeing them...”

                “You mean a tulpa?”

                “A what?”

                “Thought you’d know all about this. Alex Jones head on ya. It’s a being that’s constructed from pure discipline.”

                “So if you’re constantly thinking about something you’ll eventually create it...”

                Fionn goes glassy as Mrs. Driscoll turns the corner. The dog bobs in front of her and tries to grab at the lead with its jaws. Fionn’s holding the football, his eyes focused on the devil’s tree. Drifting into a parallel universe.

                “We can’t do this.”

                “Sure we can, get your shit together, it’s happening now.”

                “But the tulpa...”

                I grab him by the arms. Look straight into those teal eyes. Something like warm jam breaks in the middle of my chest. My heart gets tight. Crush. Breath, exhale. It goes away. Me and Fionn weren’t friends in secondary school. I didn’t really bully him, nothing like that. But...he was kind of...

                Shut the fuck up.

                “It’s just bollocks. God, Allah and all those boys would be casting spells left and right if that was real. A tupla is just an idea, not even a good one.”

                “I’ll be the keeper then?”

                He tries to hide his fear. That childish, magical fear. He’s still the same...

                The wall is about seven feet high. That’s about the height of a crossbar. Professional football players put them over the bar all the time. I toe bog it. Send that fucker for the satellites. The ball lamps off the side of the old man’s house. Mrs. Driscoll looks around. She sees I’ve knocked it wide.

                Goal.

                There’s this disease called misophonia. It translates to ‘hatred of sound’. Youtube it sometime and look what these poor bastards have to put up with. Chews, coughs, snorts and sneezes. Mildly irritating for the rest of us but not for the diseased. For them it’s like nails scraping down a chalk board. Chipping further and further as the red mist rises. Now a human’s been civilized by society. Taught to walk away, cool down, look objectively at their own emotions and blah. So a human with misophonia can handle the agitation. Breath it in, breath it out. Dog doesn’t have all that. Dog’s got instinct. I’m hoping a blind dog’s instinct is a little more frayed. For five euros and sixty five cents I ordered a custom dog whistle on eBay. Guess what it does...

                We get to climbing the wall. I used to be better at this stuff. Monkeying around trees and what not. Gut on me’s growing exponentially. Arms barely have the strength to lift me over. Leg hooks the edge and I shuffle across like that fat kid you used to make fun of. I land on my feet and quickly fall to my arse. Fionn is standing up. Food flavouring and malt hops haven’t affected him the way they’ve affected me.

                He used to be so weak.

                The old man’s gotta be as blind as the dog. No one would want to look at an animal like this. Hair is matted together like a dread locked homeless guy. It’s big, not sure the breed, maybe a cross. Shuffles, looks our direction, shuffles on. There’s a gate in front of the drive. Every now and then a car speeds by. It shuffles over to the fence and lies. Those non-seeing eyes staring out. Listening to the Doppler effect come and go. Waiting on something.

                “You have the whistle?”

                I take it out of my pocket. It’s about three inches long, silver. A small chain hanging from the end. I snigger, no idea why. It’s cold against my lips. Fionn looks at me and nods. No turning back. We were going to take some sedatives before we tried to carry out this plan. Fionn said that they might ask questions about why we’re doped up when we get to the hospital. People would get suspicious. Maybe they’d figure out what we were at. I didn’t know how they’d go about figuring it out but I guess it’s better safe than not. If the doctors needed to put anymore drugs in our system they might mix bad. Might even die he said. Just going to be a few stitches I told him. But that’s Fionn all over. Worrying about the one percent.

                I blow on the whistle. The dog turns. The dog runs. Teeth out, jowls bouncing. Saliva caught in the wind. A few seconds and it’ll all be over. My teeth grind against each other. Fionn’s got his eyes closed. Time slows down. The dog gets closer. His dreaded hair rising and falling like anxious breaths. My heart beat fragments and I think of the cash. Money from pain and suffering...can it be made any other way? I picture the dog dragging me to the ground. Imagine the breath on my throat before those canines bite down. Spit and blood pooling in the curve of my collar bone. His paws come down on my chest, my feet slip away. I try to bless myself as I fall to the ground.

                And then...

                Nothing?

                The dog loses interest almost immediately and starts dragging its dagged arse around the grass. Tongue hangs gaudy, the thing looks at us the whole time. Those useless eyes stare. Fionn grabs my forearm and pulls like you see soldiers do in the movies. I hand him the whistle.

