Very Slight Stories

My Trip to Russia

2008-07-22T02:48:00.000-07:00

   I had to go to Russia to see a man about a dog. I decided to walk. Admittedly, I wasn't long into the journey before I gave up and cried. I spent too long standing where I was, in the middle of a field. I watched the stars coming out, and the blue fading from the sky. In my experience, if you spend too long in one place, someone will come along and lecture you about politics. This is what happened in the field. I was lectured by a man who spoke with exclamation marks after every second word. My enjoyment of the evening was ruined by the exclamation marks embedded in my face, like staples from a staple gun. The exclamation marks became sharper when he started talking about the flag he made to express his relationship with the state he lived in. The situation got even worse when he unfurled the flag. He had to take off some of his clothes to get it out. I couldn't see it very clearly in the fading light. I remember there were gold cows in a red field on it because he started crying when he spoke about them.
   This was when I felt that I had the upper hand. If I was careful about the positioning of my metaphorical legs I could form a certain stance and pretend I thought there was something weak about a man who cried because of the gold cows in a red field on a flag he kept down his trousers. I stood up to my full height (I had only been using two-thirds of it before) and I lectured him on history. I spoke until after midnight, and I spat out razor sharp exclamation marks. His head was bowed, and he had folded up his flag, but I inadvertently used the words 'a bit stinky', and suddenly the tables were turned again. He smiled and he grew four feet taller. I shrank to half my height. He looked down on me, took a deep breath and he was just about to unleash something pointy when I ran away. I shrank even more as I ran. I had to wait a week before I returned to my full height.
   A few months later I saw him in the field again. He was lecturing a woman about politics. This time he was holding a handbag. When he took the flag out of the handbag I knew I'd be able to form a stance against this. As I grew taller my shadow reached across the field, covering the ground around his feet. When he saw me he ran away. He looked as if he was running very quickly because he was shrinking as he ran.

My Memoirs

2008-07-15T03:00:00.000-07:00

I wrote my memoirs on the back of my hand. A palm reader says she can read the ending on the other side, but she won't tell me what it is because she doesn't want to spoil the story for me. All she'll say is that it involves a helicopter crash. It sounds exciting.

The Moral of the Story

2008-07-08T04:29:00.000-07:00

The moral of the story is: Don't try to seduce a corpse when you're being held hostage by Norwegian dwarves who think you have the power to control the clouds. I've forgotten the story.

The Ball

2008-07-01T02:44:00.000-07:00

   Hugh talks in long sentences that wrap themselves around him until he's tied to his chair, so tightly bound he can't move his hands. All he can do is talk his way out, but he only makes things worse. Here's an extract from what he said to Chloe: "...I lived in a caravan with a duck, and he used to peck at my head to see if I was dead..."
   His sentence ended with the words 'so I was wondering if you'd like to go to the ball with me'. She responded with a single word and he was astonished to find that it was a 'yes' rather than a 'no'.
   As he walked towards her front door on the evening of the ball he practised what he was going to say so he wouldn't ramble on for too long. When she opened the door he told her he liked her dress. She thanked him for the compliment, and then she said she liked his trousers. He took the hint, so he went home and put his trousers on.

Sing Very Loudly, Mr. Hazeldene

2008-06-24T01:49:00.000-07:00

   Eric is pitching ideas for films to a producer called Jerry.
   "How about 'Fixed Abode', a prison film."
   "No."
   "'Wimple Don'. It's a film about a mob boss on the run. He hides in a remote convent, where he pretends to be a nun."
   "No."
   "How about 'Fixed Abode', a film about renovating a dilapidated house."
   "No."
   "'Santa Cruise'. A man goes on a cruise in search of love, but he ends up stuck on a boat with hundreds of Santas. It's a Santa Claus convention. He still finds love."
   "No."
   "How about 'No Fixed Abode', a film about buying an old house and then realising it's falling down."
   "No."
   "'Dead It, Mate'. It's about an Australian hit man who becomes a Buddhist monk."
   "No."
   "Or he could disguise himself as a nun."
   "I don't think so."
   "I'm working on a script based on a novel I read. It's called 'Sing Very Loudly, Mr. Hazeldene'. Mr. Hazeldene is a failed socialist politician and a failed singer. He travels around the country, lecturing and singing, but when he's on the stage he's basically just a target for things like bottles or darts. Then he meets a singing teacher who transforms his life. He goes to a sleepy village on a lazy summer evening. A few people gather in the village hall to hear him lecture and sing, and he brings the whole place to life. Within minutes the hall is packed. He has this effect everywhere he goes. He becomes a star. He's standing up for the little guy and there are millions of little guys who stand up and demand political change. The political hierarchy are worried. They hire a hit man to take him out. They spread scandalous stories about him. He falls in love with a woman who looks as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. That's what he thinks when he sees the word 'love' tattooed on her face. He eventually finds where she has the word 'hate'. It would be a more appropriate place for 'love', and her face would be a more appropriate place for 'hate'. This woman is tough. She's like a female Rambo, although her breasts don't need to be that big. She hunts down the politicians who are trying to bring Mr. Hazeldene down. A lot of the chase takes place in the countryside: forests, hills, valleys, rivers, mountains and so forth. And cliffs."
   "I like it. That might just work. But we'd have to get rid of the character of Mr. Hazeldene."
   "I was just thinking that myself."
   "The focus should be on this woman And without Mr. Hazeldene it would make no sense for her to be hunting down politicians with machine guns and grenades. She'd be hunting down terrorists instead."
   "I like it."
   "Do you have any other ideas?"
   "'Cat Ass Trophy'. A mob boss posing as a nun in a remote convent organises a tennis tournament."
   "I think that's been done."

