April 2007 Archives

It's so loud in there you can't smell how sour and stale it is, how close, sweat mixed with bad perfume and slopping stale beer. Raucous. Next door American and German tourists soak up "traditional Irishness" in plush chairs next to big screen TV's while we crowd this back room like refugees on the Mayflower. Mary McFeenie, who goes by her second name Ann, and is hereafter referred to as anorak-McSwak, is literally laughing her ass off as she sets down eight pints of guinness on a rickety table that's maybe a little bigger than a postage stamp. "fifteen lemons! Jesusmaryand joseph, fifteen lemons!", and a thousand hands reach out to steady the ship as it lists dangerously. Tom's sipping a whisky, Mack the fuckin' traitor has a can of Heineken, Bridget's trying to get by on an aneamic glass of white wine for reasons unknown but we can all see her eyeing the pints and she'll be slipping back into the good stuff soon enough.

Through a crack in the door you can see the sun's just past setting and the sky is still flushed with afterglow, dogs chase each other up and down the shoreline and probably some of them are barking. The clink of glasses reminds you of the clink of masts against the fading light. There's a rugby team pouring in from old Jerry Keenan's field, coming this way it looks like.

"jaysus I could murder a curry. Paul would y'ever take this couple of punts across the road for me and get me a curry fish an chips wouldya now? It'll be very quick, sure" says Fiona, alluringly slipping two large heavy coins into the pale nervous hands of the young lad next to her. He flushes and stands to go an is assaulted by a wall of voices; John's head disengages almost mechanically from his conversation with a bricklayer named Eugene who just dropped in.

"oi oi! heading to the chippie? Mine's a bag of chips, then, Paul, cheers mate."
"ah, Paul, that's grand of yours, now. Sure would'y'ever get me the same John?"
"No worries, Eugene. Here, there's two Punts, I'll get us both"
"fifteen fucking lemons! I ask you!"
"do you need more money?"

As paul is leaving, the rugby team comes in, still flushed with the heat of battle and the smell of blood and grass and leather. Young Martin looks big enough to be Cuchulain in his prime, bristling and freal and smashing the heads of the ulstermen with the spokes of his chariot, until he spots Tom sitting back in the corner with his half empty glencinchie and sunlight bursts across his face as it opens in recognition.

"Tom! Ah jaysus, Tom, is it really yourself and all?"
Tom smiles conspiratorially. "flew in from London yesterday, Martin. Feels great to be back already. Did you do well today?"
"Ah, it was close, it was close. Diarmuid got himslef a fuckin' try with fifteen minutes to go at the end of the game and it pushed them over. I swear to Jayus Tom he's a fuckin' greased eel. But how's yourself? did you see your man?"
"ah no Martin, no I've hardly even opened my suitcase y'know? But sure I'll get him now in the mornin when I pop down to Lakers, sure."
"Lakers?" Martin's eyebrows storm the upside of his skull, dislodinging grass and dried mud as they go. "I didn't know he was a betting man, now".
"Ah sure but aren't we all? No, and and he's hardly there at all most of the week sure but on a Sunday mornin' he'll put down a punt or two on the horses, y'know? Sure I have to do bridget and seamus' anyway so I might as well"
"ah now that's grand then"

....(slight changes b/c I'm not really in the mood. More this afternoon? tomorrow? maybe. There's about 1000 words to go.)

cully sits at the bottom of the stairs and waits for his master.

It's still dark when the noise starts. Rockall, Malin, Hebrides. Southwest gale 8 to storm 10, veering west, severe gale 9 to violent storm 11. Rain, then squally showers. Poor, becoming moderate. To Cully's ears the sound is familiar but wrong, muffled, and the high keening and the sudden crackle set his ears back and a growl starts up in his belly, though he hasn't made a sound since he was a puppy.

There are echoes of water splashing into a basin, coughing, a low phlegmy hack; creaking boards and banging of pots, the heavy tread of boots on stairs. Unlike the radio, Cully's master's voice is old gravel and moss; neitehr man nor dog have many years left, but still their eyes are bright and sharp in the light of the oil lamps. "come on, then" He says.

