Long long ago, when Derrymore was just that, a large oak forest and not a bog, the rivers ran rapidly down the hill of Brí Leith in many directions with crystal clear water full of life. The trout jumped high in the air and into the hands of those waiting because of the abundance of them.

Many came to the area because food was plenty and the soil was rich for planting. The hill itself shone in the moonlight with quartz guiding the journey of the faithful who worshipped their gods on it’s top. The top which surveyed the high fields and many prosperous forts on it and around it.

The rivers were used to navigate to the larger Camlin and Inny which too made their way to the Shannon and many boats came up and down while more and more people settled under the watchful eye of their gods.

Soon, some of the invaders who had made their large towns, now cities, along the coast came up the rivers and settled in homesteads along the river Camlin and at the foot of Brí Leith. They brought their new crafts and skills to the area.

A larger settlement was made in the hollow where many of the smaller rivers met the Camlin and it became known as a port for long ships for many a year until it was forgotten.

All the while, the forests were stripped to make more and more homesteads and ships and even roads where none were before and no wise man would put one. Some would say the best of the oak had already been stripped before by a god who made a road in the bog of Corlea.

The forests disappeared into memory and the land slid into the rivers and the rivers rose and took more as they struggled to flow. What were once vibrant, lively passageways for man and beast, full of life and food, became smaller and darker with mud.

It was forgotten that they were as such as the people moved to where more forests grew and more rivers ran so the earth changed her shape to the bogland we now know so well and yet still we call that land Derrymore, An Doire Mór, the big oak forest, in memory of what our forefathers saw long long ago.

(A story imagining what the meaning behind an ancient place name could mean.) Monday 4th November 2019.

(Image taken by Annette Corkery, check out her Art Page : https://www.facebook.com/artbyannettecorkery/ )

As if my life wasn’t hard enough!

I watch you all with your two legs, four legs, eight legs, many more legs, wings and things, moving about with ease while I need certain specific conditions to move with care or I get hurt or worse dry up and die.

Then to top it all you want to stand on me, poison me, eat me, shrivel me up with salt or drown me in beer. In fairness, the latter isn’t the worse case scenario, if I wasn’t so greedy I could enjoy a bit and move merrily along but I tend to forget, fall asleep and drown and I never know when I have enough, much like many humans I believe.

You think we have no feet, never bothered to learn that actually we have one, strong muscular foot. We are members of the rather large family of gastropods. Gastropod means ‘stomach foot’ from Greek don’t you know. Oh yes you didn’t know because you didn’t bother finding out did you?

All the while you consider me ugly, slimey, squishy, yucky, sticky and icky. You have no consideration for all that I do for you! Do you know how quick we can clear an area of dead smelly rotten stuff that you don’t want but we love, that we also eat lots of pests that you don’t know how to control in your garden too? Did you know that we do it so well that we often leave nothing behind but our beautiful silvery trail? Do you even know the purpose of our silvery trail? No, why bother learning, just stamp on us instead!

Our silvery trail which is quite beautiful and an amazing feat, if I do say so myself, is actually a liquid crystal that we create to help us move around without getting hurt and to mind us from fungi. We also use it to communicate, and you think we are simple uncomplicated rubbery creators of slime!

Did you know we have teeth? How do you think we eat all that food so quickly? We have thousands of teeth and some of us are huge… imagine if we grew bigger than you? You wouldn’t have a chance. Luckily for you we are too busy eating,

Without us in this circle of life many of you would find it hard enough to live yourselves. We don’t like the necessary evil that are the many who rely on us for food but we understand we might be too many without them as the one thing we lack is a sense of enough and would multiply to cover the earth, much like humans, maybe humans are big slugs too?

Hedgehogs, Foxes and Birds are just some of the hunters we have to contend with. Sometimes we just leave our tail behind with them and off they go on their merry way with their meal while we continue on to ours. Did you know that if you poison us you poison them too? No, of course you didn’t because all you could think of was your dahila, lettuce and yourselves.

We are necessary, as the air you breathe, the sun on your skin, the water you drink. Our purposes are many. Yes we have a few bad members of our society who insist on eating the vegetables and flowers you plant but as with all societies they are few in the great scheme of things. There are over 40 different types of us and just because two of us have taken a liking to what you humans want to eat you pick on us all. We come in many shapes and sizes, many purposes, many appetities for various foods and you insist on tarring us with the same brush. We don’t like tar either by the way, not many creatures do.

Much of what you blame us for is really your own fault. Do you have to do everything on such a grand scale? Everything? Once upon a time a little was enough for you and so it was for us. Do a bit of this and a bit of that instead of all at once creating acres of fields of the crop we like or acres of fields of the creatures you eat. None of that makes sense to us , too many of anything is bad for all.

We’re not doing well lately because you have destroyed many of our environments with all that you make, do and eat, on land and in water, yes we live there too. Please stop poisoning us! Learn to grow things we don’t like beside your precious lettuce or potato. Let birds, hedgehogs and foxes into your garden if you hate us so much. Get some hens! They’re a bit thick and we can usually hide well from them but sometimes they get us.

If you must protect your plants, crush some eggshells and put them around your plants. We don’t like them, or briars, not to happy about them either and you can eat their fruit. Don’t be cruel. You know you could pick me up and place me elsewhere, wear gloves if you don’t like how I feel, I’d appreciate that, I don’t like how you feel either, too much salt!

Right I’ve said enough, I’m hungry and I spotted some lovely dung I need to digest. Think I spied a beautiful girl slug as well so I might go hang in a branch with her a while.

Slán agus beannacht,

Simon Slug.

Once upon a time the world was so sick she seemed to be dying.

Everybody noticed but the super rich wouldn’t change their ways and made life harder and harder for everybody else.

Even though there was enough of everything in the world for all to share, they made sure that there wasn’t homes for everyone, that there wasn’t food for everyone and that healthcare was a luxury while they sailed around the world in their yachts after making their money from raping the resources of the world, exploiting the poor and standing by while the vulnerable died. Everything, and everybody, was theirs to use, abuse and discard, in their warped sense of reality.

They had been the real power behind the many facades of governments for so long that they knew what would work everytime. Divide and conquer, get people blaming ‘them over there’ rather than looking upward and sideways, towards the super rich who always pulled the strings. Sometimes they created wars just so they could make more money.

