raindrops

It was the rain I missed most. Growing up in Ireland you certainly got used to the soft days, the showers, the heavy downpours and torrential rain. I remember one summer; I must have been ten or eleven. It rained every single day for the entire summer holiday, then the first day of term; bright sunshine.

Sitting in the room watching raindrops fall down the window, like an ever changing waterfall, I remember that. The wind, there was always wind, would drive the rain against the window panes. The panes themselves would shudder and moan. They were the old type, two halves and a sash cord to raise them up or down, only one fixing in the middle. Designed to last, designed before house burglary became an occupation for so many, but they did like to groan.

The house was, I remember, fond of talking. Floorboards creaked as you stood on them, doors whined as you opened and then exhaled when closed. Tiles on the roof thought they were in a rock band, pounding rhythms with the rain, thrashing out da-dum,da-dum, da-dum. Presses and cupboards held their own secrets; moths, insects and spiders all vying to be top-dog of whatever press they were in.

Up the creaky stairs and along the corridor was the bathroom. For a young curious lad the bathroom held the most appeal. In the twilight, silverfish roamed the tiled floor, woodlice snuck out of the skirting board and made a dash for the underbelly, the dark side of the bath. Once I counted four different kinds of mould and fungi growing in the damp humid conditions, black mould on the walls, a turquoise growth in the corner of the bath. Under the sink was a platform, hewn from fresh timber for the ‘smallies’ in the house but it had aged and in the clammy dank darkness of the bathroom and had grown orange and yellow curly foils of fungi. My brother, the daft one, wanted to eat them but then he would eat anything; charcoal, turf, the dog’s dinner. He was always so hungry and so painfully thin.

He was the first of our family to die in the 2014 emergency. He had always been sickly and couldn’t cope without medicine. Slowly getting weaker and paler, more ghost than human, his skin translucent. The veins and arteries throbbed slower and slower. There was nothing we could do to stop his death, living in a big old house ten miles from the nearest neighbour, no transportation; we sat with him as he took his final breath.

Dad and I dug a grave for him in the orchard, it was raining and the raindrops were making puddles as fast as we shovelled. Mam wrapped him in curtains and carried him out to the hole that would become his home. It was very sad. Within a year I was the only one left, in the wind, in the rain, in the house that talked. It got less sad, or maybe I was becoming numb to human suffering, maybe that is why I am so good at my job.

I left the house in a misty rain, August 2015, I didn’t lock the door, I wouldn’t be back and there were still a few people living around, in sheds, in ditches, in hedgerows. Let them have a roof that drums and floors that grumble, let them count the fungi. I was done with it, I was done with Ireland. There were no cars visible anymore, when oil stopped coming to our shores people just put their cars away, buses and trains stopped too so you could walk down the middle of the road and no one would run over you, you could walk all the way to Dublin on the railway tracks with no machine ploughing into you.

Walking with no real plan but to get to Cork and then to wherever I could I am amazed that I landed this new role. I sit in the desert, camouflaged and shoot people. It is a lonely occupation, I can go for days without seeing a soul and then, bang, bang, bang three are dead. The bodies get covered in sand just like the raindrops at home helped bury my family.

I miss my old life; I miss the speaking house, the howling North wind. When I allow myself I miss my family, my brothers and sisters, my mam and dad, all interred in the orchard under the watchful eye of the venting house. I wonder if anyone moved in, I will never go back, this is my life now, each week I get a fresh supply of food, drink and bullets, I want for nothing. Looking out of my peephole with nothing but blue sky and shining sun, I can’t help but miss most of all sitting in my room watching the raindrops cascade down the shuddering windows.

premise for a story

July 2008, Talenkynic, writing, le posh

I was..in Galway this afternoon relaxing and chillin' outside 

Taafe's when a trio of le posh sat down at the next table. Fortuitously i noticed that we had met before about hour before on the way back from An Spiddeal they were behind and the two in front had been having an animated discussion. I had pondered on what the subject of the argument had been because they both had a look of walking barefoot into a sludgy pice of dog leavings letting it settle between each toes whilst the smell pervaded upwards to their nasal area. I had names them Lemon Bottom and Lemon Bottom Mammy. At the time I didn't realise the third generation was in the car.

