A poor excuse this hollow makes
For your final resting place.
Curled tight, as your life blood freezes
To the ice from which your heart is derived.
You lie, a freezing beggar, at Mother Nature’s breast,
One slight inconsequential life, defenceless.
She Said
GRACE COLLINS
SHE SAID SHE WOULD RUN away with me. I told her my plans and she sent me directions from the train station to her house along with twenty euro for a ticket. She said that once we got there we would go to the docks and ask one of the cargo ships if they would take us. We would tell them that we would cause no trouble; we would get off at the first stop because once you’re on the continent you are able to travel easily. They would agree and we would give them fake names and tell them that we were lovers and that we were fleeing from our families who didn’t approve of our affair. At night she would play with my hair as I sang until the two of us were fast asleep.
And when we arrived at the first port we would thank the kind men and get off. And we’d busk on the streets until we had enough money to get a train to the furthest place that we could get to. We would take it all in. Watch the world that we’ve known for so long slip away as new hills and winding rivers replaced them. And we’d ride until we got kicked off. And we would never have a problem with passing over borders because we could charm our way out of anything.
And we’d reach a town where we’d meet a nice man who was driving to the city in the morning. And he would take us in for the night and we would stay with his family and play games with his dog and in the morning he would take us in his car to the city so we could try and get jobs. And we’d waitress in a dingy diner for a few weeks. Singing to the cooks and dancing with the brooms. All this before leaving again. We would never stop. We would get by on what we had; two small suitcases and barely enough money to make our next trip, pay cheque to pay cheque. We wouldn’t read the papers, or listen to the news; none of it matters.
We would never stay more than a month in one place. There is so much to see. Isn’t this the best way to see it? She would never make me feel guilty and I would never remind her of what we had left behind. We would be happy happy and if we didn’t like somewhere, we would leave. Simple as that. Two girls with nothing to hold them back.
Forever and always faithful to each other.
Damp Tissues
ORLA MCGOVERN
Why do you cry?
You believe in
Life eternal.
Your family’s
In heaven, right?
Just gone to God.
Surely that death
Is better than
This painful life.
Why grief and black
Not the joy and
White of new life?
Painting in the Dark
SAMUEL H. DOYLE
I SOON REALISED I COULDN’T get it, what everyone else got: that exhilarating feeling as you pulled the trigger, the rush of testosterone as I snatched the cash. I felt like a hollow shell in comparison; I needed more, much more. So I began my own little journey of discovery.
It was a dark night, if I remember well, for the moon was a tiny silver crescent concealed for the most part by dull clouds. It felt rather lonely outside in the shadowy alleyway, with a lone streetlamp for company, wreathed in the sticky smoke of the factory suburbs. As I stood there, stooping in the bar doorway, this woman went wandering by. She appeared to know she was in the wrong part of town; she was leaning forward clutching her arms to herself and darting her head behind her at regular intervals.
I knew right then what could make me tick. I rose stealthily, in my mind like a panther creeping from hiding. Using the blackness of the night and the thickness of the smog I followed the lost little creature. Despite the gloom she stood out, the blonde tresses on her head assisting me like a lighthouse guides a trawler home to harbour. A short while later she turned, lengthening her stride, increasing her pace, as she grew confident of safety. Such rashness was her downfall. Literally. She sped up on cobblestones and her heels snapped clean off, throwing her roughly to the uneven ground. All hesitation vanquished, I pounced. One sharp blow to the base of her neck and next my sweating palms were sealing her struggling screams.
A tearing sensation and lots of pain, by God I’d swear that I would have blacked out, defenceless, if not for sheer bloody minded determination and adrenaline bursting through my veins. The desperate vixen had sunk her perfect teeth deep into my finger and was ripping at it viciously. Any pretence at patience or care was thrown by the wayside as I beat her into submission. I could feel her flesh blooming into bruises as my scarred fists flew at her; the sensation was not altogether unpleasant, almost like the texture of slightly squished strawberries, very soft and pliable yet with a mushiness that suggested rot.
I lost all sensations momentarily; almost felt like I was hovering in the sulphuric sky, watching myself dispassionately as I enforced my will. Long after any resistance ceased I leaned back. Only one thought continued to reverberate in my head: ‘My arms are bloody tired!’ I really felt terrible; apparently no amount of time in the gym was going to make the physical effort of such assaults any easier. I turned back to the innate specimen sprawled bloodily on the cracked curbstones.
There was something decidedly artistic about her pose. I imagined myself as a film director, the new Spielberg, with the power to turn such beauty into a mashed up mucky mess with a few lines. As I dreamed of the possibility I realised that my methods, brutal and barbaric, though requiring extra work, gave satisfaction of heights unattainable by less active, legal means.
To my ultimate surprise a faint moan wafted, like the whistling of an early autumn breeze, upwards to a height where it became barely detectable. An unexplainable rage took hold of me, my guts and organs boiled in anger, visible steam must have poured forth from my orifices as I worked myself up into an unstoppable murderous frenzy. How dare that beaten weakling cling on to the life which I had worked so hard to take away from her, the selfish bitch!