The more you have the more you want even if you’re never going to need it, ever.

Every hundred years or so they wiped out as many of the poor, weak and vulnerable as they could while having smaller, localised, mass genocides and enslavements happen briefly and nearly unnoticed by those so busy trying to feed themselves and pay their debts. They even convinced the many that just because it had become normal then it was right.

They never cared how many died, they were just numbers and inconvenient troubles while they lived in their perfect world of opulence far away from empathy.

They had global meetings regularly where only those invited could attend, those that were useful at that moment and easily bought or discarded. The ordinary people were told that these meetings would solve the problems of the world however the only hint they had that they, the ordinary people, were considered the problem of the world was when one of the super rich let it slip that overpopulation needed to be dealt with as he funded the world health organisation to vaccine the world, some of which helped greatly, while others didn’t.

That was always the way with them, give a little on the right, point the camera in that direction while taking so much more from the left in the obscure darkness.

Little bits of information were dripfed to the masses over time through movies, shows, books, video clips, leaked documents, sometimes they just stated it truthfully on the news. Any information released was monitored to see how the majority would react and respond. Unrest and distrust and a managed chaos ensued to deflect attention. Others were misdirected with celebrity and real life shows.

The super rich started to get annoyed when the many started mobilising in countries around the world, some were doing it for human rights, others for the environment, others for animal rights, all the rights the super rich didn’t want to give. They didn’t consider them basic rights but graces they bestowed upon the rabble, at their convenience, when they saw fit.

Never in a million years would they consider food, health and a roof over your head a right for every man and child, that right came with privilege always and the others had to earn it. Those that ‘earned’ it held on so tightly to it and pushed many down the ladder as they believed the lie of scarcity that was fed to them in whispers from above.

What was even more annoying to the super rich was that the rabble were sharing information too quickly and rapidly and while the super rich were experts at their propaganda and using these tools themselves the masses were getting very good at it too. They were educating themselves too quickly, so quickly that they were managing the system better to change it which had to be stopped.

At one of their meetings, the super rich decided they had enough and they drew straws to see who would be the first to initiate the next manoeuvre. They had agreed that whoever had the most casualties would be compensated by a quicker economic recovery and the people would never guess they managed it all, all the time, every time.

They did a few trial runs but they didn’t get the result they wanted so the trials were pulled and ended nearly as suddenly as they began, until the perfect formula was found.
They had been working on it a long time, testing and retesting the many mutations of their living weapon until they got the perfect formula that would kill off the majority of the nuisance people, the elderly, the sick, certain ethnic groups who were beginning to manoeuvre and stand up for all the wrongs done to them in the past, refugees, people in warzones, homeless, migrants. 

The living weapon had to be easily killed and contained so that the super rich would not be effected, or if they were they could be cured quite quickly. They all had everything they needed ready if and when that time would come. They may have some casualties but that was a risk they were willing to take in this gamble, this game, everything is a game in the end with the odds most definitely in their favour. Most of their casualties would be those who thought they were in their group but really weren’t, they were just climbers on the ladder.

So, conveniently, normal soap and water prevented it from spreading as did isolation. No one would believe it was created purposely because it could be so easily fought off if you had the means, wherewithal, a home to live in and clean, running water.

Millions died and all was right with the world of the super rich again. 

The End .. until the next time.

May 4 2020

Disclaimer:

This is a work of fiction, any resemblance to actual situations is purely coincidental.

She had entwined him in her lies and deceit in such a way that no matter how the story was told he would pay as if he had planned it all himself. Her evil never failed to surprise him even after fifty years of living under her cruel rule. The only thing that sustained him and kept him from taking his own life was that he was sure to outlive her as she was twenty years his senior, being his mother and none of her line had lived into their eighties as yet. No doubt she would be the first and why not, hadn’t he minded her since the day he could walk.

She was a cruel woman. His father had been a kind loving man until she drove him to the grave. He remembered the shame he had felt as his father cowered under her while she beat him with the yard brush.

“Get up and fight back you useless man” he had thought. “You are bigger than her, why do you let her do this to you?”

His father was a gentleman and so was he. He would never strike a woman no matter how hard she hit and she hit hard. He never remembered a day when he hadn’t been beaten. Not one. She always found some reason to lash out at him no matter how much he tried to please her, to make her happy. He did everything she wanted and it never was enough.

And now, now her hold was even greater. No one would believe him if he told, no one knew what she was like. “Poor little Mrs. Johnny” they would say after greeting her as she sadly looked at them with those fake tears in her eyes even ten years after his father’s death. Still wearing black and pretending she missed the man she tormented from the day she married him as a young slip of a thing. “A real beauty” they said, “Sure wasn’t he awful lucky to get her”. She knew how to play them all.

He had tried leaving in his twenties and his poor unfortunate gobshite of a father had begged him not to leave him. He told him to come with him but he wouldn’t leave the farm. “Isn’t it in our family for generations Tim? Haven’t I to mind it for you?”

“I don’t want it. I hate it.” he had said but he gave in as he always did. He had stayed in this hell and would now stay forever.

Why had she come back? Hadn’t she gotten away and everyone had forgotten her, thought she was lost or dead or something. Silly, foolish sentiments, false memories that she had invented while she was away. Oh, how he had missed her when she left but he was glad she had gone. “Oh, Mary” he thought. “You should have stayed away.”

His sister, Mary, had been the light in their darkness for she was the only one that could make his mother happy and smile for a while but she was cruel to her too. The worst was when she was fifteen and the young Shaunessy lad took a fancy to her. It was jealousy, he knew it was jealousy. Even though she seemed to love her daughter a bit at least, she couldn’t bear to see the young fellow look at her that way. She whipped her hard and when he was cleaning her up he told her she had to go. He gave her all the money that he had squirrelled away. He told her to leave and she did. She never returned until last week.

His mother answered the door. Her rage rose high and he could see that she was going to do something awful but Mary didn’t see it. Too long away. While Mary hugged him tightly his mother closed the door gently. She struck Mary over the head with the rock she had picked up coming in the door. Mary fell to the ground, dead before she hit it while his mother then struck herself on the arms, legs and temple with the rock, not enough to damage but enough to bruise. He cried out in anguish.