Dylan and Michelle

2008-06-17T02:45:00.000-07:00

   She doesn't think seventeen is too young to have a baby. I just turned nineteen and I know how young seventeen is. Yes, she'll be eighteen in July, as she keeps saying, and then... She just makes a vague gesture after 'and then'. And then she says she really, really, really needs a cigarette. She says that after everything she says. After saying 'I really, really, really need a cigarette' she says 'I mean really'. She isn't as bothered about this as she should be. The only time she got upset was when I asked if she was sure I was the father. What else was I supposed to say? When my mother told my father she was having me he said 'Good for you' and she went mental, so it doesn't really matter what you say. When I told Alex about it he said, "I hope it turns out to be Satan. That it really is Satan. Or Satan's son. Can you imagine if it was Satan? Or Satan's son." I should have said that to her.
   When she told her parents her mother said, "Please tell me this is a joke." It was a fair response, because it's the sort of thing she'd joke about. She once told them she had fallen in love with the Latvian woman who works in the laundrette. But she wasn't joking about being pregnant. She said, "No, this one is fairly real alright. Oh God no! I'm going to have to give up cigarettes!"
   I was there. Eyes burnt holes through my head. I haven't been right since. Her father said nothing, which was unusual for him. Normally he can't stop talking, rambling on about trivial things. If she had said, "I'm thinking of buying a lawnmower," he'd still be talking now. But he was out of his depth with the pregnancy. I think he spent a lot of time staring at the ground, scratching the back of his neck. That's what I was doing. I thought he'd wait until I had gone before letting the flood of words out. I asked her what he said about it and she said, "Not much. God, if I have to wait until it's nearly October before I have a cigarette I'm going to have to kill someone."
   I still haven't told my parents. I hope they laugh. I'd laugh if I was in their shoes. I'd say, "You! A father! You can't even open a wine bottle." I would be able to open a wine bottle if I did it on a regular basis, but I only tried to do it once and my aunt stepped in and did it for me because she likes stepping in and doing things properly to make you feel as if there's something wrong with you. I can't wait to tell her I'm going to be a father. In fact, I might just tell her first, and act is if everyone is doing it these days. Obviously she'll think there's something wrong with me, but if I just act as if I think there's nothing wrong with being a father at my age she'll be confused. She wouldn't know what to say. I could ask her if she's feeling okay. "You should sit down and have a glass of wine, Auntie June."
   I haven't decided what I'm going to say to my parents. I could pretend it was all planned, that I've been considering this for a while now and I thought it was about time I grew up, moved on from childhood things, sample all that adult life has to offer, from being a father to building a conservatory. I'll have to take some of the posters down from my bedroom wall before I put that spin on things. I don't know if they'll believe it anyway. But I can't just say, "I'm going to be a father. What the hell am I going to do?" Or can I? Seeing as they're likely to say 'What the hell have you done?', maybe it's best to pull the pin on that grenade and throw it out the window before they get their hands on it.
   Maybe they'll be okay about it. This isn't like the time I nearly set the kitchen on fire. They were perfectly entitled to shout at me then. Looking at it through an adult's eyes, I can see how important things like kitchens and conservatories are, and I can see the value of keeping them un-burnt. Being a father is nothing like that. It's as life-affirming as writing a musical about puppies and daisies. It's the thing that will force me to grow up. I'd give up accidentally setting things on fire as quickly as Michelle gave up smoking. I'll casually tell them that I'm going to be a father and I'm thinking of buying a lawnmower as well. I can imagine my father shaking my hand, as one mature adult to another. As long as I don't lose my nerve and say 'What the hell have I done?'.

The Parrot

2008-06-10T02:56:00.000-07:00

   Adrian was sick of people staring at him just because he had a metal hook for a hand. Everywhere he went he stood out like a sore thumb. But he found that when he started dressing as a pirate he wasn't as noticeable. Even with an eye patch and a parrot on his shoulder it was much easier to blend in with a crowd.
   He got a job as a bingo caller, but the parrot on his shoulder was quicker than him, and the bird always called out the numbers first. This annoyed him, but the bingo players loved it. Fiona used to play bingo every night just to see him. She met him one evening when she asked for his autograph. They spent a few minutes talking outside the bingo hall, and they realised they shared a love of sculpture. They went to a bar to continue their conversation over drinks.
   They met again on the following evening. They went to a bar and then he walked her home. He wanted to kiss her and she wanted to kiss him, but the parrot was proving to be too much of a distraction, so she put her hamster on her shoulder to keep the parrot occupied. They leaned towards each other to kiss, but the parrot and the hamster got there first, and that proved to be an even greater distraction.

Little Elves

2008-06-03T03:16:00.000-07:00

I met her in the park when she was walking her dog. She called the dog Rambo after her sister. I was attracted to her because she said she kept seeing little elves jumping up and down in front of her. I once saw jumping elves after I'd been drinking for ten hours to celebrate getting rid of a tennis ball that was stuck to my hand.
I decided to stay away from her when I found out that the elves she saw weren't imaginary. I was terrified, although they weren't really elves. They were her kids.

Questions of the Day

2008-05-27T03:19:00.000-07:00

   Is this a dagger I see in my back? Do I have eyes in the back of my head? What happened to the eyes in front of my head, the ones right in front of my eyes, hanging from pieces of string attached to my hat? Those bits of string used to hold corks to keep the flies away, but I replaced the corks with eyes to stop people from standing too close to me, and then I put a tiny hat over each eye and hung tiny corks from the brim of the hat to keep flies away from my eyes. But now I can't see my eyes.
   I spent an hour considering these questions, and then I asked Jane about what happened to my coffee maker. This was her answer: "There was this bear, and then there was this bear, and they started kissing and cuddling, and I know someone called Martha who told me about her bear and I said, 'You're lying, Martha. Martha, you are a liar.' She said she'd hit me. And then she tried to decide what she'd hit me with and I helped her decide because I thought she'd end up setting the kitchen on fire, and the milkman would have to run around in circles because he's a bit wrong in his ringing head. She tried to answer his head when it was ringing but there was no one there, and I was going to say, 'Maybe you should ask for the fire brigade,' but she'd just say, 'Oh yeah, I was trying to decide what to hit you with,' and I'd have to help her decide in case she stuck her finger into something. She had a dream about getting her fingers stuck to piano keys, and she was married to the man who inserted himself into the ground near the river. She wanted to wear disguises and spy on him, so I said, 'I'll be Laurel and Hardy, and you can be... the air.' And she didn't want to spy on him then because she was happy just being the air. Are you still here?"
   I didn't know how to answer that.
   Perhaps I lost my hat. The eyes hanging from the hat are made out of glass, and the kids have often asked me if they could use them to play marbles. Perhaps the knife in my back was thrown by the one-eyed knife-thrower. His aim has been poor since he lost his eye when he looked at his watch and forgot he was holding a knife. Or he forgot he was holding a knife and looked at his watch. He remembered he was holding a knife very shortly after looking at his watch. He may well have been aiming at the target next to me. Or perhaps he was aiming at my back because I stole his glass eye.

When Sally Met Sally

2008-05-20T02:54:00.000-07:00

   When Sally met Sally they drove to the coast. In a field overlooking the sea they saw a balloon. Dave said, "That's not a balloon," trying to sound knowledgeable about balloons. "That's a shoe." He said that with complete confidence in his knowledge of shoes.
   Sally said, "Well what is a balloon?" She tried to sound up-yours-Dave.
   He said, "I will demonstrate that... forthwith. I don't know if 'forthwith' is the right word, but it's the only one that came to mind. I like the word. I must find out what it means. I hope it means what I think it is. I'd be disappointed if it meant something else, like green, or a vampire."
   He was trying to buy time so he could think about what a balloon is, but he couldn't think about that while he was talking about 'forthwith'.
   "You're just buying time," Sally said.
   "Yeah Dave, you're just buying time," Sally said.
   "I'm not," Dave said. "If I was buying time I certainly wouldn't be talking about the word 'forthwith'."
   "Well then show us what a balloon is."
   "I will. Follow me."
   They followed him. He pointed at things and said, "That's not a balloon." When he pointed at a pin he very nearly made the faux pas of saying, "That's a balloon." But a pause followed 'That's' and it ended with a 'not'. When he finally saw a balloon he recognised it straightaway. He pointed at it and said, "That's a balloon."
   Sally and Sally nodded because they knew he was right. Dave got out a list with the heading 'Things I really shouldn't forget'. He added the words 'What a balloon is' to the list. He married Sally and he added the words 'Which Sally I married' to the list.

A Red Rose in a Vase

2008-05-13T03:10:00.000-07:00

Colin bought her a single red rose. He put it in a vase, but the vase was really a skeleton. She didn't like this because her father was a skeleton. He used to spend a lot of time in the pub. He'd order a pint and put an empty glass in his stomach. When the glass in his stomach was full he'd go to the toilet to empty it. One evening when he finished a pint of Guinness, he took the full glass from his stomach and he replaced it with the glass he'd just emptied. He started drinking the one he'd taken out of his stomach, but the other customers were horrified. He was told he'd be barred if he did that again.
So when Colin gave her the rose in the vase, she just saw a rose sticking out of her father's eye socket. The fact that the skeleton was more muscular than Colin didn't do much for his chances either.