I paused briefly to flex my bulging muscles, bursting with sheer violent emotion, and contorting my hunched back painfully to relieve the aching tension. Then I lunged at the vaguely writhing body, grasping hold of it and heaving it above my head to break her spine in one bone-crunching movement. I could have laughed as I thought of how such an action was more natural and even easier to me than straining my bony fingers to snap a tiny pencil in half. The similar sound of her cracking bone and the pencil lead breaking was captivating.
Still feeling cheated by her earlier refusal to die, I decided to ensure that there could be no possible repeat of offensive survival. Almost snakelike, I sinuously slid a combat knife from my tough hide boots and slowly slit her dainty perfumed throat. The sight awaiting me awoke feelings and emotions never before discovered. I found pure joy in this visage of incomparable beauty. A new gleaming smile of my creation gazed up at me, luscious poppy red lips pulsing ever so slowly, coating the grin with an ever thicker layer of sticky, shiny gloss. It brought my mind back to the lazy spurting of the chocolate fountain I got for Christmas last year.
I stayed with this heavenly apparition until near dawn, stricken by a love that has not yet found an equal, a passion deep, thirst unquenchable, desire insatiable that forever guides my life to following this night time pastime. As the sun rose blearily around the towering chimneystacks I walked away, glancing back only once to see the pale torso and jeans, freshly dyed and clotted brown, lying in a drying puddle.
The masterpiece of a very special abstract artist.
Or Don’t
CAELEN FELLER
Lie in the snow.
It may chill you, but you won’t freeze.
Climb the hill; the house’s gaping windows stare at you, ever watching.
You may feel the urge to enter.
Listen to your instincts and open the doors.
Don’t
be afraid of the dark.
Search the house, and find the object that reminds you most of home.
Take it.
Visit the outhouse; you will find a shovel.
Don’t touch the rake – it has blood on the handle.
Dig a hole in the hard, frozen ground.
Bury the object.
Find something else.
Take it.
Find a home that matches.
The Shadows
HANNAH-ROSE MANNING
I have always feared the shadows.
Raven-black in colour, shifty in shape.
My teddy said the shadows were dangerous.
‘They’ll draw you in and keep you there.’
In daytime they whispered softly to me.
‘Come to us, Sarah, come.’
No choice but to follow.
Noon. They shrink. I grow,
No longer afraid.
But they creep back,
Lengthening fear.
When the clock struck nine,
The night stole them away.
Daytime vampires.
Morning. They’re back.
With their sinister smiles.
Grown-ups say, ‘Shadows can’t hurt you.’
But Teddy and I know best.
Beautiful Gas Mask
CONOR KELLEHER
YOUR NECK.
Bare, because of the heat. Working my way down, there’s the standard patchy haz-mat kit that everyone wears. You wear it well. Even lower, the legs, deep scratches in the thick material. Lower still, the boots, scuffed and worn from a probable lifetime of hiking. If we go up, there’s the back of your head, your short brown hair and the strap of your gas mask.
It’s so horrifically incomplete.
That’s all that’s left. All I have to remember you by. The last I saw before the earth noticed us and swallowed you whole.
It isn’t enough. It won’t ever be.
I sit down on a nearby rock, just feet from where the ground caved in. Everything is the same black, stodgy colour through the tint of the gas. The sky is black, the ground is black, the nearby ocean is black, the horizon is black, and the hole you disappeared down is black. The haze hangs low over everything, clutching the earth like a blanket smothering a baby.
We had been walking. Making our pilgrimage.
We’d done it, where no one else had. We’d gotten through the forests, where the trees would kill you just to watch you bleed, we made it through the barren deserts that were more toxin than sand, and we’d made it through the metropolis full of the hopeless who never knew to wear a gas mask all those years ago when all this began. We’d done it. We’d survived. We were a few hours from our destination, at most. Maybe even less.
And then the ground ate you.
My eyes are stinging in that strange way they do when the mask is leaking. I panic, startle, fumble with the systems check, but no, everything is safe and secure. Or so the readings say. They’ve never lied before.
It’s gone. That snapshot of your back. The last I had of you. No, not gone. Slipping. I let it slip. It isn’t worth anything. Let it slip. Let you slip. For the best. I’ve got a job to do, and thinking about you isn’t going to help anything. It’s best if I just forget. Forgetting’s always easy. I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time for you.
I stand up.
And I sit back down.
And then I lie down.
And then I remember.
Remember pulling you from the roots that held you. Remember you pulling me from the acrid acid sludge as it bore down to swallow me. Remember the way one of the hopeless had held on to you and how angry that had made me, deep inside, how I knew I had to make you safe, how I crushed his head against the wall and caved in his skull and it was like he didn’t notice but I didn’t notice either because I was too busy noticing you.
You were the one thing that wasn’t poison.