“Now go throw that bitch in the slurry pit where she belongs.” she screamed at his cowering frame.

“I’m calling the guards. You’re going away for this.”

“Indeed an’ I’m not sure am’t I black and blue from the strikes that you gave me. You did this if they ask but no one will. The only advantage of living in this God forsaken place.”

She cackled and laughed as he rocked his baby sister in his arms.

“Get that slut out of here” she said as she went upstairs to get ready for mass.

2014

“I want to buy that chair” said the dark haired, tanned young man looking straight into my tired eyes with his deep brown ones full of determination. I rubbed my stubbly chin. I only shave every second day now as the growth is less and nobody notices. Who is there to notice?

“That chair you can have. I was about to throw it out. You can have the lot, if you like.” I replied, pointing to the stack of painted chairs of many shapes and sizes that seemed oddly a set. I was bewildered at his interest in the old thing. It was ready for the skip, of no value and had obviously been recycled many times before. A battered patio chair, ugly old thing, aluminum and wood. Someone at some stage had tried to give it a new life, painting it mad colours of yellow and green and what not. The rest of the chairs were similarly decorated though none of them seemed to be painted by the same hand.

“No, that’s the one I want. It means a lot to me.”

“Fair enough, take it with you.”

And so he did. He picked it up and wandered over the road to the market house and sat on it in the centre of the car park looking for all his worth as if he was King Of The World. He sat there for an age staring at the blank wall in front of him and I stared at him. What on earth was he doing? It might have been summer but it was cold and windy and it felt like rain was upon us. He didn’t look very comfortable and I couldn’t comprehend his actions. I was so engrossed in watching the young man sitting with his jean clad legs, one crossed over the other, elbow leaning on his knee with his hand in his chin that I hardly noticed my next customer walking in and browsing through the brick-a-brac. He felt my gaze because he lifted his head and moved his woolly cap back from his curly locks and looked back at me smiling. He waved. I waved back and then noticed a moving hand beside me.

“Oh, he was waving at you” I said to the pretty young lady standing beside me.

“I don’t know, I think he was waving at us. He is like that, really friendly to his audience.”

“His audience? Are we his audience? What is he doing? Do you know him?”

“Not really, I just met him. He is going to do a mural on that building there. He’s rather famous you know. He travels all over the world painting. He’s here for the festival.”

I laughed. At least he had a reason for sitting in the middle of the car park. Not so odd after all. Though that didn’t explain his desire for that particular chair.

“Will he be long at it do you think?”

“I think he is going to do it over the four days, weather permitting.”

“Better put out the statue so” I said and went into the back room for a root on my shelves for it. She laughed when I came out with the statue of a young blond boy in a red cloak and white ermine and handed it to her.

“Do people still do this?”

“All the time, and it works, put it in that plant pot outside the door.” She grinned at me, did as I bid and came back in to my shop.

“I love this place, you have so much stuff!”

“Unwanted mostly, people’s rubbish”

“No, no it’s treasure, memories.”

She floated around the shop for a while, touching and feeling, cooing and awing as she examined the contents of my hoard. I enjoyed watching her glide gracefully around the tables and dressers. She was a pretty little thing, much like her mother was at her age. Long brown hair, white translucent skin, she moved her long limbs gracefully as her green gypsy dress swished around her bare legs. She picked up a music box, opened it and turned the key. She watched the tiny ballerina dance and hummed along to the tune of Für Elise.

“How much?”

“Twenty euro and cheap at that. It’s very old.”

“Yes, it is old. It’s like my granny’s. It reminds me of her.”

Everything in my shop reminds someone of someone. That’s why I still keep it open for it brings me in nothing.

“Here” she said and handed me the money without even a question. They usually haggle me down to nothing. I gave her five euro back and she smiled with glee, leaned over and kissed my old grizzly cheek. She skipped out of the shop, crossed over to the young man on the chair and started chatting to him. I know they were talking about me as they looked over and smiled.

“I know, I know, I probably shouldn’t keep staring but I find them interesting and what else would I do?” I shouted out to the silence. I regularly talk out loud to the silence. It keeps me sane. He waved his hands around pointing at the blank wall before him and she nodded her head in agreement with whatever whacky idea he was thinking of putting on the wall. I love watching young creatives at work. They are so full of enthusiasm and hope, it does my heart good. He jumped up from his chair and lifted it up. She examined it in detail, laughing and smiling. I hoped she would come back in to visit me and tell me what was so funny about the old thing, but instead they both walked off in the other direction towards the coffee shop, he with his old patio chair under his arm and she twirling in circles around him. If I didn’t know she had just met him I would think they were deeply in love.

“Hello Johnny. Lovely day for summer.” The door swung open, disturbing my reverie. Mrs. Eliza McDermott walked in with her toddler for her weekly duty visit to me and a big grin on her face.

“Indeed, we had our day of summer last week.”I replied.

“Will I put on the kettle?” she asked wandering into the back room before I replied as she does every time. The little one headed off exploring the shop and I followed her. She stopped at the chairs and examined them all as if they were things of beauty rather than a pile of junk

“Red”

“Blue”

“Squares”

“Circles”

“Hairy”

She pointed and explained their designs to me while I petted her little blond head. She delights me with her innocent love of the world.

“Here’s your tea and a nice fresh scone from the bakery too.” said she as she does every time. I accepted them and smiled at her.

“Thank you m’dear. Much obliged.” and we sat watching little Mary.

“Triangles”

“Monster”.

“Are they the chairs from the childrens’ home?”

“Aye, junk, have to get rid of them.”

“Ah, I remember when they were painted. It’s a long while now. Can’t believe they are still going.”

“Going to the dump. My Thomas put them in here while I was home getting my lunch yesterday. I would never have let them in. He’s forever doing that to me. Why were they painted? Strange looking things some of them.”

“Do you not remember the first year of the festival we gathered them all from shops and homes and God knows where. The local artists and school children, well, everybody painted them. They were displayed as a sculpture over there”. She pointed to the car park where the young couple had been.

“We gave them to the childrens’ home then to brighten the greyness of that damp, cold building. What did we call it? The chairs on the square or something ridiculous like that. I did one too. I painted the yellow brick road on mine. I often wondered what the children thought of them but I never went in to check. I should have went in and visited them. I never had time. Is it there?” She jumped up and wandered over to the pile and examined them as Mary continued with her one word descriptions.

