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Thursday 28 July 2016

This is me being serious: it's not my new name, just a comment.

It's time to get serious – become a serious person that is.

So from now on I am a serious person.

I will no longer ask the Window's Help desk, who ring unannounced because there is a problem with my windows, when I have an Apple system, if they are bringing my meals on wheels? And inform them I don't like Zoup.

Then when the lady or gent, well abled – that's not what I mean! Well enabled to work or look for work, stops me in the street and asks if I can spare any cash? I will reply that no I can't but not to worry about me that I will be fine. This reply is prompted by an urban legend that lots of beggars are let loose on the streets of the capital in an organised scam to enrich their masters, usually a Godfather figure in the clan.

I won't get annoyed when a news reader says two men were shot, in the leg, in a gangland feud. This cracks me up – two men sharing the one leg! And what part of the city is gangland?

When someone, a “writer” on the Createspace Forums asks how long should a paragraph be? I will resist replying if you don't know that, wait 'til you get to a chapter end - never mind a bloomin' book ending.

“Are there any poets on here?” is another Forum Title I hate because they continue to post some song lyrics that could not be improved by the music of Mozart, or indeed Johnny Cash. (Could he sing? I don't think so, just drawled the lyric.)

Then there's the book aimed at pre-teens that is full of grammatical and punctuation errors, that was read by my friends who say its good, complete with the missing ' in what is meant to be it's.


Oh I could go on – but from now on I'm a serious person! I am, I am...am am am. (Raspberry Sound like Milligan.)

Sunday 17 July 2016

That's O'Reilly from Drung!


Frank drove his wife mad, when on holidays and he saw someone he thought he knew.

She knew he was mistaken, but off he'd race.

Just a minute, while I say hello.”

Over he would go to a complete stranger and strike up a conversation. It never mattered to him that it soon became obvious that they were not acquainted. A foreign language response usually revealed that.

But still he persisted in “recognising” strangers and approaching them.

Sometimes they walked away, but sometimes he seemed to trap them and proceeded to engage in one-sided conversation.

I mind the time at the fair when your brother Joe bought the calf that the brother, mine that is, fancied. Boys oh boys: there was some language in the car on the way home. Truth is, however that the calf was better off on the rich grass of Meath, that the whin fields of Cavan”

Then he would return to Mary, his wife, with a smile and a comment “Terrible jokers them O'Sullivans. Cat men!”

Over years he persisted, no matter where they were, he would see familiar faces from familiar places.

Finally the family came together and banned him from approaching strangers. He would still recognise strangers but was prevented from approaching them.

You know the rules, the girls have told you, more of those auld ideas and it's away they will put you – the nursing home.”

Frank was miserable, but over the years he accepted the facts. He was mad, he knew, to be at that crack all those years. How people he accosted must have laughed at him later, when they told the tale of the Mad Irishman.

Eventually, at years passed he just wore out, the well tuned walking engine, the mind that had been curious dimmed, and eventually he just died. One day he just shut his eyes, his breathing stopped, and they found him in the chair in front of the television. He looked content. In fact he seemed to be smiling in death.

He was dead, he knew that, the pains were gone, the fog in his head had cleared. Truly dead – that's it. Here in this bright grass-filled field, buttercups dancing in a slight wind. A warm wind. Jeepers warm? Hope this is not the place below!

A path led away towards a hill. There was a big wall up there, and gates – the Pearly Gates?

A man was walking towards him down the hill, on the path. A large crowd of men and women followed slowly.

Frank looked at the man. That's O'Reilly! From Drung. But it can't be he was just imaging things again. The man was smiling and offered an out-stretched hand, as he now hurried up to him.

Frank. Don't you know me? O'Reilly – from Drung. They have been waiting for you.”

Who?”

All of them. The ones you saved.”

Saved?”

When you came up and talked to them when they were down. Suicidal, some of them, and you went up to them and started talking. They did not understand you, but that big sun blotched, ruddy face, and that smile, and the hands waving, enraptured them and took their minds off their troubles. Some laughed afterwards, not knowing why they did. Relieved maybe. They went back to their lives – the one you saved for them. Eventually like all of us, the years caught up on us. They are here now to welcome you.”

To Heaven?”

To our paradise. The Man inside wants you come in and talk with him.”

Will I know him? Will I be able to talk to him?”

Frank, you have been recognising him all your life, and you have been talking to him, sometimes even for him, all your life.”








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