Taafe's was very busy it being  Race Week and the SawDoctors playing last night - the reason I was in  Galway - every one was there people i hadn't seen in  ten years, bless them they looked so  old - don't have the good skin gene like me !!!

Any way I digress - the ladies who lunched beside me were an utter inspiration and a new tale of female bullying across the generations has been born. The outline has been written and i am super charged about writing it

And as a double whammy, my old music teach has dropped by and added as a friend - welcome Bob to my Zylmor existence....

random old posts

In 2004, three years before I attempted to begin the life of a creative, I apparently began to write. I have no recollection of these posts, can't remember the specific memories, but hey, it is not bad.....

Coronation Street is starting on the television below, a child is playing with cars at my feet, another is attempting to braid my hair. My eldest son grunts acknowledging his existence whilst my main squeeze attends to the animals. Our life although technologically inspired is a relatively simple one. No wild parties and a social life that never registers on the Richter Scale. Why are we here, what is it in our life that appeals to us - that magnetically charges us to be pleasantly enlivened by the arrival of a newly deserted trampled by life cat or a new use for junk. Do we spy others living lives that cause us to be envious - no. And that puzzles me. I am content to live my simple life, goal-less and ambition-less whilst letting the faster life surround me and mine.
New Year's Eve 2004


Books are being taken down from the case with care - soccer skills with Michael Owen is Séan's choice tonight whilst Aary is still reading Ghost Bird to Alfie, Alfie is our newest family member - he arrived on Christmas Day a teddy bear for Daddy from Aary. Aary considers himself to be Alfie's big brother and reads to him morning and night. Coronation Streer music just erupted and as quickly it started; it ended. My intuition tells me it was on a break. We get very long ad breaks in Ireland five sometimes six commercials. The best at the moment are the drink in moderation ones especially the ones aimed at teenagers.
New Year's Eve 2004

Musings

Above this will be all the creative writing done to date. Some will be repeats of previous posts, some will be never before published stuff. I have taken almost a year off from putting fingers to keyboard in order to sort out a new voice. There will be bits of the old voice mingled with this new way of talking.

Giving Up

I tried for two months to write every day but I discovered that I was writing about nothing, forgetting the important things I saw that day and writing for the sake of it. I have decided that it is better to write qualitatively rather than daily. I might become prolific again but until such time I will write short pieces when I think of them. Deadlines - pah!

Music and Madness

The music of earth is so diverse, people find music out of throwaway objects, they are inspired by everyday sounds, emotions, and people. Belting out a song of unrequited love is not unusual and the arrival of karaoke allowed ordinary humans to get up on stage with a microphone, sing off key and still get applause.
Conversely in Dromdrevc we did not applaud, if the Charters liked something you did, you stayed. I had no proof for years but I understood inherently that if I displeased the Charters with my art I would be disappeared. Amongst the slaves, because there was no bonding allowed we never knew who would be sitting with us to eat, we barely knew their names and at meal times not only mind speak but mouth speak was banned and dishes were served in silence. There was music in Dromdrevc, whilst we worked a beat was rhythmically sounded on drum, when it ended work ended. I often pondered on the slave who created the beat, were they capable of so much more, like the rest of us. Zilpanda, had music in her soul, she had an ethereal quality as if she was somewhere else. We mind spoke once in the outer shell of the politabubs chamber. She was a slave-sculptor and created statues of the Charters in shiny iridescent forms that moved in the winds of the corridors of power. These creations were beautiful but a sadness radiated from them as if a part of Zilpanda'ssoul leaked into them. She was pale, always pale, her hair was jet-black with three blue stripes running horizontal, it was her hair that first caught my eye and for months I waited for an opportunity to speak to her. Back home there was a boy with hair like Zilpanda's, a tall strapping youth who worked with the natural rock in the area creating furniture. His name, lost to me now, was often spoken, our people thought him mad. He sang to his rocks, a love song, a song so clear, so personal it was almost embarrassing to hear. I wanted to speak to Zilpanda, to see if she was a relafem of his, to chat about my homeplace. I wasn't often pining for home, I quickly realised that my family had dumped me, sold me like a shekwal of Iffoldo cheese, bound up and forgotten, but on seeing Zilpanda I started to dream of stanzas of my life before I was enslaved.
When wanting something so much, of course it stays just out of reach but eventually it happened that we were on the same corridor in one of the places that the dreaded shockwave could not dig through. The other thing about wanting something so badly is it invariably lets you down, and I was very let down by my convwesation with Zilpanda. she was mad, she sang to me of her madness, her undying love for rock. I knew of course that she was a relafem of the boy from my homeplace, they all must be different shades of madness, I also knew somehow she was slowly dying and then I began to hope, to hope that in her madness and her dying she make a dramatic exit, not just disappear. I refused to want it, but each night I proclaimed to myself that tomorrow would be the day that Zilpanda made her grand mad exit.