“Sky”

“Face”

“Lollipop”.

“I don’t remember that at all. What year was that?”

“Ah 1995, sure it’s twenty years ago now. Imagine they are still around! God those were the times. We had such fun. I was in the thick of it all. I don’t see mine. It was mainly yellow and green with splashes of colour for flowers along the side of the path and tiny little footprints to represent Dorothy, The Tin Man, Toto, The Scarecrow and The Cowardly Lion. I’m off to see the wizard” and she was off singing away in her memories with Mary looking up at her puzzled and amused. 1995, no wonder I don’t remember. That was the year my Maggie left us for good. I don’t remember anything much from that year. She was sick for it all and slowly wasted away as we watched, little Tommy and I. Another reason to get rid of that pile of junk. Oh Maggie my love I don’t need any reminders.

“My one must have gotten broken. Funny, it was a sturdy one, I did my best to make it pretty but it was aluminum and planks of wood, ugly old thing to start with.” she broke into my misery and I was glad of the interruption.

“I gave that to the young artist earlier today.” I pointed out the window and there he was wandering over to his thinking spot again, on his own. He still had his chair which he plonked on the ground and sat down on again staring at the wall.

“What is he doing?”

“He is looking at his canvas. He is doing a mural for the festival. Your Jenny knows him, she told me this morning.”

“Well I don’t know him. That Jenny, she is forever picking up strays.”

“Ah ‘Liza sure you were the same yourself love.” I looked fondly at my niece.

“She bought your mother’s music box. Here.” I handed her the fifteen euro and she snorted.

“Ah Johnny, keep it. The little minx. She never wants me to get rid of anything. She is from your side alright!”

“I think I will go over and have a look at my chair. Watch Mary for a bit.”

She walked out purposely to interrogate the young man that her daughter had taken a shine to. The protective lioness gene is strong in Eliza. She is determined that Jenny won’t follow her path though I don’t see anything wrong in her choice. Hasn’t she lovely children and a devoted husband who she met when she was around Jenny’s age, seventeen and determined to do what she wanted. Yet she seems wistful and full of regrets at times. She was a wild young one, flitting about talking of traveling the world, full of mad dreams.

“Uncle Johnny, where’s Mammy?” Mary had stopped her description game and looked straight at me accusingly. This also happened every week. Eliza would make the tea, chat a bit, find some reason to leave the child and the child never forgave me for it. I brought her over to the window so she could look at her mammy talking intently to the young artist. They were laughing and joking and her mother looked young again. She looked over at us and waved. Mary giggled.

“Mammy’s happy Johnny.”

“It would seem so.” I replied. The young man picked up his chair and came over to us with Eliza skipping along beside him.

“You’ll never guess.” She burst in through the door full of beans. “I am an inspiration!”

“Indeed you are and always were ‘Liza” I laughed.

“No, no, tell him Luke.” She looked intently at the young man who seemed slightly embarrassed.

“It’s the chair” he said. “It’s my chair”.

“Which was my chair” said the giddy forty something year old woman. “My chair inspired this young, talented man to become the amazing artist he is. My chair! Luke had it in his room in the home and he used to imagine himself wandering up the yellow brick road, following his dreams. He decided to paint because of my chair!”

“Yellow”

“Green”

“Road” piped up Mary and we looked down at her walking her tiny hands along the faded footprints on the chair.

“That’s it” said Luke. “I’ll paint the chair”.

He grabbed his camera, took pictures of the child’s hands on the chair and went off smiling to himself, leaving the chair back where it started its day, with me.

2015

Jennifer watched her dance and swirl. A beautiful moment to hold in her mind. Tiny bare feet, bare arms, pretty dress. She looked like her when she was that age, before her mother cut her hair. She had a feeling of foreboding as she watched her brown ringlets bounce towards her but she shook it off and drank in the joy oozing from her child.

She tried to remember dancing and laughing like Emma but the mist in her memory was too thick to traverse. Emma glided over, smiled into her face and wrapped her porcelain arms around her mother’s neck. She kissed her and Jennifer hugged her daughter a little too tight. Emma wriggled out of her arms, dancing across the room again, laughing and singing. She may look like me, she thought but I was more serious, less playful. I was sad.

She puzzled over her thoughts, coming forth and disappearing as quick, while the tinkling laughter twirled around her. She stood up and floated after her daughter, swaying to the music until they both collapsed on the floor with delight, all unwelcome thoughts forgotten. Her husband found them there, floppy on the floor and smiling so he joined them, moment made.

They were happy for the most part except for Jennifer’s silent times. Emma made them disappear easily. Jennifer’s days were spent with Emma, caring for her and her husband Tom. She was happy that way. She had left her job as soon as her maternity leave was up much to her mother’s disgust.

“You’ll regret it when she is grown up and gone and you have no career.”

“I’d rather stay with her and be there while she grows, watch over her.”

“It didn’t do you any harm, me working.”

“No, and I will go back when I am ready but I’m not now. Emma needs me.”

This conversation often repeated itself on her daily visits. Her mother needed her as much as Emma now she was retired, slower on her feet and alone, though she would never admit it.

“Why did you cut my hair so short?” she asked her mother when looking through the photo album over coffee.

“It was the fashion.”

“It was very short, too short.”

“It was easier that way.”

“I won’t be cutting Emma’s, it’s beautiful.”

“So was yours, it is. I’m glad you let it grow.”

“They said I was a boy, remember, at school. I begged to let it grow. They made me cry”

“Ah yes. That’s right. Children can be so cruel.”

“Yes.”

She remembered the taunts for her short hair and boyish clothes. When her mother had finally given in to letting her grow her hair and wear the clothes the other girls did it was too late to fit in. It wasn’t much better in the next school. Pigtails while others dyed their locks with ‘Sun In’. It was her beloved quiet father who eventually gave her money to go to the hairdresser. She came home with short spiky boy hair. It was now long again and had been for years. How she missed him. They all missed him.

Emma burst through the door and jumped into her grandmother’s arms. They hugged. Jennifer smiled. Her mother had gotten a new lease on life when Emma was born. She lived for her grandchild just as much as Jennifer did.

“She is very cuddly.”

“Yes, so were you.”