The Woman in the Doorway

2008-05-06T02:32:00.000-07:00

This case was starting to take up all my time, but it had its good points. I saw her in the doorway. She leaned against the frame and she lit a cigarette. She asked if that was a gun in my pocket or was I just pleased to see her. I was going to ask her the same question, but she answered it when she shot me. In a way, I'm glad it really was a gun in her pocket.

Daphne's Brush

2008-04-29T02:12:00.000-07:00

Daphne sweeps her kitchen floor every day but she doesn't use a brush because her dog always attacks it. She uses her grandmother instead. Her grandmother's curly hair is ideal for collecting the dirt and dust on the floor. When the floor has been swept, her grandmother brushes her hair to remove the dirt and dust from it. She uses her cat to brush her hair, and then she puts the cat into the washing machine to clean it. Daphne and her grandmother enjoy watching the cat spin around in the washing machine, and the cat enjoys looking back out at them. When the cat comes out, Daphne sends in three mice to collect all the dirt, dust and fluff that would clog the washing machine. When they come out, the cat chases them all around the house, and the mice drop the dirt, dust and fluff as they run. The dirt and dust that would be noticeable on the kitchen floor is evenly deposited all over the house, where it's not so noticeable.

The Fence

2008-04-22T02:52:00.000-07:00

   Bernard took a walk through the fields. He stood on a hilltop with his hands behind his back. He took a deep breath and he surveyed the scene before him. He listened to the songs of the birds and the sounds of bees, flies and a distant tractor. The sound of the tractor got louder, and the sight of it ruined the evening for him. The driver was his cousin, Paudie. Paudie would talk for hours without ever making sense. He'd spit out spit and words as he spoke. It was possible to say that most of the sounds he made were words, but it was impossible to identify them. You could study them very closely and take note of all their characteristics but you still wouldn't be able to put a name to them. The tractor stopped behind Bernard. He didn't turn around because he wanted to let Paudie know that he was there to admire the view and the birds, not the rare words that Paudie was planning on releasing into the wild.
   He heard Paudie get down from the tractor and take something out of the trailer. He put something on the ground right behind Bernard. From the sound of steps that followed, Bernard guessed that this thing was a step-ladder and that Paudie had climbed it. He pictured Paudie standing over him, looking down at the top of his head, but this mental picture lacked one important detail: the huge wooden mallet in Paudie's hand.
   This detail entered Bernard's mental picture when he was hit on the head with it. He was surprised to hear a 'boing' sound rather than the cracking of his skull. It was as if his head was made of rubber. His attention was focussed on the sound during subsequent blows to the head, and he didn't notice that his feet were sinking into the ground. Paudie stopped hammering when Bernard's knees had reached ground level.
   Paudie descended from the step ladder and he walked around to the front of Bernard. He released a flow of words that Bernard identified as follows: "How are y' there now Bern' the owl basket window for the last rudder grand day for the socks."
   "It is," Bernard said. "How's Eileen?"
   "Ah sure y' know the way with the glass mountie they're all half lost and spiders."
   "They are, they are. It's a grand evening, isn't it?"
   "Ah sure yeah, yeah, the way the polar bears go I don't know. C' mere, would you hold this wire for me?"
   "I will of course."
   Paudie picked up a piece of wire from the ground and he gave it to Bernard, who held it in his hands.
   "I'll see y' anyway with the sand castles and they're only ponies I don't know how many they'll have if they're sandwiches," Paudie said.
   "Good luck, Paudie."
   Paudie got into the tractor and drove away. It was only then that Bernard made this realisation: "This is a fence! I'm a fence post!"
   He was furious. He was almost certain that the words 'fence post' were not amongst the words used by Paudie. He felt like releasing a word that would have to wear the trench coat of a bleep if young people were around, and only flashing in front of adults. But he thought of a more constructive way of expressing his anger. He remembered a conversation he'd had with his neighbour, Toby, a few weeks earlier. It was on a Sunday afternoon when he was walking the dog. Toby was trimming the hedge in his garden as Bernard was walking by. Toby asked him if he'd seen the letters section in The Sunday Independent. Bernard said he hadn't, and Toby said, "It's on page thirty-seven. I have a letter in it about litter. Complaining about litter."
   He spent the next ten minutes complaining about litter. When Bernard got home he remembered the words Toby had used before the complaint began: 'It's on page thirty-seven'. This would imply that Toby believed that Bernard bought The Sunday Independent, and he just hadn't got around to reading the letters yet. Bernard cursed himself for not saying that he didn't read it, that he wouldn't be seen dead reading it, that he'd rather be found dead with prostitutes than be found dead with The Sunday Independent, although he'd surely be featured in that paper if he was found dead with prostitutes.
   This was why he decided to complain about the fence in a letter to The Irish Times. He could kill two birds with one stone. He'd be able to express his anger about being a fence post and he'd also let Toby know that The Sunday Independent is litter from the moment it's printed.
   He had a pen and a letter from the golf club in his pocket. He crossed out the writing on the sheet of paper and he wrote on the back of it. He expressed his disapproval of the practise of ordinary, hard-working people being used as fence posts. He said it was an indictment of the society we live in, and once again demonstrated the complete lack of standards that permeates life in the modern Ireland.
   He crossed out the address on the envelope and he wrote the address of The Irish Times on it. There was a road about fifty yards away from where Bernard was situated. When he saw a boy on a bike struggling to cycle up the hill he shouted something about having a little job. The boy showed no intention of going to Bernard until the word 'money' was sent out.
   "I have a very important job for you," Bernard said to the boy. "I need you to post this letter. It's to The Irish Times." Bernard paused to let the importance of those words sink in, but the boy just stared blankly back. "You'll need to buy a stamp first. And put the stamp on the envelope. And put it in the post box. Do you think you can manage that?" Still no reaction from the boy. "Here's two euros. Use this to buy the stamp, and you can keep the change to buy an ice cream for yourself." The boy took the money and the letter. He looked at both, and then he looked back at Bernard. He shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
   Bernard smiled. "A job well done," he said, but only the birds heard it. He tried not to disturb the birds, especially the crows. He remained completely still every time the crows were around because he didn't want to be a scarecrow. At least being a fence post was a more honourable profession than being a scarecrow.

