Traitors

I was really happy with how this story turned out. I wrote it just after the killing of two innocent policemen in Northern Ireland earlier this year.

It's always awkward when two old friends catch up. At first there's the usual small talk about jobs and wives and children. It takes a lot of wading, a lot of formalities before the reconnection occurs with the reminiscing. The longer the period since your last encounter, the more awkward this becomes.

Connall and Deaglan were two old friends like this. They hadn't seen each other since school, where they had been a pair of rascals. They caused trouble for teachers and parents each and every day. Amazingly their paths hadn't crossed sinced Connall had moved away to go to university in Belfast. Then they ran into each other on Connall's day off, at the supermarket of all places. They arranged to meet up for a drink the next evening. The following is an account of their meeting:

Connall was the first to arrive. He sat at the bar and ordered a pint. Just one. He wasn't sure if Deaglán was still a Guinness drinker or if he had moved on to something stronger. He had always been a better drinker than Connall. Deaglán arrived shortly after Connall. They shook hands and, both sat down. Deaglán ordered a Guinness.

"You haven't changed friend", noted Connall.
"Nor have you", indicated Deaglán, motioning toward his friend's drink.

The pair laughed. Any tension which may have been there disappeared. Connall was the first to begin the small talk. He told his childhood friend about his wife and children. He talked a lot about his children. He took out his wallet to show off their pictures (as well as buy another round.)

"That's Sean on the left, he's nearly 8 now, and Cliona is the one on the tractor. She's just 4. The other ones are the inlaw's kids. Mary's brother Michael, his two. They live around the corner, so it's pretty handy. His wife never minds looking after them."

Connall's conversation continued like this. Deaglán didn't envy his friend, because these days Connall's life revolved around his children. He never thought he could be like that. He told his friend how he had a son, Bobby, but he rarely saw him. He lived with his mother.

"Selfish bitch", he spat.

Connall decided not to probe any more, and enquired about his friend's job.

"It doesn't have an official status, but there's no job more important for young Irish men" Deaglán claimed. "I'm a soldier, fighting for what's right. For freedom. Remember, like in the olden days? How we'd meet up and desecrate pictures of the Queen?"
"But we were just kids, " Connall exclaimed.
"I know. Now I can really make a difference. The tide is turning, friend, and I want you to join me, join us. Did you see Martin McGuinness on the news after those dirty Brit soldiers were killed?"

Connall did't have time to answer, to interject. He was in shock. it was childish what they used to do. Every Catholic kid is the same. It's just a bit of fun when you're that age. Then you discover girls and learn right from wrong.

Deaglán continued: "It's him that's the fucking traitor. I remember when he used to fight for our side. Now he sits and shakes hands with that Unionist scum. See him there in America? Side by side with prods. How dare he? He used to fight for us. Remember all those pictures of McGuinness and Adams in their younger days? Age makes fools of good men."

Connall stared down into his pint. He was taken aback by what his childhood friend had uttered. Was this the same Deglán? The same Deaglán who used to throw stones at cars from bridges because they had English numberplates. That's one thing, but this is another. Had he just moved up the chain, or is it down the chain, into this hate-filled figure? Stones become rocks, become bombs. Is that what happens? Was this malevolent bastard sitting across from him the fun-filled acorn of his past? What had happened to the kid who used to read comics and loved imitating super heroes? Connall shook his head, he looked for, tried to formulate something to say. Some words to show his friend's mistakes. He couldn't speak. Deaglán took this to be an acknowledgment of agreement. He continued his tirade.

"This is only the start", Deaglan began, "We need to get bigger, better. We need to be noticed."
Connall was still in shock but managed to squeak out a reply "why?"
"We need people to hear about our crusade. To understand we're not happy with this sham government. With these false rulers. People need to know Ireland is not free. Northern Ireland is not Ireland. It's just west United Kingdom. We can't stand for this."
"What do you plan on doing?", Connall stuttered.
"Something that gets us noticed. Like Omagh again. We have to show them we're serious."
"You mean killing innocent people?", Connall asked.
"Nobody's innocent up here. We're all born with an agenda implanted in us. Some just lose the way. We shall not falter."
"But what about the kids caught in the crossfire? Children the same age as mine. And younger?"
"What happens happens. It's all for the greater good. They'll die for Ireland. Who wouldn't want to be remembered for that? They'll be the children Tone and Pearse never had. Heroes", Deglan explained.