“Oh, I didn’t think I was.”

Another day, another coffee, they watched Emma play outside, no coat, no shoes.

“I was always wrapped up like an onion, with layers of clothes.”

“You were always getting sick. I had to keep you warm. Forever getting fevers.”

“I was always hot and scratchy.”

“You should tell her to put her coat on. She’ll get sick. Cover her up, she’s nearly naked.”

“Ok”.

She went out to coax the coat onto her daughters shoulders, her mother watching from inside.

Later that week she walked in on whispering.

“Don’t go on my account” she told her aunt as she stood up to leave the table.

“I’ll have one too.”

She put the kettle on and smiled at her mother and her mother’s sister. Emma skipped in, noted where Jennifer was and wandered back outside again.

“She should be at playschool. She is with you too much. Always checking to see where you are.”

“Ah sure she is only little, let her be. Plenty of time away when big school starts.” her aunt replied, making a face at her sister. She smiled at Jennifer.

“I was just telling your mother John McIntyre is dead.”

Jennifer paused, kettle mid-air,

“John who? Don’t know him.”

She poured her tea and joined them at the table.

“Ah you do, remember, he lived beside me in The Green. Just him and Mary. No children of their own, poor things.”

“Oh yes, but you left The Green when I was very little, sure half of yours weren’t born there.”

“Ah you’re right. You probably don’t remember them, though you were always wandering in to them when you were with me. You drove me mad with your roaming and me trying to mind all my own as well”

“They weren’t angels either as I recall. Sure how would Jennifer remember him, she was tiny when you left there. I didn’t leave her often.” her mother snapped.

She stood up and went outside after Emma who ran to her granny with delight.

“She used to hug you tight like that as well, as if she couldn’t let you go.”

“Did she? I don’t remember hugs.”

Memories presented themselves tentatively that day and continued to flash before her but the scenes were gone before she could grasp them. She was afraid to tune them in, preferring the static buzz of interference from her chores.

“I remember her kitchen, the blue tiles, the clean shiny white gleam. Net curtains in every room. Light coming in. Nothing to see.”

She was mumbling to herself as she folded up the clothes.

“What are you talking about?” her husband asked. “What do you mean, nothing to see?”

“Oh, just someone died that I used to know but it was so long ago I can’t remember much. I can’t even picture his face. I meant you couldn’t see in, from the outside,you couldn’t see into the house.”

“Funny to remember the place and not the person. You said her kitchen, not his.”

“Yes. Silly”

She pulled away from him that night.

“Not this again. Why do you sometimes act as if I am going to hurt you. I never would. I love you. You make me feel like dirt. It comes out of the blue. I’m not sure if I can stick this.”

He stormed downstairs. She heard the TV. She cried herself to sleep, not for the first time.

Days passed and tension grew and ebbed, as always. Emma danced, they laughed and kissed. They carried on with life. He left for work each morning and she and Emma planned their days around the chores.

One day she told him.

“I remember she sent me away with biscuits and told me not to come in when she wasn’t there, that he was tired after work. I remember she scared me, not him. She frowned and scowled at me. He was always smiling. I remember her. I know her. I have met her in town. She doesn’t look in my eyes.”

He knew not to interrupt, the flood was coming forth and there would be no stopping it. He held her hand and waited as she sobbed.

“I remember they let me watch TV. I went in because my aunt didn’t have a TV and I remember she wasn’t there but the door was open and I went in. I wasn’t allowed go past his chair to the rest of the house where it was dark but I think I did, I don’t know, I don’t remember everything. I remember her coming in and shouting, not at me but at him. I remember cartoons, sweets and biscuits. I don’t remember going there again. I don’t know what he looked like.”

He didn’t say anything in the silence as she shook and tears poured down her face. He stood up from the table, walked around to her and held her.

“I remember I used to laugh and dance and sing and wear pretty dresses. I swirled and twirled and hugged and kissed. I looked just like Emma until my mother cut my hair. I was three.”

Today I noticed the goose. I picked it up, examined it and put it down. I’ve had that porcelain Mother Goose with pink glass eyes since I was about twelve. My goose of a mother gave strange presents. This particular one is for storing cotton wool. You pull it out of the goose’s bottom. Thirty years on and one or other of my own honking goslings has broken the head off. I have learned not to be precious about things.

I don’t know why I still have it. Maybe I have it just because it wasn’t broken. I might put it in the ‘Broken Press’ along with all the other items waiting to be glued or maybe I will throw it out. I probably won’t throw it out. I don’t throw out. I have a lot of stuff, some broken, some not. Some of it I have because no one else wanted it. They gave me their stuff. They are always giving me their stuff. I carry everyone’s stuff. I am bent over with the weight of other people’s stuff.

When I felt myself getting melancholy again, reminiscing on the Mother Goose, I forced myself out of the house into the garden to smell the roses. You must find what helps you and use it. I know this. My roses help. If not, a walk through the meadow feeling the grass slipping through my fingers usually lifts my mood.

I’m not easy to live with. Who is really? Even the laughing, smiling, blue-eyed toddler has her moments when you could throttle her. But, I’m particularly difficult to live with. I can see that because I watch myself quietly from above. I watch myself taking the crap, doing everyone’s bidding, keeping the peace. Then I watch myself explode all over my gaggle, hissing and honking and biting at them. For some reason they never see it coming.

I wandered out the back door to the garden and inhaled the ancient smell of my enormous pink rose bush. I drew the perfume in through my nostrils and breathed it in. It calmed my torment briefly. Thinking stops while I am smelling my roses. The bees were buzzing around my head, not too happy that I was interested in their patch.

“It was my patch first” I told them.

It was sunny today. That helped too. I wandered through our meadow feeling the long wiry strands of gold swish around my legs. I watched the seeds float off on the air as I made my way down to the end of the garden to sit on the rocks away from everyone for a little. Yet, I was not alone. I am never alone.

The cat had followed me. She rubbed against my legs and purred, wrapping her tail around my knee as she attempted to trip me up. She is a beautiful cat. Mostly white with the odd bit of black and orange. The jealous dog came to chase her away, bounding through the grass. Bounding is the wrong word as it conjures up a massive labrador type dog when really she is a runt of a terrier. A lovely little hairy, brown and black terrier that bounds. Jealousy is a trait of her breed. She is jealous of everyone, especially the playful, beautiful, blond, curly-haired toddler. She doesn’t like the way the child ranks above her in our plump pack. After all, she was here first. The child, of course is completely unaware. The world revolves around her as it should.