The Window Cleaner

2008-04-15T02:40:00.000-07:00

   As she cleaned the shop window she looked in at the blank faces of the staff as they looked out at her. She wasn't bothered by the fact that she was being watched. Her mind was occupied by the same thoughts that occupied her mind every time she cleaned windows. She said to herself, "Why am I cleaning windows? I'm an opera singer. I've performed in Covent Garden, The Met, La Scala. I move in social circles where billionaires are as common as commoners at a football match. I've performed in front of Prime Ministers, Presidents and Royalty. Why am I cleaning windows?"
   This was a question she couldn't answer, but it didn't stop her cleaning windows. Every morning she left her house at seven o' clock and she started her rounds at a shoe shop. She finished at a fast food place, usually between ten and half-past. She could finish earlier if she tried, but the ever-present question 'Why am I cleaning windows?' tended to slow her down.
   Shortly after ten o' clock she arrived at the fast food place and she started work. For the next ten minutes she became completely engrossed in her work and in her questioning of it. She took no notice of the staff and the customers inside, though she was aware they were looking out at her. She only became aware of the audience behind her when she finished her work and they applauded. She turned around and she was surprised to see a crowd of twenty people standing there. She bowed for them. The applause became louder and some of them cheered.
   She appreciated their applause because for a while her mind ceased to be occupied by the constant questioning, but when she got home one of the messages on her phone was from her agent, who told her she'd been offered the role of Susanna in a production of 'The Marriage of Figaro'. The question returned.
   On the following morning she noticed the crowd when she arrived at the shoe shop. They applauded as soon as she finished each window. By the time she got to the fast food place she estimated that there were over forty people behind her. She saw their reflection on the spotless window as she finished cleaning it. She saw them break into applause. She turned around and bowed. The ovation lasted for nearly five minutes. It couldn't have been anything other than a standing ovation because there was nowhere to sit. One man stood on a bin to underline the fact that he was standing.
   On the following morning the crowd was bigger, the ovation lasted longer and a young girl emerged from the crowd to present her with a bouquet of flowers. She signed some autographs, and she made her exit to another round of applause. A man walked away with her. He said he owned a bookshop and he wanted her to clean the windows. At first she said she didn't want to take on any more work, but he said he'd pay ten times as much as she was being paid by everyone else combined, and she couldn't refuse.
   Over the following weeks the crowds kept growing and the offers kept coming in. A bank offered to pay her a thousand euros for every window pane she cleaned. The question 'Why am I cleaning windows?' no longer occupied her mind. When she was at a party one evening someone asked her what she did for a living and she said, "I'm a window cleaner." She hadn't put any thought into her answer but it felt right. She smiled when she heard herself say the words, and she looked forward to going to work on the following morning. She stopped wondering why she was doing what she was doing. Sometimes she said to herself, "I'm a window cleaner," and she smiled.

Delaney's Cow

2008-04-08T02:56:00.000-07:00

   Delaney's brother was walking home from the pub one night with a bottle of something in his hand. He couldn't remember what was in the bottle. The label had been removed and the contents of the bottle had erased a lot of his mind. He could hardly see where he was going, and he fell into a water trough in a field. When he emerged from it his clothes were full of water, the bottle was empty and his mind was full of despair.
   On the following morning Delaney's cow drank from the water trough. She drank it dry, and then she started walking away. She kept moving in a straight line. Delaney saw her go, and he got the impression that she was going somewhere with a sense of purpose. It reminded him of the time his brother had drunk from another bottle without a label, and something clicked into place in his mind. He tried to jump off a building because he thought he could fly. This was obviously a cow that had made a great revelation.
   Delaney followed the cow to the other end of the field. The cow waited at the gate until Delaney opened it. She walked on, always moving in a straight line. When other people saw the cow leading Delaney away they also got the impression that the cow knew something, and they followed her as well. By mid-afternoon there were over thirty people walking behind her.
   Not long after the sun went down, the cow came to a ditch, where she stopped and lay down. She went to sleep. The crowd behind her looked over the ditch and they saw the fairies singing and dancing in a fairy fort. Normally they'd run away from the fairies, but they believed that the cow had led them here for a reason, so they stayed. They were tired after their journey. They sat down in the long grass, and some of them went to sleep. One man started sleep-talking. He said, "Yeah, I invented this thing with the handles and the pressure gauge... Thank you very much. You can use it to kill horses... Thank you very much."
   The fairies heard him, and they spotted their audience at the other side of the ditch. They went over to investigate. The followers of the cow were all terrified, but the fairies just smiled and played their music again. This made the followers get to their feet and dance. They were entranced by the sound. When the music stopped it was dawn and they found themselves in front of a half-built house. The fairies told them to finish the job.
   The fairies had taken a man's house apart while he was at a cheese contest. The fact that he won the contest was some consolation for the loss of his house, but not much. It was only when he came back from the contest that they realised they got the wrong house. They wanted to get revenge on another man, who lived down the road. This man claimed to have a pipe that the fairies had given him when he met them late one night and he entertained them with the story of his levitating grandfather and the nurse. They gave him the pipe because the story was so good, or so he claimed. He said that when he smoked the pipe his head was filled with wisdom. He charged people for 'consultations', but it was just a scam.
   The fairies were able to slow time, so they took the house apart in what seemed like a few hours. They weren't looking forward to putting it back together. They had made a start on it, but they found that it was much more difficult than taking it apart, so they enlisted the help of the cow-followers.
   A man called Des was one of the followers. He wanted to get the job done as quickly as possible. He was desperate to get home because the woman who lived next door promised to play the cello for him that Saturday night. He didn't know if playing the cello was a euphemism. Either way, it would be worth his while to go there. So he appointed himself foreman and he hurried people along as they re-built the house. They had the job finished in three days, and Des was able to get home in time to visit his neighbour on Saturday night. As it turned out, she really did play the cello. He was glad he went.
   He woke up in the middle of Sunday night when he heard the sound of hammering. The fairies were doing a job on his house. When he asked them to stop, one of them took a cat out of a bag. The cat sat on the ground in front of Des and stared at him. He stared back at the cat. He couldn't take his eyes off the cat because he was convinced it was going to do something. It didn't do anything for another eight hours, and neither did Des. When the cat ran away he looked around him in the light of day he saw that his house had been reduced to a shell. All of the windows and doors had been removed. Most of the floorboards had been taken out, and there were holes in the roof.
   The fairies visited him again that night and one of them said, "The house that you and your friends worked on fell down, and it's your fault because you rushed the job. The man who owns it did nothing wrong. You should see him now. He's crying and eating cheese. It's a pitiful sight. And it's your fault."
   "I did nothing wrong. Ye were the ones who hired amateurs to re-build his house. It's going to cost me a fortune to repair my house."
   "We've prepared a quote for you. We can start work next month. And don't try getting anyone else to do the job, or you'll only make things worse."
   He had little choice, so he hired the fairies to do the job. They didn't start it for another six months. They kept coming up with excuses to put it off. After working on it for a few days they said they had to leave for a while to do another job. When Des complained, one of them said, "Do you want it done quickly or do you want it done properly?"
   "The two aren't mutually exclusive."
   "You yourself demonstrated that they are."
   "Just because you don't do it quickly it doesn't mean you have to do it slowly."
   "But if you do it slowly you're never going to do it too quickly."
   They've been working on it for over five years now and the job still isn't finished. At least they've repaired the holes in the roof, so he doesn't have to go to bed with an umbrella.