Militant Fairy

Dondell lived near the pond in the wood in Littlehippleton.
Dondell was a Fairy but not just any Fairy….
She was a militant tomboy Fairy. No flouncy pink dress for her.
She wore green t-shirts and jeans with black boots.
The other Fairies thought she was silly and liked to wear their big colourful floaty dresses, their pointy toe shoes and pretty curly locks.
Dondell was lonely, the other Fairies played together.
They made lacy cloaks from spiders webs to give to Pixies working in the town.
They collected acorns and made goblets to give to trader Elves in exchange for shells.
They helped the Dwarves look for jewels.
They danced and sang.
They chased and laughed.
They had such fun together.
When Dondell came near they were quiet and turned away.
Dondell would break spiders webs and throw acorn cups in to the pond.
She was not happy and would go for long speedy flights up to the highest trees and look out beyond Littlehippleton.
She would say to herself, I will leave here and find someone to be my friend, one day.
She would plummet, her wings close to her back, faster and faster and then at the last second spread them out and glide to the ground, none of the other Fairies could do that.
One day she heard shouting from the other Fairies, “Dondell help us, please, HELP!”
She flew down to see what the commotion was.
One Fairy, Lavender was caught by her dress in a huge web.
The spider was coming closer to her.
The other Fairies were trying to break the web but it was cutting their palms and it hurt but would not break.
Dondell turned and flew away up to the highest tree.
The Fairies thought she had gone away.
Then they heard a whirring noise coming down the tree and the spider was knocked from the web, the web was broken and Lavender was safe.
Dondell didn’t glide and thudded to the floor of the wood.
She lay without moving.
The other Fairies huddled around her and carried her to the Healer of the Wood.
She gave Dondell some ointment for her head and a little vial of yucky medicine for her body.
The other Fairies were given salve for their hands.
When Dondell was better all the WoodFolk came together to celebrate the Bravest Fairy in the Entire World, Dondell.
All the Fairies made her a special pair of trousers from leaves and a special top that was green with shimmery bits to say thank you for saving Lavender.
Dondell was happy, she had friends and she was loved.
Dondell still dreamed of leaving the wood but that is for another time.

A Swim

The day destiny had set aside for my death was a beautiful summer’s day. I think that was where destiny went wrong; with the sun set so high in a cloudless sky beaming effortlessly down on the golden sands so even the black rocks of Monk’s Bay shimmered with life. Three pre-pubescent girls, Elaine, Angela and me were caught in a riptide. Elaine couldn’t swim, I was a strong swimmer, Angela was somewhere in between and a survivor. The North Sea didn’t care about abilities except it’s own, thrashing wave upon wave down on top of us. We hauled Elaine’s frantic body up onto some rocks, our own bodies were smashed unsparingly against the black jagged shelf. Pushing ourselves out, away from the dangerous rocks we could hear Elaine’s screams above the noise of the surf. She was in an hysterical panic attack, crouching down then bobbing up in a frenzied manner. It struck me that it looked from the beach that she was thinking about diving in. Angela and I were being tossed about, our young limbs pushed into angles impossible now to recreate. I noticed a change in Angela, she suddenly had become quiet and wasn’t responding as usual, with all the strength I could muster and in time with the battling ocean I thrust her forward past the rip and she landed in an ungainly mass on the beach. She looked exhausted, weak-kneed, as she struggled to her feet stumbling to get help. In any other account this is where the strong swimmer, the saviour to the other then sweeps in and stands aghast at the concern of onlookers.
Tiredness was overwhelming me, the roar of the waves crashing down, being above water was too hard. I surrendered to the water, to my friend the ocean, if I drowned all the bad things I had to deal with would be wiped clear. I wouldn’t have to be the secret keeper for all the family including myself, I could just let it go. Destiny had the right idea, take out one pawn and the whole chess game that was my family would be over, all the king’s men would fall down. Under the water was the most perfect peace, a quiet unlike any other, the silence beckoned me down, further and further I tumbled. The feeling of a comfort, being cocooned like in a mother’s womb. I rolled in this contentment, remembering Tom from the Water Babies and just as I had moved onto my heroine Grace Darling huge hairy hands ripped me from this warm womb and brought me back into the loud reality of life. To the people gripping me, tending to the cuts and bruises, hugging life back into me, it was a triumph. I did not agree and spent numerous days at numerous beaches trying to recreate the conditions but destiny never came to my aid and I have lived to tell this tale.