I sat down on the rocks. I like hiding in the back of the garden. I feel free for a bit. I breathed in the summer breeze and watched and listened for a while as I did when I was little. I spent a lot of time alone as a child and I liked it. Now I am never alone. I knew it wouldn’t be long before she followed me out despite that fact that I had told the others to mind her and let me be a while, so I breathed in the air and closed my eyes letting the sun warm my face, noticing the contrast to the cold stone on the back of my legs and I waited.

She came, laughing, with a great welcome for herself, enjoying the feeling of the long grass rubbing against her face, tickling her under her chin. She had nothing on her tiny body except for her knickers and vest. She is going through the stripping off phase so the sparse clothing was a relief to see.

“Mammy, I here!” she called as if I had been looking for her.

Bless her, she is a ray of sunshine in our lives. I ran to her, picked her up and spun. She laughed, I laughed as we collapsed in a heap in the grass. Happy again I wandered back in with her, holding her hand, ready to make dinner for the team. I checked the calendar for what was on this evening, noting with some anticipation and yet more fear that a ‘my time’ slot was lightly penciled in. I joined the chaos that is life once more and started to peel potatoes while my little Gracie pulled at my legs to get up on the counter. I lifted her up, kissed her forehead and carried on.

The incessant voices never stop even when my hands are busy, maybe more so than when they are idle. I wondered about my earlier solitary life. Maybe I didn’t enjoy it. Memories have a way of fading out the bad bits. I must have been lonely at times. Is that why I created this madness around me, created this world in which I am never alone. The irony of it all is when they all have left me I will have lots of alone time but then I will be used to the chaos and noise and that is what I will miss. Life is a sick joke. My eldest sister says we are in purgatory. Perhaps she is right. It’s certainly not heaven, but it’s not hell either. Gracie smiled at me, helping me with the dinner as best she could. She is always trying to help, softly honking her encouragement.

I stopped peeling for a bit as my back ached. I stretched and picked up my phone. Two missed calls. I rang him and he answered with a smile in his voice. I smiled.

“No, nothing needed. Dinner nearly ready.”

That little lie didn’t really matter as I knew it would be ready and eaten by everyone else before he made it home. The gander is under constant pressure at work, more so now that I don’t work and it is all on his shoulders. We made the choice. Others didn’t have it, it was thrust upon them. We chose to live with less. Although I don’t think we actually had a choice. I might not be here otherwise. It has been difficult, financially and therefore emotionally. He has tried to put a brave face on, shield me from the worries but I see his agony and feel my guilt. He said he was on his way.

“Love you, bye. Yeah she is here beside me, as always, helping. Bye!”

I heard the click, click of the keyboard as my teenage son played yet another killing game on the computer and I wondered if I should pull him away but it is easier not to. He keeps to himself, in his own world, away from my madness and I let him be. I honked at the younger gosling in the sitting room.

“Turn down that noise. I’m on the phone.”

I returned the call to my father, missed call number two. Every day without fail.

“Yes I am here. No, just making the dinner. See you soon.”

“I’m always here” I hiss to myself after hanging up.

Gracie looked at me from her counter perch and stopped swinging her little legs. I smiled at her. She gave a small uncertain smile and returned to swinging her legs again, more fervently.

“Grandad is on his way to see you” I said as I nuzzled into her golden wisps. My mind wandered again as I soaked up her sweet smell.

Gracie arrived when I was at my lowest. I didn’t want to leave the bed those days. I still find it hard but she is so lovely I just have to move my heavy bones and get up. She lights up my world. She lights up everyone’s world because she lights up mine. While I was low the house was too. I’m not sure which came first. My sadness or theirs, the gosling or the egg. Ha, the golden egg came first in Gracie’s case. I cried when I found out. They were all at the stage when I could do something for myself and boom. I knew it immediately. I tasted the tinfoil taste in my mouth before I had the queasiness. When the queasiness came it just confirmed it. I cried and then I shouted at him as if I had nothing to do with it.

I went through the motions with friends cooing and awing, being so happy for us and others not able to hide their smugness at the idea that we were back behind them again on the ladder of life.

“It’ll be a great distraction. It couldn’t have happened at a better time.” said my eldest sister Jane.

She was delighted, having none of her own and adoring mine because of that.

“A distraction for everyone else, sleepless nights and work for me” I muttered. I had to say it low enough that she wouldn’t hear.

I was frightened. I didn’t know how I would manage without my mother’s help. She was there for all the rest. I missed her so much. We all missed her but I think I missed her more. I think I always missed her more. I felt alone without her. I was finding it difficult to lead the formation.

But I was used to being alone, I liked it that way.

“You were always a loner” my mother said.

A loner in our full house. I was the youngest, a bigger gap between me and the other two. They were a team. I flew solo most of the time.

“Mammy’s little angel, her only consolation” they used to tease me.

They were jealous of the attention I received. I don’t remember much of the attention though just that they spoke of it. I only remember being alone, sitting on the fence, climbing the big tree, reading and writing, drawing, being happy in my own company.

I used to visit her in her room more than they did. I used to crawl into her bed and wrap her arms around me and she snuggled me, smelling my hair, sighing, singing in my ear.

“Hush little baby, don’t say a word.”

I am sure she must have done that for them too when they were little. Maybe not. Maybe that is what they meant. Dad used to come in and pet me on the head, smiling down at me.

“Want some tea love?” He would say.

“Yes dear, thank you dear, I am ok now, Lucy’s hugs are a mighty cure. I will move”

“No hurry, everyone is sorted. Take your time.” He would gently kiss her on the cheek and me on my head. “Good girl. Mammy’s little angel.”

“My only consolation, my goosey Lucy.”

I held her arms tight around me for as long as I could and only left when the tea arrived. Then I would go back to my books, my other worlds, climbing a tree to worlds in the sky or wandering into a wardrobe that opened in a woods. Most of my happy memories are fairy tales.