                “You want to give it a shot?”

                Like absinthe fixing anxiety our fears diminish. Fionn blows on the whistle. I blow on the whistle. Neither of us hears even a modicum of sound. The dog keeps dragging his woven fur over the cement. He moves away from us but watches all the time. Tongue hanging, head turning. His body moves further and further, his back is almost facing us. Somehow his head will keep staring. Somehow it will turn fully around. Lips curled in Cerberus smile, tongue hanging languid. The white of its eye becomes black. His pupil strains to see us.

                Finally the dog looks away.

                We keep blowing the whistle but must accept the ruse has failed. Then relief bursts out with laughter. Between angina inducing hysterics we blow the whistle. Suddenly the animal lifts its arse off the ground. I can almost see its hairs stand up, the body becomes tense and it runs.

                Not towards us.

                Fionn is still blowing the whistle. And I see it all. Chronologically and with devastating clarity. Fionn’s life flashes before my eyes. All the parts I’ve seen, one by one.

                One of the kids on the street jumps on a carton of milk in his porch.

                Barry O’Reilly clocks him with a head butt in senior infants. Fionn gets in trouble for bleeding on the desk.

                Someone makes a joke out of him walking the corridors alone at lunch. I laugh but not because it’s funny.

                Our French teacher makes me sit beside Fionn. His copy book is full of pencilled dragons.

                On a school tour Paddy Murphy sits beside him and loudly says “What the fuck do you do of a weekend?” Everyone laughs.

                I laugh.

                Not because it’s funny but because I’m afraid.

                I’m afraid of what everyone will think of me if I don’t ruin this kid’s holiday.

                I always assumed gun blood would mist out of the body. Whenever you see someone getting shot in a movie the blood shoots out like vapour. Fionn’s chest opens like an over ripe banana. Red and gray meat zip-pop out. Blood trickles down his belly.

                “Stop with that fucking sound!” The voice is gravelled and tired.

                Smoke rises around the codger as he lowers his rifle. Fionn tries to speak. The dog’s eyes catch mine and I swear to god I see it smile. The flesh underneath its dreaded fur bounces, the skin on its face contorts. The dog is running towards me. Seems like he just realized some asshole was blowing a dog whistle.

                I hear Mrs. Driscoll screaming somewhere in the distance.

                You never remember waking ‘up’ in the morning. It seems very gradual. Like warming the engine of a car. I usually keep my eyes closed for some time after I’m conscious. Abstracted thoughts come and go for a couple of minutes before you’re really ‘up’. On a quiet morning you can hear the birds chirp before you’re even aware of it.

                There’s a sound right now. It comes from everywhere like a series of high pitched explosions. I try to open my eyes, they’re stuck together. When I was a kid my eyelashes were so long they would crust up as I slept. Mornings my da would use hot water to give my back my sight. I use my thumb and forefinger to wipe them. My eyelids open slow, it feels like air is blowing through a small part of my left eye. I put my hand over it and try to figure out what I’m looking at.

                Garda cars and ambulances tetris the road outside the codger’s drive. The dog is barking like a bell tolls. The old man is screaming and firing rounds. I can’t feel my arm. Isn’t that what happens when your spine is fucked?! The panic comes on strong until I realize my spine’s fine. My left arm on the other hand isn’t. I’m not sure if it’s broken or about to fall off.

                Until it falls off.

                I black out again.

                When I come to again Fionn’s head is lying on my chest. I run my fingers through his hair and cough some blood onto my bottom lip.

                “I’m sorry.” I manage.

                The old man takes one to the shoulder. Must be a detective, they’re allowed to carry guns. The codger fires back then takes two to the chest. Fionn turns his head towards me.

                “What do you think happens when we die?” He asks.

                “That’s where the tulpa is really important.”

                The paramedics rush the gate. The guards check the body. The dog drags its ass on the grass. They tie us up with tourniquets and mineral bags before laying us on the stretchers. The dog stares at me as we’re hauled off. They open the back doors to the ambulance. One of the paramedics is carrying my arm out of the garden. I get a fleeting phantom pain.

                Everything I’ve created has led to this point in my life. Maybe those tulpa’s aren’t horse shit after all.

                From here I can see the Devil’s tree. I’m sure I can make out that small, winged, demon perching on an arthritic branch. It might just be the friendliest thing I’ve made all day.    