Connall took a moment to take all this in, then he asked his old friend a question: "Do you know what my job is these days?"
"No, why?" Deaglan replied.

Connall opened his wallet again, and showed his friend his badge. PSNI.

"But, but, you can't be. You're Catholic."

An Andalucian Dog

It had happened when I was at the cinema. The film itself isn't important. It wouldn't matter anyway if I told you what it was or whether I enjoyed it. All that you need to know is that it's a Tom Cruise film. That's all I need to fucking know. I can't help but not know.

Just a word of warning, so you won't end up like me. Don't stare at the projector during the credits. Other times too, but especially not during the credits. They told me that it was impossible. Doctors even told me the same it's not possible

"The light from a projector can't permanently burn an image onto your retina." Bullshit.

How else do you fucking explain the fact that I have the letters "CR" backwards written on my eye? All the time. There's no escape.

I've read up on eye conditions. The science of optics. There are millions of problems, all with latin names. I won't list them all or even any of them. Google them. It's interesting reading. You won't find my problem though. It's scientifically impossible, don't you know? That's why my daily life is like this...

07:00 CR - not A.M. or P.M., everything for me is "CR". I get up to the sound of my alarm clock bleeping. The dreaded noise every worker hates most. I listen to the news on the radio while having my Crice Crispies. I used to read the newspaper while I had breakfast, but it's impossible now. Every written word is prefixed and suffixed with a backwards "CR".

08:00 CR - Drive to work. Yeah, I still drive. That's not being taken from me. I haven't had to do an eye test since I got my licence, why would I encourage one? I like driving. It could be the only thing to give me peace.

08:30 CR - Arrive at work. I used to be in the office, but now I'm only doing the groundwork. Sweeping the streets and the like. If Hook could captain a ship, why can't I run an office? They told me it was to do with insurance or some shit. I mean what am I going to do? Have a stapler related accident? I work 'til lunch at one, and then from two to four.

16:00 CR - Drive home. Working day over. The streets are clean for another few hours. Until the kids leave school. Delinquents. They don't care about throwing rubbish on the ground. I don't know why we put so much money into stopping global warming. Those little pricks aren't going to follow our lead. They just take everything for granted anyway. Like their sight. Bastards.

18:00 CR - the Angelus. It always makes me laugh. These days we have a multi-cultured Angelus. Some of these boyos wouldn't be Christian anyway, what would they stop for? Sure my own grandparents never stopped. How minutes in your life would you watse stopping for the Angelus? If you did it twice a day every day for 70 years for instance. Let me write this down so I can work it out. 2 x 365 CR x 70 = 51,100 CR. Oh that's forgetting Leap Years, say, add another 35 on, that's 51,135 CR minutes, divided by 60. 852 CR and a quarter hours of stopping for the fucking Angelus. Over thirty days wasted. For what? A moment's peace? I'll never have peace again.

20:00 CR - have had dinner. My stomach is prepared. Today is a bit different. I'm going to change things. I'm going to make it better. Make it all go away. I even bought a new steak knife for the job. A kitchen knife just wouldn't do it. It'd be awkward and clunky. Surgery requires fine tools. It also requires a steady hand. I think that could be one of the reasons I took up smoking, calm the nerves. The vodka is for the other nerves. It stings the eyes. But I don't complain. Anything is better than this.

CR.

Who Wants to Be...?

My favourite of all the twistories I've written so far. Hope you enjoy it.

Sunday the 22nd of February 2009. That was the highlight of his life up until then. It was the night Slumdog Millionaire had taken home eight Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. JP had stayed up to watch the awards ceremony in full. Even though his mother told him to go to bed because he had school in the morning, he snuck down to watch it.

The first time the film's name was called out as an award winner he felt like screaming with joy. However, he knew he'd wake his mother and get in trouble, so JP stayed calm. But the tension built up inside him, like the anticipation of Santa a few years' previous. When Slumdog Millionaire was announced as Best Picture, he did scream, but quickly realised and clasped his mouth with both hands. Luckily his mother never stirred upstairs, and he went to bed unchastised and filled with glee.