A Cliff-hanger

2008-04-01T02:52:00.000-07:00

   Noel was upstairs when the electricity went. He stood in the darkness for a while and he listened to the sound of the wind and rain outside. He lit a match and the room flickered into view again. He looked around. There were paintings on the walls, and a mirror over the fireplace. There was a fireplace in almost every room in this house. This used to be a bedroom, but it had been used as a store room more recently. Years worth of junk had piled up on the floor. The carpet was almost hidden.
   He thought he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye. He looked in that direction, and he kept looking until he had to either blow out the match or burn his fingers. He went for the former. He lit another match, and the room re-appeared once more, but something seemed different, as if the thing that had moved had taken its chance and escaped before Noel lit the second match.
   He went downstairs. Debbie, Marian and Adam had lit the fire. This house was owned by Marian's aunt, until she died a few months earlier. He told them about what had happened upstairs. Adam suggested it was a rat. He changed his mind and said it must have been a mouse after seeing the way Debbie and Marian reacted to the word 'rat'. They weren't over the moon about the mouse either, so he said to Noel, "You probably just imagined it. Remember the horse with the side-burns?"
   Debbie poured four glasses of whiskey and they started to forget about mice, rats and the creatures of Noel's imagination. Sometime around eleven o' clock there was a knock on the door of the room they were in, and then it opened. A man stepped inside. He wore a dark grey suit and a blue tie. He smiled and said hello.
   "Who are you?" Marian said.
   The man said, "There's a short answer and a long answer to that question. I don't like the short answer. It's little more than an annoying sound, whereas the long answer is a symphony."
   "Why don't you give us the long answer so."
   "Those words are music to my ears," he said.
   Debbie poured him a glass of whiskey. He sat on an armchair by the fireplace and he told them his life story. His father was a glass-blower and his mother was a dress-maker. He had two brothers and two sisters. He spoke about his youth, the lazy summer days spent fishing at a river or building rafts or digging tunnels to spy on people. Tunnels proved to be an ineffective way of spying on people. He told them about how he met Marian's aunt in a theatre and about his on/off relationship with her.
   The fire had been reduced to red embers by the time he started telling them about his career in the music business. He was the manager of a singer called Delia. "Some people believed she was every bit as good as Edith Piaf," he said. "She could have been as successful as Edith Piaf, but her temper prevented that from happening. It didn't take much to make her angry. Put her in a room with a thousand people and there's a good chance that someone will do something to annoy her. They'd sneeze or cough at the wrong time, or they'd be wearing the wrong clothes. Sometimes she thought they just looked funny. She wasn't really a people person, so it was unfortunate that to fulfil her extraordinary talent she had to perform in front of a lot of people. It was difficult to convince a record company executive that she'd be a star when she was shouting obscenities at a woman in the front row for dressing like a prostitute. Of course, nowadays it would be very easy to convince a record company executive that a woman who behaves in this way could be a star. I mean shouting obscenities, not dressing like a prostitute, although that might help your career along the way as well. Back then only prostitutes dressed like prostitutes to advance their careers. Nowadays you'd struggle to convince anyone that a woman who sings like Edith Piaf will be a star. Despite the swearing and the fits of anger she still managed to attract some very loyal fans. One of them was a millionaire. She never lost her temper with him. He was very refined, and he could charm a song out of a stone. He invited her to a party in his Swiss chalet. I went with her, but there weren't many other guests, and most of them left fairly early. The numbers were swiftly diminishing towards three, and two of them were looking into each other's eyes as if there was no one else in the room. That's the time to bail out. Soon they'll start behaving as if you weren't there and you'll wish you'd bailed out when you had the chance. So I said goodnight and I got in the car to drive to the hotel in the town at the foot of the mountain. When I was rounding a corner on the way down I must have hit a patch of ice because the back of the car spun out. When it stopped, the back end of the car was hanging over a precipice. It was balancing precariously on the edge. I couldn't see what was beneath me in the darkness, but I wasn't imagining a soft landing. Getting out of the car was a priority, but it rocked up and down every time I moved, and every time it rocked, it seemed to slip back another little bit. I thought about making a dash for it, but I came up with an even better plan..."
   The candle on the mantelpiece burnt out. Marian lit another one, but when they looked back towards the armchair the man was gone.
   They went upstairs to the room where Noel had seen something moving earlier. As soon as he stepped into the room he noticed a portrait on the wall. He said, "I'm sure that portrait wasn't there when I lit the second match."
   The portrait was of the man they had just met. In it he was wearing the same suit and tie he'd just been wearing. He seemed to have a knowing smile. Debbie said, "When he was telling the story about the car on the mountainside, I was thinking that he must have got out of it alive if he was here to tell the story, but now I'm not so sure.
   Noel said, "Why don't we think of this as just one note from the symphony of life's experience, and move on. Have a drink. It'll be a very annoying noise if we dwell on it for too long."
   They looked at the portrait again, and it seemed to have changed slightly. The smile looked like an approving one, rather than a knowing one.

Mark's Memoirs

2008-03-25T04:09:00.001-07:00

   When I was young there were always lots of things for myself, my brother and my sisters to do during the summer holidays. On rainy days we'd remove the contents of the kitchen shelves: the antique plates and jars and jugs, the glasses, the vases, the figurines of dogs or of saints, the candle holders that held candles, used batteries, coins, key rings, old keys and paper clips, the pens and pencils, the knitting needles, the plastic flowers, the maps and the single cornflake that always found its way onto one of the shelves. We'd wash the plates, the jars, the jugs, the glasses, the vases and the figurines. The contents of the candle holders would be removed and the holders would be dusted. The pens and pencils would be placed into a jar. The cornflake would be disposed of. After it was sent on its way we'd wonder what adventures it would have, and would it find its way back to the shelf again.
   It always gave me a sense of satisfaction to see the clean, shiny surfaces of the plates, jars, jugs and so forth. Their year's worth of dirt and dust had been removed. The shelves themselves would be dusted, and all of the items would be carefully replaced in the places they had occupied before. We'd argue about where certain things should go. Someone would claim that the one-eared dog belonged on the top shelf, next to the jug for Paddy whiskey. Someone else would insist that the dog's home was at the end of the middle shelf, where he could guard the knitting needles, and that the Paddy jug should go at the other end of the middle shelf.
   One year my older sister produced a sheet of paper and she said, "I've taken the liberty of writing down where each item belongs. That way I can tell ye when ye're wrong." She often made records like these, and she also made illustrations of us doing the wrong thing, such as poking a sleeping lion with a stick. We'd be represented by match stick people. The match stick man who played the part of me always wore a hat to distinguish me from the others. My brother's match stick man carried a lamp shade. In real life he often spent days carrying things when he didn't know what to do with them.
   Every summer we'd spend a week in a caravan by the sea. One day myself, my brother and my sisters were exploring the countryside around the caravan park. We came to a green door in a wall. I gave my brother a leg-up so he could see what was on the other side. He could just about see over the wall, and all he saw was an empty field. I opened the door and a hen came out. As we were trying to convince it to go back inside, another hen came out, and then another one. After the tenth hen had made its bid for freedom we ran away. We all went in different directions. I hid behind a tree for half an hour, until I realised that I'd only be hidden from the view of people who were at the opposite side of the tree. I'd be perfectly visible to anyone behind me.
   I walked back towards the caravan park, and I met my younger sister on the way. We saw my older sister outside the caravan. She was drawing something, but she stopped drawing when she saw us. She showed me a piece of paper and she said, "You should have paid attention to this drawing I did last month." The drawing showed a match stick man (I could tell it was meant to be me because of the hat), and he, or I, was opening a green door in a wall. A match stick version of my sister was wagging a finger at me and saying in a speech bubble, "Don't open doors if you don't know what's on the other side." A giant squirrel was nodding his head to indicate his approval of her advice. She had drawn arrows to indicate the movement of his head.
   I turned around when I heard footsteps behind me. My brother was running towards us. He was holding the cornflake. "I found it in my hair," he said.