A Mythical Tale

1996 1

my hair is like a gorgon’s
it’s alive with snakes
reality is shifting away from my normality
my head is shrinking the snakes are
hissing in my ears
whipping past my eyes,
thrusting their tongues,
till even seeing is beyond my control
give it to me
soon the snakes will lash my nose
it will bleed
flow blood flow
more to come and then
I too will wither and die
writhing as one with snakes on my head
to gasp my last breath
the snakes won.

reality returns
my husband
my sons
my ones and onlys
each one unique, each one loved
the duet, then triangle, now square.
Is it conceivable to become a witch’s pentagon,
and with a pentagon of the witchy poo variety
isn’t anything possible

Breakdown, nervously approaching
cast a spell little one
cast it well
cast it into the sea we call life and
see if the sea will see the sea’s spell
a spell is nothing , a dream, a hope
a prayer to St Jude all useless
no one
nothing can change the inevitability in my impoverished life
the normality I call mine is not normal
it’s not fair , I cry a tear, a stream a river
I cry a entire ocean
but normal stays
and my first born will lose his sight
and what of him – his life will diminish
as day leaves into night as the light in his eyes fades

2008 2
Many years later, eleven to be precious
with ten months and two days for good luck
sight gone personality reigns forth
he is a figure of admiration
of inspiration and heart feeling good
running through town long cane at hand
thrusting through crowds with a sweep of white
red and gold Mohican blazing his independence
dare to offer him help and have your hand bitten

And myself, depression gone, poverty banished
battling some old wagon wars still part of my scene
jealousies of ordinary disappear proud of what he is
the triangle we always had, became the square and then
finally a pentagon, a pentacle, could a girl child be born
never, fate intervened only one bitch will rule this roost
democracy hypocrisy, materocracy
it’s direction that’s needed
a stern hand
a hard voice
a domineering female is known

The Grind

Following the same pattern, as every other day I wove through the streets of Codlington, ducking down St. Haig Terrace and then criss crossing across Ellingham estate.
It was the same route I had taken every day for three years, and every day I cursed my employer, Zylmor inc for sending me to this dull boring lifeless soulless grey northern town. I had been with Zylmor for eleven years since leaving university and had risen through the ranks till I will next in line for an executive manager position. Up to that point everything I touched was shimmering and shiny, my clients were awestruck by the presentations I showed them, my team worked away with the lowest absenteeism record ever, zero, minimum sick leave, poor Mary, my p.a. had to have part of her bowel removed due to cancer but was back at work in two months, scheduling doctors appointments on her days off. They were a dedicated staff and I as their head glowed with the accolades bestowed upon us. Then come the day that I made a mistake, in hindsight a gargantuan error of traumatic proportion but at that time it didn’t even register on my list of thins never to do at work. I smiled back at a nice man across a busy room during a case conference with our newest and most lucrative client, I didn’t know the man and he had been keeping a low profile during the meeting. How was I to know the man was the clients husband. The room stopped buzzing as the client let forth a shrill banshee scream and leapt for me. I was caught in the moment and her arms flew at me so I floored her with my southpaw. Within days I was transferred to the northern wasteland. The staff come in late and go early, there is some serious pilferage going on but I can’t locate the source, possibly the entire office. My title, Assistant locum manager actually means I do everything including brew the coffee. The clients are dingy and grey with backwards looking ideas and no motivation in the world can lift the damp spirit that pervades every molecule of the dire situation. Three seconds changed my life and finally at the age of thirty-two I understand what my dad called the daily routine grind of life and I smile never passes my lips.