His obsession with Slumdog Millionaire had started a few weeks earlier when he had went to the cinema with a few boys from his class. The other boys wanted to see some comedy film, but it was sold out. JP suggested Slumdog Millionaire as alternative. The other boys wanted to see some comedy film, but it was sold out. JP suggested Slumdog Millionaire as alternative. He was besotted. He went to see it twice more in the cinema. He watched a multitude of documentaries about it. One he particularly liked was called 'The Real Slumdog'. It had some subtitle which appealed to the charity or sympathy of some, but he could not remember it. He even went out and bought the book it was based on. Q&A by Vikas Swarup. He made sure to buy the movie tie-in edition. JP had never been one to read. He thought maybe this had been his first time ever inside a bookshop. All of this added to his love of the film. Some provided him with further insight, others merely added mystique. All his senses were provided for. He was hooked on Slumdog.

He even started telling people how the JP of his name stood for Jamal Patel. This was a juxtaposition of actor and character, but most people didn't realise. What they did realise and couldn't explain is why a white Catholic boy from Bangor, Northern Ireland had that name. The JP really stood for John Paul, after the late Pope John Paul II. Like most Northern Irish Catholics, JP's mother was extremely proud of her heritage. Thus she wasn't too pleased to hear her son bastardizing his name in such a way. But JP didn't complain for the Slumdog himself had faced more difficult obstacles.

The other kids at school were fascinated by JP's wild imagination. They encouraged him. They spurred him on. JP was only too happy to accept their challenges. He had begun to watch Who Wants to Be a Millionaire religiously. In his head, he would chastize Chris Tarrant for pronouncing the second "i", a letter totally absent from the film. He told the other kids about this too. They told him that he should try to get on the TV show. JP thought this was a magnificent idea, and was a bit disappointed that he had not thought of it before. So when the phone number appeared during the next episode, he noted it down. He didn't note down the age limit for the show. JP was still a few years off sixteen.

Each night after the television broadcast, he would call up the competition line and enter. Many of his entries would probably not be accepted. A lot of the time, in fact most of the time, he did not know the answer. He was asked all kinds of questions on various topics. "What is the county town of Kent?" "Who invented the telephone?" "What weapon is on the state flag of Kenya?" "Who was the third man on the Apollo 11 mission with Neil Armstrong and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin?" "What rugby player has the most points in Six Nations history?" "In the UK, what was Michael Jackson's first number one single?" There were lots more. Some were easy. The telephone one, he had learned that in school. He wasn't a rugby fan. He had never been to Kenya. He decided to redouble his efforts. It was simple really. The more entries he had, the more likely he was to be chosen. And to give himself even more of a chance, he really paid attention in school. Just in case he might pick up something that might come in useful. Nothing could stop him from getting on the TV show.


And then it came.

No, not a phone call from Chris Tarrant or anyone at Celador. The snap of the letterbox signalled its arrival. The phone bill. JP hadn't factored that into things. It was fourteen pages in length. It was usually four. JP's mother nearly fainted when she opened the bulky envelope. She was horrified. There were hundreds of calls to the same number. Most of them during the day, when it was more expensive.

JP's mother didn't know what to do. Although she had barely spoken to him in years, except vague "how do you do"s when he came to pick JP up, she rang his father. They would sit him down and do it together. As a team.

That Friday night, when school and working weeks were over, they summoned JP into the kitchen. He had not seen his parents in the same room since his confirmation. He hoped they were getting back together. That's why they called him in, he thought. He quickly realised that was not it. He was ordered to sit down. The investigation began. It was then he knew he really was the Slumdog.

Polybus

My attempt at a one hundred word story. Posted 3 April 2009.

I thought I was doing good. I didn't see anything wrong with it. Thousands had done so before. I could be both Bitya and Polybus. I would be their saviour.

The three children could have a better life with me in the proper house. Not that downstairs was a bad life. Certainly not.

They'd be protected downstairs. I would protect them upstairs. Polybus, their saviour.