No chain, collar, nothing to leash cully or reign him in. Nothing is needed, here at the end of the world; you can't get any further than the sky, nothing runs faster than the wind. Salt sprays their faces and the air crackles with ozone and smoky peat and waves crash down with the force of years and drag half the earth back with them, roaring. Nothing runs faster than the wind and Cully feels no need to run, feels content to stay close to the old man, to draw warmth against the arc and fury of the storm from companionship and understanding that comes with years.

The stinging of the rain is a baptism; the old damp creaking of their failing bodies an afterthought. The sound of the sea fills the ears of man and dog alike somewhere between the tolling of a bell and a benediction.

There in the small dark hollows they crawl they are looking looking find me soon and even though there seems to be fire everywhere I'm cold like a razor blade man that was great album once upon a long ago got to move got to make the limbs do their thing because if we stop we're never going to start again I know this beneath the thick coppery taste it's choking me dark flowers blooming deep inside petals opening like razor blades tearing deeper than any arachnid substitute they took gilead saw it fall saw james flailing jerking beneath the thick furry hides venomn I bet it hurts like a motherfucker but then I already hurt like a motherfucker he was the last no I'm the last but maybe not by much I want to let go let go just please (Make) release (it) me (stop)

The ground shakes and trembles and isn't ground anymore. I don't know where I'm running. I don't know why I'm running. I can't remember that there ever was a point to this and even if there was it's almost certainly buried back there in the rubble.

And they keep coming for me and they want to feed

I wake up and my mouth is full of dirt and ichor. I can't bring myself to spit. I hear chittering and there's nothing left. So tired. I tried everything. I tried so hard, so very hard. There's nothing left

(get up)
nowhere to go if I make it no more home
(get up)
close yr eys nd leggo let go ther will be pain
(get up stand you little shit do it now)
just a little pinprick ha that song again and probably more than a pinprick but then over

(GET YOUR FAT ASS OFF THE GROUND RIGHT NOW YOU FUCKING COWARD)

What if I'm wrong and there is a hell?

.....please get up.

Belief is a choice.

They trudged in near silence through the snow. There was a sound like the static glitter on an old 70's TV set when you turned it off; a kind of sparking big silence that filled the ears and didn't let anything else in. The impounded snow felt like corrugated cardboard.

"Are you sure this is the right place?"
"..."
"Hey! Earth to Andy! Is this the right place?"
"...you keep asking me that. Yes, this is the right place. Yes, I'm sure."
"you're sure?"
"yes, I'm sure"
"I only ask so often because it looks an awful lot like buttfuck nowhere to me, andy. I'm being generous in my assessment, here. I mean it's been nine hours and my feet are kind of dissolving I think in these boots and I'm getting real tired of snow and --"
"Look. Over there. See that chicken?"
"what?"
"The chicken. Over there".
"...okay, I see it. It looks sort of chicken like. What about it?"
"That's domestic fowl. this far in the mountains you can only find domestic fowl near a monastery. We're almost there."
"Bullshit. You're making that up to shut me up."
"I'm telling you that's a sign of civilisation. We're about a half hour from the place, an hour at most." Andy considers the chicken thoughtfully. "It looks well kept. I think maybe only half an hour. They let the chickens run free, here"
"you are so full of shit, man"
"oh yeah? explain the chicken then."
"It's a feral chicken."
"you're serious."

They trudge toward the chicken in the snow, which seems to fix them with a beady eye. It clucks uncertainly. The two men stop and stare, their breath hanging around them in a shroud as though it really had nowhere else better to go. The chicken clucks uncertainly.

"feral chicken, man".
"really."
"feral chicken. I'm telling ya, we're lost"
"what do these feral chickens of yours eat, George? Does this creature of maleavolence sit here in wait, here at the very edge of the world, it's feathers ruffled only by the pause of those stray souls it draws from the waking world here into it's angry maw? does it peck at them with a beak stained on the blood of the innocent that opens up to the final void itself? Oh god, George, have we found the Ur-chicken?"

"you mock, but feral chickens exist"
"Let's look over that hill. At least. It's gotta be better than pitching the tent, man. Once you take those boots off the water will cool awful fast in this snow."
".....fine"
"come on, man. Anyway, you wouldn't want to stay here. You don't want to be mauled by a gang of ruthless feral chickens in your sleep"
"I thought you said it was the ur-chicken"
"whatever"

In the distance, the sky began to glow as the sun went down.