Even More Fantasy

Back to the fantasy stuff, have a read if your interested! Continues straight from the last fantasy post which I have also included in case anyone missed. Cheers!

Dawn

Her mother lay the wet cloth on Marra’s head. She pincered matted hair between her fingers and moved it behind Marra’s ear. Beads of water eased down the girl’s forehead. The Sin sat on Marra’s chest. It moved up and down in the rhythm of her drawn breathing. It placed it’s hand on the cloth. On Marra’s mother’s. The small beads of water continued to roll. It was almost impossible to make them out from Marra’s tears. 

                Sunlight cut through the leaves. The forest became friendlier than the night before. Marra was awake before she opened her eyes.

                The same dream again.

                She could smell the dogs. How bad was it this time? The Sin had never forced her to kill another human but animals...they were a different story. It reminded her of ghost stories as a child. Holding her bed clothes over her face. Afraid to open her eyes. Marra remembered how much darkness had scared her in those years. She eventually opened her eyes, just as she had done as a child. Darkness didn’t scare her anymore. There were never any ghosts. The shih tzu’s jaw lay half unhinged, torn down it’s right side as far as the ear. Light was so much worse. The Sin’s red veins had sunk once more. The shade of Marra’s forearm had lightened. For now it would be quiet. Sated. Soon it would be back. Horrible, ferocious. Slowly the shade would darken. The thoughts would flood her mind. Begging her to let go.  Maybe this the time she finally would.

                She remembered the last thing her mother said to her.

                “Hey.” Wren coghed.

                “Get rid of these chains.”

                “What’s wrong with your arm?”

                Marra looked at the boy. He must have been fourteen. Maybe older. Marra couldn’t tell. His dirty brown hair curled at the edges. Like small waves. His clothes were ragged and torn but the boots were holding together. He didn’t shiver in the morning chill.

                “The chains.”

                Wren reached out putting his fingers on Marra’s leg. She felt the heat of his hand. It grew hotter and hotter.

                “I can’t make fire. But I can make this hurt. Make it burn.”

                Marra scowled at him.

                Little prick.

                 “I’ve been marked.”

                “Neph...”

                “You can say the full word.”

                Wren tried to feel like he was in control again. He didn’t even notice moving his hand from her leg.

                “Are they real?”

                “The one that clawed me was.”

                “How big?”

                “Big as people say.”

                The only thing more dangerous than the Madra were the Nephilim. The product of carnal union between angels and men. Like everything else the holy spouted Wren had assumed it was all false. Ravens that were dragon like in their size. Maybe this girl was crazy? But he had seen her arm the night before. That red glow...

                “Do you have the thirst? I mean, do you need to...”

                “I’ve been marked. You know how it goes.”

                “I thought it was all lies.”

                “There are some people who don’t believe there are any elementals left.”

                Wren stood up and walked behind the tree Marra was bound against. He untied her chains.

                “They’re right.”

                Marra stood up and gathered the chains. Wren was intimidated by her height. Raven black hair hung in front of her face. A large green hood covered the rest of her hair. She picked up her bow and began pulling arrow heads from the dead dogs. An Alsatian was still breathing, the arrow had lodged in its throat. Marra stopped. She drew her blade from its sheath. A small dagger. She kneeled beside the animal and placed her hand on its ribs. The dog’s pupils found Marras. She looked back and nodded solemnly. The dog’s neck broke easily. Marra started with the ears.

                “You got a knife?”

                Wren stared at Marra as she skinned the animal. She threw fur into the long grass. Blood stained her fingertips. Wren felt the tingle in the sides of his mouth. Inside felt dry and wet at the same time. His stomach tensed. He kneeled, the vomit flowed freely. Marra heard the wretches before she looked up. She had given way to her stomach several times when she first learned to skin food. She walked past Wren, he wiped the tears and spit from his face.

                “When was the last time you ate?”

                Wren coughed, trying to clear his throat. The words refused to free themselves from his mouth. He continued coughing.

                “It’s all bile. Must have been a couple of days right?”

                Wren nodded.

                Wren coughed.

                “Dogs...they’re okay when you get used to them.”

                Wren nodded.

                Wren coughed.      

 

               

                Dry wood and stones were easy to find. Lighting a fire during daylight was easy. A fire at night could be the difference between life and death. The temperature could fall as far as to necessitate heat. But where heat was necessary it could easily draw attention. Die from the cold, die from a scavenger. The choice was up to the wanderer. Sometimes lighting a fire close to a fort or town could yield a Samaritan. Sometimes it could yield a well placed arrow.