She went away a lot. I missed her. I missed our cuddles, her singing, her smell. I know I missed her more than the others did. I never was told where she was gone. I never knew until I was older. She was always happier and full of life when she returned. She would dance with me and sing while she cooked. Dad and she laughed more. I do remember once catching him watch her spin with me in the kitchen. He looked so sad. Jane and Kate were never too impressed with all the fun and frolics.

“How long will this last?” I overheard Kate say one day. I didn’t understand until much later.

I understood it now more than any of them ever did.

Kate hasn’t been home in years. She came home for the funeral and left again without hardly a word. She stayed by Dad’s side the whole way through it all and then she left. Jane and I went with her to the airport and watched her flight take off. Kate wasn’t the first wild goose to leave Limerick behind and not look back.

“She broke Mam’s heart” I said tracing a smiley face on the window.

“She has missed out on so much. Do you think she regrets it? Any of it?”

“It’s her own fault. She should have come back. She didn’t see mam the way we did the last few years. A different woman.” Jane replied. She never forgave Kate for leaving us to pick up the pieces behind her. I did. Kate needed to go. I just wished she would come back because I missed her, I missed her normality in the madness.

All those years of watching mam, afraid of what she would do, never knowing if she would still be there when we got in from school, would she be gone away or worse. Kate gave it to her the day she left. She let it all out, her bitterness at a lost childhood, the reality of living with fear of loss, never sure of our manic mother. Kate was on a roll that day, she didn’t take a breath or let anyone interrupt for once. Kate, quiet Kate who just got on with life.

“It is like having a adult-sized toddler for a mother! Living with the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead. When you’re good you’re very very good but mostly you are HORRID.”

Jane and I gasped but said nothing as she looked ready for a vicious attack.

“We had no mother, except for Jane. Jane has been our mother. Jane is your mother. And you put Dad through hell. All these years tiptoeing around you. A nervous wreck he is because of you. You are a selfish excuse of a person. The whole world revolves around your feelings and feck the rest of us. When you’re high we are expected to be high and when you’re low, well God help us! What sort of a life was that for us do you think, growing up? Sure you don’t care. It’s all about you anyway. Well I am getting out of this hell, and that’s what it is, hell with you. You will never, ever, see me again. You have made my life a misery for far too long.”

True to her word, Kate left and Mam never saw her again. Kate leaving put her right over the edge.

Jane, always Jane, was the one to find her. Empty pill box, peaceful calm face. Jane said she had briefly thought of letting her be. She didn’t though. She got her help. Mam was gone a long time that time and came back less manic, more relaxed, tame. Dad continued to devote himself to mending her soul, this gander mated for life. She never mentioned Kate. I always thought Kate’s outburst was her catalyst for change, though I never said it. Poor Kate. The guilt she feels can be felt through the screen. Skype doesn’t hide it.

I drifted back to Jane as she stared at me doodling on the window. She knew I was dwelling on the days before. None of us had said it but we all had thought how ironic it was that Mam had died so peacefully in her sleep when she never had much peace before. The gaggle of sympathisers didn’t refrain from commenting.

“Ah, she’s at rest now.”

“Finally at peace”

“You can rest easy now Tom knowing you did all you could.”

“ You have been a loyal husband, you did her proud.”

“You’re great girls the way you minded your mammy.”

They only remembered the crazy dangerous times when she could attack you as quick as look at you. She hadn’t been like that in years and even when she was those episodes were not as many as the loving, smiling, mothering days. They were just more dramatic, more memorable to the audience. I prefer to remember the quiet days.

“Mam just wanted more space and got it as we grew” I thought out loud.

“Nothing to do with her happy pills so?” said Jane. “Maybe Kate is making sure she has lots of it.”

“Lot’s of what? Happy pills?”

“No. Space”

“It must be lonely all the same.”

“You can be lonely in a crowded room.”

“Yes”.

Jane put her arms around my shoulders as I sobbed. I saw the tears flow silently down her face from the corner of my eye as Jane, always Jane, comforted me. We walked to the slowly moving staircase knowing it would be a while before we saw our Kate again.

She didn’t come for the birth of Gracie. She didn’t come for any of the rest, why would she come for hers? I suppose I thought it was so soon after, that she would want to come, but her broken image and faltering voice was all we got from her safe distance. Births don’t bring her home. Just death.

The melancholy returned with my reminiscing. Gracie had gone quiet. She sat there waiting for me to release her and when I did she gently said.

“I get down. I watch Lilo.”

I lifted her down and hugged her and she ran giggling into the sitting room where I honked at Patrick to put on her DVD and hissed at him when he groaned.

“Again!”

“I have to get the dinner. Put it on.”

It is done and I hear a mumble. “Mammy’s little angel.”

I don’t remember what I cooked. I did it automatically, without thinking, staring into space recalling all the times I retreated into books as she now retreats into her movies. Dad wandered in the back door whistling as he walked. He stopped and stared. I looked up at him and saw that look. He didn’t move so I went to him and hugged him tightly. We remained like that a while. His shoulders were sagging lower this evening than I’ve noticed in a while.

“I’m fine. We’re fine. Gracie is inside tormenting Pat again with Lilo. Head on in to her and save him from the third viewing of the day.”

“Ok, you’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

I pointed at the calendar, my time circled for him to see. He looked and smiled gently. I took a breath, wiped my onion crying eyes as he left the kitchen to soak up the energy of youth from the sitting room. I finished cooking and plated up, leaving one for my faithful gander in the oven, turned down low.

“Set the table, dinner’s ready”

“About time”, Pat, the comedian of the family piped up as he brushed gently past me smiling.

Gracie tells them all how we cooked their dinner and to eat it all up as she hardly touches her own. The little goose, my golden girl, she always makes me smile. I notice we have formed a V shape at the table with Gracie at the top. She took my seat today. I moved into my new spot and gently encouraged her to eat.

The banter of the dinner table made it all seem so normal, and so it was and is and will be. I am normal and so is this. This is life, nothing to be precious about. I am here with you this evening to save my Gracie from our family’s long, worn, repetitive flightpath and so I will. In her own quiet downy way I think Gracie is saving me.

I open my eyes and lift my head from the couch to look over at you. The gentle woman who listens to my meandering tales and doesn’t judge, just what the doctor ordered. You smile at me.