The Bear

2008-03-18T04:19:00.000-07:00

   I went to see the leaning tower of Pisa, but it was much smaller than I expected, and I wondered if this was the real leaning tower. The fact that it was in Tipperary only added to my doubts. A woman asked me if I'd like to buy some flowers to remember my visit. The flowers came with a free bear, which wasn't optional. I thought he looked too small to be a bear. He looked more like a Labrador to me, and I didn't think there were any bears in Tipperary. I declined the flowers, but she persisted. She said the bear was smarter than the average bear. He could guide blind people. He seemed to like me, so I bought the flowers. I led the bear away on a lead.
   We came to an old stone bridge, but before I'd even set foot on it, a strange creature emerged from underneath it and blocked my path. He looked more like a bear than the bear did, but he was probably human beneath all the hair and dirt. He started telling me his life story. For an hour I listened as he spoke about the long summer days of his youth when he started his own jazz club in a tree house, or the time he got a wasp stuck up his nose and another wasp tried to pull it out, but that one got stuck up there too, or the time he was expelled from a school of music for using a deflating blow-up doll to play a trumpet in a one-man-and-his-blow-up-doll show.
   "For years I've struggled to find an appropriate outlet for my music," he said. "If I keep it in, I'll explode, like a blow-up doll that's been inflated too much. I know what that looks like. I've played everything from spoons to pylons. Sometimes I'd play something and I'd find it completely fulfilling, but this feeling would never last. In the past few years I've devoted all my time to searching for a piece of music that the woman I love would love. I've looked everywhere, in every bucket, behind every wall, up every tree, but I haven't found it yet. She still regards my music as if it's something the cat killed and left on her doorstep."
   "Why don't you just give her these flowers," I said. I was really just looking for an excuse to get away.
   "What sort of music can you play with flowers?"
   "You don't have to make music for her. Some women would be deeply impressed by a man playing a pylon, but most women would rather get flowers."
   "It's worth a try, I suppose."
   I gave him the flowers and I walked on. It wasn't long before I was lost, so I let the bear guide me. He seemed to know where he was going, but after an hour of walking we came to a narrow road and the man I'd met at the bridge was sitting in the grass at the side, with the flowers on the ground next to him. I asked him how it went and he said, "She'll never see the real me if I just give her flowers."
   I said, "Perhaps the problem is that she can see the real you all too clearly."
   "What's that supposed to mean?"
   "Most women would appreciate a man who knows when it's time to have a bath. They might allow an hour or two after that time, but not a year or two."
   "Why should I listen to you? You were wrong about the flowers."
   "The effect of the flowers would be undermined by the other plants growing on you."
   "I still think the only way I'm going to win her heart is through my music. One of my former classmates met his wife when he was performing a musical act that involved trying to break out of a metal bin with a hammer."
   "Well why don't you just try that then?"
   "I have. It would have sounded much better if I'd taken the rubbish out of the bin first."
   "Winning her heart might well involve music, but your appearance is important as well. Emerging from a bin is the last thing you should be doing."
   "Maybe you're right. I've tried just about everything else."
   I walked on again. The bear clearly didn't know where he was going. We were still lost as the sun went down that evening. I was walking down a lane at the edge of a forest when I met a smiling man in a suit. I asked him for directions and he said, "Don't you recognise me?"
   I only recognised him when he spoke. This was the man I'd met earlier. He'd cut his hair, shaved his beard, put on a suit and he'd obviously had a bath. He said, "When I was taking my clothes off I found a harmonica that I'd lost years ago. It was my grandfather's lucky harmonica. It saved his life in the war when it took a bullet for him. I don't know what war it was. He was fighting the French. There was a Dutch man involved in it as well, and a dog. The French surrendered and drove away in a van. When I found the harmonica I thought it must be an omen. Some higher power was telling me that this harmonica would stop the bullet heading for my heart after another one of her rejections. So I played her a song I composed myself. It's called 'I smell a rat, the one who ate my cornflakes'. The bullet that's lodged in the harmonica made it sound a bit squeaky, but she could hear my heart bleeding through it. She said she'd go out to dinner with me."
   "Do you not think that the radical change in your appearance might have something to do with the radical change in your fortunes?"
   "No, it was definitely the music. It's a very emotional song."
   He gave me directions to the nearest town. I went there and I was able to get a bus home. I didn't think I'd be allowed take the bear on the bus, but I pretended I was blind and that the bear was my guide dog. The driver fell for it.

Conn

2008-03-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

   Conn would get drunk nearly every night and stagger through the main street after the pubs closed, singing scandalous songs and shooting anything that didn't move. He threatened anyone who complained about him, and he insulted everyone else. He also shot at the arrows in the sky that the weather forecasters predicted.

   He shot rainbows as well.
   Something needed to be done about Conn, but the men were all afraid of him. The women decided that they'd have to take matters into their own hands, so they organised a petition. Most people signed it under an assumed name because they were afraid that Conn would take revenge. This is why Mousey F. Crayonville and Harplet O'Toole signed it.
   The women presented the petition to Conn, and it had a powerful effect on him. He started crying, and he hated crying. He considered it to be worse than leprosy, and he hated leprosy.
   The women saw him in a different light. They could see that he was really a sensitive soul beneath the rough exterior. They forgave him for all of his past misdemeanours. They made him meals and cakes, and they even cleaned his house.
   This change didn't go down well amongst the town's men. When Conn went to the pub in the evenings he spent a lot of time pointing and laughing at them, so they paid Benny to point at him. Benny had been taught how to point by a man who lived in a cave. This man was so good at pointing that he once made another man's soul evacuate its body through the rear exit. When Conn came into the pub one evening, Benny pointed at him. Conn ran away screaming. He kept running and screaming until he was in the woods, and he stayed there for three days. Some of the women had seen him running away through the town. Cowardice was a real turn-off, and when he returned, all of the women ignored him.
   He went back to his old ways, and he was worse than ever. He was always getting into fights in the pub, and he started shooting clouds. The men needed to do something about him. The bar man in the pub, whose name was George, said, "Twenty women is too many for one man, and zero women is too few. One would be the ideal number, or possibly two. Find him one woman and it'll quieten him down. Or possibly two. Joe would be the man to ask for advice in this area."
   Joe had a way with women. He once put washing powder down his trousers and jumped into a river. When he came out of the river he went to a woman on the bank. He said to her, "Do you want to go to the dance with me?"
   She said yes and they went straight to the dance.
   George told Joe about the problem they were having with Conn, and how they planned to solve it. Joe said, "I know just the woman for him. Martha wouldn't be long sorting him out. She wouldn't stand for any nonsense. I've seen her make an inebriated pig hang his head in shame."
   "How would we bring them together?"
   "You're always better off going for the simplest solution. Just lock the two of them in a room for a few hours. When she's stuck in a room with a man there are only two possible outcomes. Either she'll fall in love with him or she'll kill him. And either outcome will solve your problem."
   They took bets on the outcome. Death was the favourite, but love won the day. After this, Conn was always in bed long before closing time, so the men in the pub were able to point and laugh at him behind his back.