                Wren stacked the twigs on top of the branches. It was harder to notice Wren’s hands glow in the daylight.  He flicked his fingers, sparks landed on the twigs. String lines of smoke rose but the fire wouldn’t take. Marra gave him several attempts before she took two arrows from her quiver. She knelt beside the boy began clipping the heads together. The flames rose.

                “You ever eat dog before?”

                “No.”

                “Thousands of years ago half the world thought it was a delicacy. The other half thought it was barbaric.”

                “I guess I’m the other half.”

                  Marra rooted through her bag and took out a heavy scarf.  Wren put out his hands.

                “Can I see?”

                He rolled the cloth in his hands. Looping it, touching every fibre he could. He handed it back to Marra after a few moments. The heat kissed her neck as she wrapped the scarf around. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt heat like this. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She opened her eyes. The dog looked back. The raw flesh of the skinned dog.

                 “Why haven’t you cut your arm off?”

                The boy watched the cinders of the fire rise towards the leaves. Occasionally he would close his eyes and listen to the crack of the kindling. Marra pulled the scarf tighter around her throat. The skin on her forearms goosed. Hairs on end. Marra stood up and walked towards the animal carcass.

                “Help me with the dog.”

                They skewered the animal and placed it above the flames. A crow cried out in the distance. Marra shuddered for a moment. The boy didn’t seem to notice. The forest was everywhere. Occasionally the weathered remains of an old building greyed the green surroundings. Covered in roots and ivy they were easy to miss though sometimes finding them could prove invaluable. Most often wanderers of the forests died. It was hard to live long enough to starve but dehydration was a severe threat. Man had once been king of the food chain. No living human was old enough to recall that time. Wanderers used the buildings as camps leaving behind goods after death. At first Marra had refused to take these items. Rarely was a body found inside the camp. She took comfort in believing they were hunting. That they would be back. After some time she realized that her chances of survival depended on looting these camps. Marra blamed these actions on her possession. The Sin’s selfishness. But sometimes, in the quiet moments before she slept, she accepted the real truth.

                The dog’s red flesh browned. It had been a long time since Marra felt guilt about eating an animal. The boy was still used to seeing dogs as family pets. He bit into the meat and chewed. The taste was not bad but it didn’t help his stomach from trembling as he swallowed.

                “How long are you alone?” Marra didn’t look at him as she asked.

                “Maybe a couple of weeks, I lost track early.”

                “Easy to do.”

                “You?”

                “Best part of two years. Give or take.”

                “You haven’t found a town? Even a fort?”

                “Many. It’s hard to get accepted under normal circumstances. People are scared. The mark makes it impossible.”

                Wren tore another piece from the dog. His sense of guilt yielded to his hunger.

                “The ancients said the Nephilim were the children of fallen angels and the daughters of men.”

                “The ancients said a lot of things.”

                “Do you believe them?”

                Marra looked at the boy. His eyes gave him away. Those giant black pupils. A child unsure who or what to believe. She rolled a piece of the dog on her teeth. Marra didn’t consider whether or not the ancient’s were right. It didn’t matter to her. Even if the Nephilim that marked her couldn’t restore her she could get revenge. Or at least die fighting. Heaven or Hell. Whichever one she ended up in couldn’t be much worse.

                “If God is real he’s got some explaining to do. If he’s not that would explain everything.”  

                “Makes sense...”

                It was the first time in days Marra could think even remotely clearly. The Sin was quiet. She wondered if there was a way to trick it. Some ruse by where The Sin might believe she had killed, believe itself sated. Why haven’t you cut off your arm? She had considered it but the priests had told her the infection was one of the soul. A severed arm would yield nothing but severing an arm. Whether she believed them or not was still undecided; the fact remained that a one armed archer was both ridiculous and hilarious. No, she would have to keep the arm. Revenge or redemption, she needed it for both. The boy held no bounds as he ate the dog meat. Marra smiled as she looked at him. Stupid but tough. She felt an unfamiliar feeling sooth her chest. Lioness to cub. Shark to pup.

                “You’ll die out here.”

                “I know.”

                “What do you want, if you live?”

                “I want to find those responsible. Find my kind. Kill one, save the other.”

                “Big words for a small man.”

                “Words are all I have right now.”

                “Then we’re not so dissimilar.”

                “You want revenge?”