“Lucy, you’re doing great. Perhaps you should mend your Mother Goose. We can all learn a lot from geese. They are wonderful, loyal, caring creatures who sometimes make a lot of noise and that’s ok. Same time next week and call me if you wish.”

I sit up and stretch, less manic, more relaxed, tame and I head off to face the world again, no longer flying alone but lifted and ready to join my formation waiting for me at home.

June 2015

The old Fenian Plot,

Glasnevin Cemetery

Finglas Road

Glasnevin

Dublin 11

A Chairde,

People of Ireland, one and all, all who live here from wherever you began, for all of you are Irish if you sleep within the bosom of Éiru. We all came from beyond the sea of Manannán once too.

I am beyond the veil, so near that I can see your breath yet far away in time. Here within these walls of glasnevin all our eyes are watching through the night, what you do and what you don’t. We are watching injustices happen all around you as you stay silent. Are you waiting orders from the captain, one more word for signal token? Hush and listen, it is time again for you to whistle out your marching tune, stand up now and rise with the goddess moon.

Those who listened to my words and rose up again and again to fight for all men and women, young and old to be free are well known to you and me. Despite learning how the men with pikes had suffered they proclaimed a new and equal Ireland for you all. Their vision was true and just and should have been a guiding light for all to follow and it was for a time until greed and avarice displaced it.

I don’t regret my words, I meant them, I don’t regret a bit of my short life or what I stood for. I still believe in love, romance and freedom for us all. But you, my people, what do you believe in? What drives you forward if it is not justice for the poor and sick and trodden on? Do you not remember all who died before you to give you all of this? Is this web of lies and betrayal, brown envelopes and whispers in the corridors of power, what we died and fought for? Do you believe those men in suits who bow their caps to masters in the banks and European Parliament? Hoorah me boys for Freedom, now you’re shackled once again. Stand up and be together at the Rising of the Moon.

The cause of freedom and love for all is greater and more urgent now than ever, greater than when my neighbours died in famine or your ancestors died in workhouses. It is greater than when the hidden daughters and sons of Ireland died alone, in shame that wasn’t theirs, within the walls of laundries and industrial schools run by the new lords and ladies you replaced the others with. When I entrusted you to St. Patrick that was not what I imagined to behold.

The cause, for there always is a cause, is no longer just about our lady love this island, the cause is no longer at the old spot by the river, it is global now. If you want life to continue, children to be born and food for them to eat, if you don’t want to hear the banshee’s lonely croon echo loud through the land and waters, rise up and save our planet, now! Be the blessed morning’s light, be an example to the world as the Irish can and do and have done. That is your purpose here on mother earth. That is why you were entrusted with this land of saints and scholars, this magical place of hope and love. You do not own her, she owns you. There is no time, it is slipping away fast, species are dying by the day, babies are dying every minute, Mother Earth is writhing in pain and anguish. Get you ready quick and soon for we must stand together at the rising of the Moon.

I’ve twined the last leaf of my garland:

A lonely star shines in the sky,

And the heart of the poet is weary:

Oh Bright Eyes! Goodbye.

John Keegan Casey,

(Leo)

May 2019

Although I knew I might not make it home I had to go. If my death meant life for those to come then I had to give it willingly. They out-armed us but we outnumbered them. I knew the army that was on its way would not make it to our battle. If we managed to weaken the enemy for them it could mean a final victory. That was our hope. A slim one but it made us strong. I knew all this before I went and so I went.

My mother wept inside the house while my father cleaned my gun. I readied my horse and gathered my arms for what they were and set off to join my friends in almost certain death. My horse sensed my fear. I wished I didn’t need to bring her with me but I had no other means to travel. We rode past the fields and village, up towards the larger town where I knew they waited for us. I prayed as I rode and rode as I prayed.

When I arrived, the men waited for my cry of battle and we ran and rode. We charged the barracks. We almost had control when I felt the liquid pouring down my side. I slid to the ground. My horse nudged me gently. “Home girl, Home girl” I whispered. She would not leave. I shouted. She left and so did I.

I watched from above the battle as my friends fell. I watched as the merciless soldiers taunted and tortured those who lived. I prayed as I went upwards that my God would understand. I couldn’t turn the other cheek. I had to go. I could not let them die alone. I did my bit.

Flash Fiction, a second story inspired by the local hero, Paddy Farrell, leader of the rebel brigade in the Battle of Granard, 1798.

(Image taken by Annette Corkery, graveyard where Paddy Farrell is buried. Some of her artwork can be purchased in postcard form here : https://www.creativeardaghcraftshop.com/shop?category=Postcards )

Master was frightened. I could smell it. He talked softly while he fastened the saddle around my belly but I could feel his fear. I snorted and moved from foot to foot, rubbing my head against his face. He patted me gently, whispering. We set off in the dark. Master carried a big metal stick. It didn’t feel like market day.

I was uneasy. I neighed at him. He didn’t notice. He rushed me on. He motioned me to gallop on the bumpy road. He was not like Master.

We travelled past the fields and past the market town. He galloped me onwards and uphill. I had been on this road before, going to a bigger market but then we cantered and walked. More people and other animals were with us. This time was different.

The town was noisy. Men smelling of fear and anger everywhere. Men on horse and on foot with long iron sticks in their hands. They listened to Master as we moved between them. They ran at other men. The other men made loud noises with their sticks. There were big flashes of fire. Master used his stick. We shook and fell back.

Men fell. Men bled. Horses fell. Horses bled. Master fell. Master bled. I gently touched him with my nose. He looked at me. “Home girl, home girl” he whispered. He pushed me away. I stayed. He shouted “Home girl”. He closed his eyes. I went.

I galloped past the noise, the shouting, the broken men and the blood. I stopped and nudged horses on the ground. They didn’t move. I galloped home. Sweat blinded me. I didn’t stop. Mistress came out. She screamed. She fell to the ground. She wept. I put my head down. Lost without Master.

Flash Fiction, inspired by a local tale of a hero buried in our village. Paddy Farrell, leader of the rebel brigade in the 1798 rebellion in Granard. The story goes that the rebels were massacred and their bodies displayed, hanging on the hill, in front of the Motte in Granard, to warn what would happen to anyone else who fought the oppressive regime of the time. However Paddy’s body was brought home as when he died in battle his horse ran home and so knowing he was killed his people came and took his body home.