genocide of Dromdrevc

The tension inside the bubble of Dromdrevc was exhilirating. After years of painting portraits of politicians and rulers I was alive. My natural artform of landscapes, based only on images created by others on Zylmor or still images captured by what you would think of as photographs but with more depth was despised in the city. My family lived on the far continent in the open, I communicated through mind-talk weekly, mother complained about the dust, father moaned about poverty and my sibs, Tessina and Zeuteronomy chatted about friends I had known, at the time of the genocide I had been exhiled from them for seven of your years and had grown from the child prodigy of eight to an almost fully developed female of fifteen. The last year had been particularly fraught with anxiety to escape as my time of captivity was over as soon as I reached sixteen. Credit-bars were delivered monthly to my life-parents as payment for the enslavement of their youngest child. As a small child Dromdrevc was awe-inspiring, a giant atmospheric bubble guarded against the elements, tall towers of housing units, business blocks and in the centre, a tower of shiny metal that reached up to the very tip of bubble, it was in here, the Royal Campus that I was to live and work. Work, I discovered was not to use my natural talent of reproducing vast canvases of landscsapes from memory or mythology, but was to catalogue an ever increasing number politabubs and the ruling charters. Charters were families who could prove their lineage back to the beginning of time, there were usually three or four clans living in the campus, they were a vain bunch, each portrait was proudly hung in the main concourse and because of their jealousy, repeats were frequent. One man-crown had a portrait booked every season, every colour found in Dromdrevc had been used in his costumes, each one more extravagant than the last as his girth also expanded. It was in his chamber I first heard about the Concavity, and the Galymonter people who yearned the power of Concavity. Galies as they were known had come from the neighbouring planet of Prusson, at first wanting to trade and as the polit-bubble was on seasonal break the Charters met with them and thrashed out a trade route between the peoples but their vanity made them show off the Concavity Orb, and exaggerated the properties of the laws of the index of refraction, with the wave velocities over-rated. I had never believed in the power of the concavity orb and had joined with other non-believers, we met in the concourse only three of us at a time and discussed possibilities. We were the brightest minds on all of Zylmor, punished we felt for being so intelligent by enslavement as children. We pondered on if this was to knock our inquisitive minds to an imaginary block as the tasks we were given numbed us. Piotreya, an inventor of vast electrical circuits spent her time making and changing light sources for the Charters and Yandryl was poet and playwright, he voice could lift you to the highest peak, he wrote ditties for the politabubs and their families so instead of being stirred by his words we slept by them. We had all completed our formal education in our early years while our sibs were still studying, attaining levels of expertise we had mastered at three or four. The Charters did not like us meeting together, so we kept the meeting light, with fake linguistics to suggest a frothy impromptu tryst rather than the reality of theoretical discussions on propulsion, experimentation and the politabubble. Each of my portraits contained a symbol of rebellion to inspire the unruly. Piotreya linked systems together until she had voyeuristic control over the whole subsystem within the bubble ans within each ditty that Yandryl created was one phrase that did not fit but was code for our mini rebellion.

In The Beginning Was The Word

The plan is I tell stories. Some will be real, some will be fictional, some will be loosely based on something I have read or seen or an image I can't get out of my head. It will also be the story of my journey as I become a commuter junkie, living in Kerry and working and in digs in the week in Cork. This will also be my repository for the arty photos I try to create, at the moment I working with water, the movement of it, the swirls, the noises and the destructive influence this gift of life creates.
I don't always have a lot of time so I am not commiting to a daily blog, it will be however and whenever I can make it, but I commit to a once a week creative writing spluge and a photo. The picture above is me taking a shot of St Finbarr's Chuch in Gougane barra. There is a reason why some people are behind the camera, and I perfect this statement.
I have been inspired to start a blog by a Ben Elton book, "Blind Faith" which introduces us to a post apocalyptic London that is run via the internet by people purporting to be of faith but really is just an excuse for indecent living. I can understand the premise and the theme, but the exposition was unexciting, having read 1984 as a child it took only a little time to work out the twists that were going to occur. Even to the end when I knew he had to get someone to activate the virus. I will never write as well as Ben on paper but in answer to the need for privacy as opposed to revealing all in the name of 15 seconds of fame. I hope I find a happy balance that will neither be too private nor too verbose