The Tower

2008-03-04T02:45:00.000-08:00

   Fred and Kevin had nothing to do one long weekend so they built a huge tower. They went to the pub and they told the bar man about it. He said it couldn't be all that big if they built it in a weekend, but Fred insisted that it really was all that big. So the bar man left the pub for a while to go and see it, and he had a heart attack because it was even bigger than all-that-big. While he was in hospital Fred and Kevin had to look after the pub. They told people about their tower and how it was so big that it made Harry, the bar man, have a heart attack. Everyone went to see the tower and they were all disappointed because they thought that a heart-attack-inducing tower would be bigger. So Fred started telling people that it was big enough to give Harry a heart attack, but he'd probably have had a heart attack the next time someone kicked him in the balls, if he hadn't had the heart attack at the tower first. The tower met with people's expectations after this. For some it exceeded expectations (these people equated it with a kick in the balls).
   But then someone came back and said they couldn't see the tower at all. Fred and Kevin went to investigate, and they found that their tower had been stolen. Another customer in the pub said they saw the tower behind Colin's house. So they went to see Colin. He was living in the tower so no one would steal it from him. He threw things at Fred and Kevin if they got too near. He said he'd assembled a vast store of things to throw just in case someone attacked his tower.
   They needed to lure him out of the tower, so they borrowed a mannequin from a man who collected mannequins, and they dressed her up like Colin's ex wife, Nicole. They attached the mannequin to a wooden base that could be moved on wheels. After the sun went down they crouched in the long grass in the field behind Colin's house. They pushed the mannequin towards the tower. Kevin did his best impression of Nicole's voice. He said, "Colin, it's me, Nicole, your ex wife. I'm sorry I left you for that man from the asylum, but I'm back now. Take me."
   They ran away from the mannequin when they heard the door of the tower opening. As Colin was crying and telling the mannequin what loneliness had made him do, Fred and Kevin were climbing the stairs of their tower. When Colin realised what was going on he ran back towards the tower, but they started throwing things at him. He went into his house. Fred and Kevin came out of the tower in the middle of the night, but as soon as they set foot outside, Colin started throwing things at them. They went back into the tower. Colin said to them, "Ye'll be stuck in that tower until I run out of things, and I have thousands of things in my house."
   They thought that their best hope would be to wait until he fell asleep. They had to sleep themselves. When they woke in the morning they noticed that the mannequin was gone. They assumed that Colin had taken it inside. They were correct in this assumption, and they showed prudence in not spending much time imagining what loneliness was making him do to it. Whatever it was, he was so engrossed in it that they were able to dismantle the tower without him noticing. They built it again in its original site. Shortly after they finished it they got a visit from the man who owned the mannequin. He was holding a baseball bat. He said, "Ye told me that Belinda would only be gone for an hour. Where is she?"
   Fred responded with an 'Ahhh'. Kevin opted for an 'Ummm'. And then they ran away. The man followed them, and he eventually cornered them at a river. Fred decided to come clean about what had happened to Belinda. The man had a heart attack. They carried him to Kevin's car and they drove him to the hospital. This probably saved his life, so he was able to forgive them for what had happened to the mannequin.

Ant

2008-02-26T03:17:00.000-08:00

When I woke up this morning, people were waiting outside my house for me to say something, so I said 'ant'. Journalists called around later and asked me to expand on my remarks. I expanded 'ant' by putting a 'the' before it and an 'is' after it. This satisfied their curiosity, but when I looked at one of the newspapers on the following day the headline was 'The Ant is Dead'.
I was being blamed for the ant's demise. I spent days searching the countryside for the ant. I knocked on every door I came across and asked everyone I met in the fields, but I couldn't find it anywhere, so I got a dog to pretend to be the ant. The journalists were impressed when they saw that the ant had learnt how to sit, but the dog's cover was blown when the real ant returned and exposed the impostor. The journalists were very impressed with the way the real ant was able to expose an impostor by pulling the dog's wig off. I pretended to be shocked, and I was able to deflect all of the blame onto the dog. He was angry with me for a while, but I made up for it by setting him up on a blind date with a Yorkshire terrier. I just hope he doesn't find out that she's really a hedgehog.

The Plan

2008-02-19T02:50:00.000-08:00

   The Plan: Let's all go to a casino and make a lot of money.
   The Outcome: Complete success.
   The Question: So what do we do now?
   Sean's answer: I'm going to buy a house in the country.
   An estate agent called Jilly shows Sean and his wife, Veronica, around an old farm house. They've brought their dog, whose name is Rumba Dum. While Jilly points out the period features in the kitchen, the dog sings this song:
   I'm Rumba Dum and my head is numb from the constant hum of a rumba song.
   Jilly, Sean and Veronica all jump in surprise. A surprise-fuelled jump might as well be rocket-powered. Their heads go through the ceiling and get stuck there. The dog sings his song again, which makes the flailing legs dance. The eyes in the heads are above ground level on the floor above, and Jilly tries to carry on with the tour, despite what her legs are doing downstairs. She talks about the period features in the master bedroom.
   Rumba Dum doesn't like to jump. It's the 'P' he objects to. He's replaced it with a 'B' to give the softer sounding 'jumb'. Jumbing normally puts him to sleeb.
   They eventually break free from the clutches of the ceiling, and they go on to the next house. The owner of this house has recently re-decorated his medikitchen. The room is full of colour. The TV has been painted onto the wall. On the screen there's a painting of a scene from a TV show called Night Frog. The scene never changes, but everything else in the room seems to be moving. The forks are slowly making their getaway. The tap sings a deep bass hum-song, with lots of lovely 'umb' sounds. The clock on the wall has fifty hours because the owner of the house often goes that long without sleep.
   The woman who owns the next house is there to show them around. Her hand has just given birth to a litter of glove puppets, and they're starting to get a bit annoying. They never stay quiet and they make a noise with too many 'ing' sounds for Rumba Dum's liking, not enough 'B's.
   It's night now and they still haven't found a house they like. They stand in a garden and look up at the sky. Sean says, "How many nurses does it take to screw in a star?"
   Jilly thinks about this and in the silence you can hear her brain tick-tocking. Sean finds the sound depressing. It was meant to be a joke, but people always think he's being serious when he jokes. She eventually says, "I'll have to ask Alan about that."
   Veronica builds a mental image of Alan. She sees him as a sort of a god.
   Before they go home, Jilly shows them an old castle and they both fall in love with the place. They come back on the following day to see it again. It's covered in creepers, and the interior needs a lot of work, but they know it would make an ideal home. Sean has to go back to the casino to get more money before they can put in an offer.
   They buy the place and renovate it. Sean grows a moustache that covers his face, like the creepers that cover the walls. He trims around his eyes so he can see out, and he cuts the creepers around the windows too.
   How the others spent their money: Gary funded a musical called 'The Prison Ship Lies Waiting in the Bee'. Scott got lots of things he didn't need, including a tiny hearse for cats and an illiterate personal assistant. He taught her how to read.