                “I want a cure. I want to be back with my clan. But yeah, I’ll settle for revenge.”

                Wren straightened his posture and stretched his neck. His muscles fought against his efforts. He felt the tension grow, pushed a little harder, and then abate. Wren sighed and moved his neck in circles. His hands began to glow as he placed them on his throat. He breathed deep, held it for just a moment and breathed out again.

                “So you’re making an offer.”

                Maybe not so stupid...

                “We can try to protect each other-”

                “Until you kill me?” Wren cut in.

                “Maybe.”

                “How does it work? The blood lust and all that.”

                “It’ll be okay for a few days. Then I’ll start to hear it. As if it’s someone else talking. Telling me to hurt others. A few more days and I’ll become angry for no reason. I start to lose control a few days later. At this point I’ve always killed something.”

                Marra paused.

                “I don’t know what happens after that.”

                She spoke slowly as though a part of her was trying to find out.

                “Killed something?”

                “Animals. Never a person. Yet.”

                “So you’re offering me protection until I become ‘yet’?”

                “It’s mutual. You look out for me, I look out for you. ‘Yet’ might never happen.”

                “So what’s our next move?”

                Marra looked quizzically at the boy.

                “Mind made up?”

                “I would’ve died last night. I owe you a life.”

                Marra didn’t know how to respond.

                So she didn’t.

Twilight of the Gods

He had given up his name almost a decade ago. It was a simple name. John; like the Baptist. He kept the book in his hands at all times. Even the thought of the pages out of reach shuddered him. He held it in the enclave of his left arm. Close to his heart as possible. He mumbled to himself as he trudged through the long grass. Ahead of him a tree bearing fruit just as he had known there would be. Another possibility his mind had produced. His was a reality of his own creation. Truly, if he had wanted to, he could lift his feet from the earth. Levitate for a moment, fly to another planet. But he did not want to. He told himself that if he ever did, there would be no problem, and then quickly thought of something else.

                He told himself that he enjoyed climbing the tree. It was good exercise. But wouldn’t it have been possible to just manifest the fruit from nothing?

                “I don’t want to.”

                His finger found another splinter and housed it. The pain ran through his hand dully.

                “I don’t want to be a God. I am a man who knows The Secret. Better to be a man of sound mind and wisdom. Benevolent and kind. Power would only corrupt.”

                Unless I manifested my destiny to be peaceful and loving...

                “No I must suffer as man.”

                He had reached the fruit. The red skin caught a ray of light. Obscured, his reflection, gazed back at him. A moment of misjudgement as he reached for the fruit. The book slid from under his arm. Away from his heart. Down, down, down. He could not hear the pages as they hit the ground. He had forgotten about the quantum and the quantum had forgotten about him. How could a God be so stupid?! He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed slowly. He must be calm to manifest, the quantum would never listen to a cluttered mind. Even if it did the results could be less than satisfactory. Far less.

                His hands found the branches easily as he made his decent. And then he heard it, somewhere in the distance. Shuffling of feet, movement of grass. John, who had not been called John for many years, froze. He gripped the branches, chameleon like.

                “Just keep looking.”

                “I am looking!”

                “Then why am I constantly the one picking up all the flint?”

                “You’re used to looking for them. I don’t use arrows.”

                “That’s right you use fireworks.”

                “Someday it’ll be real fire!”

                “And I’ll still be able to pick you off with an arrow.”

                “Yeah right. You and that crazy arm of yours will be burned to a crisp!”  

                He heard laughing. Threats of death with laughter? He poked his head out from behind the tree. A boy and a girl. Young. The girl was tall, the boy a few inches smaller. As a God he could have destroyed them both. As a God he could have recreated his book from air. What did a God even need with a book?

                “There’s something here.”

                “Will it make arrows?”

                “It’s a book?”

                “Can you read?”

                “Not the old language, you?”

                “Kind of.”

                “We can use it for heat.”

                “It would only keep us warm a few seconds. Maybe I can find something useful inside?”

                “Like arrows?”

                Wren shook his head and smiled.

                “I’m totally going to fry you when I get my fire working.”

                “Keep dreaming smoky.”

                John, who was not John, saw the boy pick up the book. He took a satchel from his back and put the book inside. He heard them bicker into the distance and quickly scaled down the tree. A God could have appeared in front of the two. A God could have smited their transgression. A God would never have dropped the book in the first place.

                But John, who was not John, had decided to suffer as a man. And what is a God without conviction.