And maybe you were, a little. But it was the good kind of poison. The one that takes you softly, and quietly. Gently. We could use a lot more of that, around here.
The eyes have stopped stinging. Now they’re glazing over with wet, as if to blind me from the present and force me to remain in the past. Fine by me. I’m here. Our goal is just a short way away, now. I could stay here for hours, days, years, if I wanted to, remembering you.
Words come into my mind. Words from before everything went wrong. They haven’t fit anything here, anything in this place, for a long, long time. But they fit you.
If I close my eyes and still my breathing, I can almost feel you lying beside me.
Almost.
I reach out an arm to touch you. You’re there and not there at the same time. I hold you as best as I can. But you’re slipping. Everything’s so hard to remember. Your hand, both in mine and not, my arms, both around you and not, your laugh, shaky and distorted by the Com you spoke through, ringing loudly in my mind but silently everywhere else.
I wish the ground hadn’t eaten you. I wish it a lot.
I’ve never wished for anything before.
I try to remember why we did this, why we came here in the first place. It was important, the reason. We talked about it. Neither of us could remember. That happens here; memories die, new ones come in to replace them. We tried to eke out our story as we went along. We’d come from a safe place, a happy place, maybe, and we’d been chosen to go out and do this. To reach it. Whatever it was.
I can’t remember and I don’t much care. The kind of safe and happy that place made me feel pales in comparison to the kind you could provide. I’m angry. Not at anything in particular. But I’m angry that you died. I want you back. It isn’t fair, and it isn’t right, and I’m not going to press on because I want you back right now, right now, and if the ground doesn’t produce you and give you back to me then I don’t know how I’ll do it but I’ll burn this entire planet even worse than it already is, and it will think back to the cancer ravaging it now with fondness and it will wish it had given me everything I ever wanted because as much as I’m rending and coming undone and splitting apart at the seams it’s nothing compared to the damage I want to wreak on this worthless excuse for a patch of ground to stand on.
I’ll do it.
I will.
I’ll kill everything.
Maybe that’s how things got like this in the first place.
I don’t know.
Neither do you.
We can’t remember.
No one can remember.
I’m lost and I don’t know where I’ve been and I don’t know where I’m going and I can’t remember who I am and I don’t even have you anymore and soon I’m going to forget you.
I jerk awake.
No. No, no, no, no, no. No.
But yes.
It’s what happens, what always happens, the memories will leave and die and then I’ll be alone and I’ll never know I was ever anything different.
And then I start screaming. And my memory may be working with a skeleton crew, but I know I’ve never screamed like this before. It’s rage and fear and anger and pain and everything and all of me, all wrapped up in one fatal gesture, and I turn on the Com as far as the dial will go and everyone, everywhere, for miles around will know this sound and they’ll know I was here and they’ll know how I felt and then, and then,
Then they’ll forget.
And I want to make some sweeping gesture, some wonderful speech, a pledge to never forget and to always remember, but no matter what reminders I make for myself, no matter how many times I carve your name onto my skin, the reality is that the memory will die and then I’ll be alone again.
Can I even remember your name?
No. I can’t.
I chase the memory all around my head. I can’t quite manage to catch it.
And then my thoughts are quiet for the first time in a long while and I hear the ocean bubbling two miles away and I hear the wind rustle over this bleak rocky wasteland and I hea
r the gas shifting in the air and I hear the far-away scuttling of whatever lives here and, I have to say, to me at least, it all sounds pretty much the same as silence.
And then I see light, cutting through the gas like a knife.
Emanating from the hole you fell into.
And I’m only thinking one thing: That light’s artificial.
No. Sorry. Two things.
That light’s artificial,
And that light’s you.
No. Not yet. I can’t have you come back and then be torn away like this. I can’t believe it yet.
I won’t.
It’ll hurt too much.
I run to the edge, and I stare down the depths. The beam of light cuts my eyes but does little to disrupt the black shroud below, underground. The light begins to flicker, on and off, and something registers in my brain, dots and dashes and pieces of a code I can’t name, much less use.
Your Com is broken. Must be. This is you communicating. That would make sense.
It’s also impossible. You’re dead.
Dead. Dead dead dead dead dead and not coming back. I’m not doing this. I’m not hurting myself like this. I refuse.
Coms.
I have spares.
It’s like someone loaded a shotgun full of buckshot and let it off inside of me. I feel so happy, it’s like my organs are rupturing. I didn’t know relief could feel this cancerous. This isn’t real, it isn’t, and all the happiness I let it have in me will sour and rot and I’ll feel all the worse for ever having let it in and just be quiet.
I whisper into my Com: ‘If you can hear me, turn the light off.’
Abruptly, the beam cuts.
‘Throw it back on.’
The light beams back into existence.
And there it is, there you are, there’s the proof, there’s the miracle, there’s the sign that you’re fine, there’s all the things that I didn’t let myself want, there’s you and there’s you and there’s you and there’s you and there’s you.
Words to Tie to Bricks Page 6