They'd never know I was their Amram. I'd raise them as my own. They were my own. But my wife could be their mother. Grand.

Me, I'd save them.
Me.
Josef Fritzl

The Black Friar

 
     Sixteen days in and the appeal still hadn't worn off. He imagined that after sixty or six hundred, the fluorescent lights of Tokyo would still glow for him. Paul Smyth didn't really mind being an exile. Now he actually felt that he was one of the few to have benefitted from the recession. Ireland seemed so backward, so dull. Tokyo was full of life. Even when the Celtic Tiger snarled loudest probably via an Adam Clayton bassline, it never had this. Tokyo; it just had a...quality.

      It was mysterious, perhaps even a little dangerous. This would prove to be the problem.

      Every evening after work, Paul would go for a walk and explore the city. He could feel the city pulse. It was as if it had a heartbeat. Cars filled its arteries. Cars intertwined with people. Cars containing people. And one car containing an old man all dressed in black. They called him the Black Friar. And his hallowed turf was sacred.

      Paul was never really a guidebook kind of guy. He just explored. Guidebooks and travel guides never showed the real city. What Dubliner has actually been to St. James's Gate? The way to discover any place was on foot, alone, getting lost.

      Paul was a fit man. He had aspirations of inter-county GAA. He didn't mind walking for hours. After a while, he knew he'd end up at some place he'd recognize. He'd see a neon advertisement that signalled his apartment was close. The first time this had happened, he laughed. He thought of the maps of people at home. "Go as far as the thatch house and then take a left." "If you reach the pub, you've gone too far." Nobody knew the Stillorgan dual-carriageway was actually called the N11.

      The Black Friar wasn't a man of God. But he was a man of principles. Only two. One: He ruled all. Two: Everybody else fucked off, did what they were told, or ended up dead. He wouldn't pray over his prey. He never sought redemption. The name had come from one of his (late) competitors. He had said that he didn't look like a mobster, more like a Black Friar. The Black Friar kind of liked the name. He indulged it. He allowed it to stick. Even so, he had his competitor extinguished. Recently, however, he had taken to using a calling card. He would send something to the widows of those he had killed. It was his own cease and desist warning. Or else simple bragadoccio.

      The mob map of Tokyo was awash with different colours. But all the while, the darkest area was growing. Paul was totally ignorant of this. As were all westerners and the majority of locals. That night Paul had walked for hours, continually getting lost and finding himself again. He had went from green to blue, back through green and then into the big swash of black. Though in no way intentional, this was a mistake.

      The Black Friar swore at his driver. This was nothing new; the driver was used to it. He encouraged it. For he was worried that the day the Friar stopped swearing would be his last. He had been the third driver in two years. This was not a job offer he could really have refused. His predecessors' families had both received religious tokens. They never received their sons or husbands back. He ordered the driver to make a right turn and rolled down the window. He flicked out his still burning cigarette.

     Paul admired the street art. To many it was tacky, but to him it was beautiful. He looked up at a particular sign. A bane he couldn't decipher. The foreign tongue added to the charm. Something hit him in the leg. A fag butt. He looked down. It had burnt a hole in his trousers. He looked around to find its origins. A man in the back of a black car was rolling up his windows as he went by. Paul gestured at his leg and then gave the universal symbol for "fuck you". The car stopped.

     The Black Friar ordered the driver to reverse.

     It took the embassy four days to arrange for Paul's body to be sent home. When he was found he had only one form of ID on him. From his workplace. His wallet had been stolen. The police marked it down as a mugging gone wrong. One with disasterous consequences. There was a big turnout at the funeral. Even though it wasn't traditional, his eldest brother gave a eulogy. His mother was emotionless throughout. She just blankly stared at the hole in the ground. She didn't really speak to any of the other mourners. When asked was she alright or whether she wanted tea, she meekly answered in monosyllables. Not even her husband could connect with her.

          Two weeks later, a small package arrived in the post. She couldn't make out, or pronounce, the place on the postmark. She turned it over in her hand and opened it carefully. It contained one item only. No letter, no note, no explanation. Just a set of rosary beads. She looked up to the sky, thanked God, and she cried.