Darcy and O'Mara - Chapter One

2008-02-12T03:06:00.000-08:00

   Darcy and O'Mara were walking along the banks of a river one afternoon when they came across a woman who was crying. They asked her what was wrong and she told them a story about a man who had called to her house earlier that day. One of the maids let him in. He wore a dark green cloak, and he brought his own breeze to keep the cloak flowing behind him, even as he stood still. He introduced himself as one of her distant cousins, Corcoran 'Cloudy' Mac Giolla Mo Chuda. He gave her a card and he bowed. On the card his name was written in gold letters, just above the word 'Historian'.
   His breeze went all over the house. It confused her dog, who ran around in circles. The servants didn't know what to do. One of them was setting a fire in a bedroom when the breeze entered through the open door. He lay on his back and pretended to be dead. This was what he always did when he was confused. He thought it made him look cool-headed.
   The woman, whose name was Aishling, didn't know if she should trust this man who claimed to be her cousin. She decided to go to sleep to consult the committee that appeared in her dreams because they always gave her sound advice. After falling asleep on an armchair she asked the committee about her visitor. The chairman of the committee, who was trying to ignore the crow on his head, told her to wake up. The crow nodded to indicate his approval of the chairman's advice. When she woke, Corcran 'Cloudy' Mac Giolla Mo Chuda was gone. She immediately thought of the ring. She went upstairs to the bedroom where the servant was still pretending to be dead. She went to the chest of drawers and she opened the bottom drawer. The fake back to the drawer had been removed and the ring was gone.
   The ring had been in her family for generations. Her father once told her a story about how one of their ancestors was amongst a group of men out hunting with a king on an afternoon in August. They were hunting a famous stag that had evaded capture for years. After hours of searching for it, they saw the stag on top of a hill. An archer was about to fire an arrow at it when a hawk landed on the stag's antlers. The men were transfixed by the sight. They stared at the hawk as they walked towards it, but when they got to the top of the hill they realised that the hawk was perched on a branch of a bare tree. They looked back and they saw the stag in the valley below them, where they had just been. The stag ran away. Between the roots of the tree they found a red bag full of gold brooches, rings and bracelets. The king divided these amongst his men, and the stag was never hunted again.
   When Aishling saw that the ring had been taken she went outside and looked for her so-called cousin. She ran as far as the river, but she couldn't find him, and she feared the ring was gone for good.
   Darcy and O'Mara promised to find Corcran and return the ring to its rightful owner. They went back to her house, and they questioned the servant who had been playing dead. He said, "I saw the man looking through the drawers and I knew exactly what he was looking for."
   "Why didn't you stop him?" Darcy said.
   "I formed a plan. I pretended to be dead. My father used to do it every Saturday night when he was courting my mother. She didn't know he was courting her at the time, but that's another story. I thought that by pretending to be dead he'd do whatever he planned to do and I'd be able to observe him. And he did. When I saw him searching for something I thought he must be looking for the ring, and I knew he'd find it eventually."
   "When you saw what he was doing, why didn't you stop him?"
   "Because he'd have known I wasn't dead and he'd have stopped doing it."
   "I can't fault your logic."
   Aishling showed them the card. The only two people who had touched the card were Aishling and Corcran. They went to see a man called Brendan who had a dog with an exceptional sense of smell. The dog's name was Mullins. They got him to sniff the card, but he went straight to Aishling and started wagging his tail.
   "He always goes for the easy option first," Brendan said, and then he said to Mullins, "No, not her. The other one. The other one."
   Mullins ran off, then slowed to a canter that became a walk, and then he stopped. He lay down on the ground and he fell asleep.
   Darcy said, "That option wasn't much more difficult."
   "Just keep heading in that direction and ye'll find him," Brendan said.
   O'Mara patted the dog on the head as they walked past him.
   They spent the rest of the day walking in that direction. They met a man who was fishing at a lake, and he said he'd seen a man in a dark green cloak go around the lake about half an hour earlier.
   When the sun reached the horizon they stopped before a field full of rocks and gorse. Beyond the field there was a hill.
   "Is there any point in going on?" O'Mara said. "He might have set off in this direction, and we know he stuck to this route as far as the lake, but he could have gone left or right at any point after it."
   "He wouldn't have gone too far left or right. He'd have a destination in mind, and he'd take the quickest route to it."
   A woman with long golden hair appeared on top of the hill. Her face was illuminated by the last of the evening sun. A gust of wind blew in her direction.
   Darcy and O'Mara saw a dark green cloak rise out of the field, revealing a crouching man who had been hiding beneath it. When he saw his cloak flying away he ran after it. Darcy and O'Mara ran after him.
   As Corcran ran up the hill he tried to control his breeze with a series of commands and whistles, but the breeze seemed intent on running away with the wind. The woman waved at him as he ran past her on top of the hill. Darcy and O'Mara followed him shortly afterwards. She smiled at O'Mara.
   Corcran was looking up at his cloak as he ran down the other side of the hill. He tripped and fell, and he rolled to the bottom of the hill. He came to a halt in a stream, and before he got out of it, Darcy and O'Mara caught up with him.
   "Give us the ring," Darcy said.
   "What ring?"
   O'Mara held up his spear and said, "Maybe a hole in your head would help jog your memory."
   "Here," Corcran said, and he threw the ring to Darcy. The cloak landed on his head.
   Darcy and O'Mara walked back the way they came, and they returned the ring to Aishling late that night. She was overjoyed. She felt that the occasion called for a celebration that would burn brightly in people's minds for months to come. Within minutes, all of her friends and neighbours had arrived and they were well on their way to burning holes in their minds. Music and laughter filled the rooms. Mullins slept soundly through the whole thing.
   On the following day, Darcy and O'Mara went back to the hill where they had caught Corcran on the previous day. O'Mara wanted to meet the woman with the long golden hair. There was a village called Kilforrinne near the hill. When O'Mara told the villagers about the woman with the long hair they knew exactly who he was talking about, but no one could say where she was. She had been kidnapped during the night.

'Darcy and O'Mara' is a novel by Arthur Cronin.
It's available in paperback or as an ebook.
Click here to read the first two chapters.
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Mr. Kennedy Went To Clonmel

2008-02-05T03:35:00.000-08:00

   Mr. Kennedy went to Clonmel. Mr. Kennedy came back again and said, "I'm Mr. Kennedy. Destroy! Destroy!"
   The police received many complaints about the destruction caused by Mr. Kennedy. A local man had recently made a cartoon about the police, and they started to see themselves as the cartoon characters. They stopped believing in serious crime. All violence was cartoon violence, and all destruction would be un-done in the next scene. This allowed them to stay in the station, playing cards and drinking whiskey, safe in the knowledge that Mr. Kennedy's trail of destruction would take care of itself.
   Noel and Christy decided that they needed to do something about it themselves, or get someone else to do something about it. They went to see Brady, and he came up with a potion to curtail Mr. Kennedy's destructive impulses. They were afraid that the potion would kill him, so they tested it on hamsters first. The results were inconclusive. They wasted a lot of time arguing about what to call the hamsters. They did manage to prove that a hamster won't respond to its name after five hours of being called that name by a man who drank half a bottle of whiskey and started crying when he remembered losing his virginity.
   They decided to give the potion to Mr. Kennedy anyway. They put it into a pint of stout, and they gave the pint to Mr. Kennedy. The potion had an immediate effect. He no longer felt a need to destroy everything in his path, but one of the side effects was that he fell in love with every woman he saw, and many of them fell in love with him. The result of this was that many husbands and boyfriends wanted to destroy him. Noel and Christy went to see Brady again, and they asked if he could come up with another potion to help Mr. Kennedy, but they ended up performing pointless experiments on hamsters.
   Mr. Kennedy went to Clonmel. Mr. Kennedy came back wearing a fake beard and he said, "Mr. Kennedy is dead. I'm Mr. Allen." It didn't take long for all the husbands and boyfriends to develop a hatred of Mr. Allen, so he had to go to Clonmel too.