For the day it is - Happy Heavenly Birthday Ann.

 From Here Lies Deirdre Rachel Eames (dream(e)s)

Brigitte came out the door. Startled she stood back inside.. He turned to assure her, “I’m sorry for...”

She smiled, “Jack.” Then following his gaze past her to the painting in the hall smiled again and asked “Do you like it?”

He didn’t hear her. This painting couldn’t exist: it could not be. Two young people had been captured in a dance embrace. The boy back to the viewer. The girl’s face, chin resting on his shoulder. The short bouncy fair hair, a soft shadow above and around her closed eyes: brown eyes, that he had seen open, smiling, full of life and full of curiosity.

“Ho..how? Where? How did you...”

Startled by him, by his colour, and the sadness in his plea, she quickly answered, as if her answer could change him; pacify him.

“I was sketching in the wood. In my mind I saw them like this. I think perhaps they were lovers.”

Softly he added, “For a while, for a short while.”

They sat in her kitchen at the back of the studio, the in-blown air carrying the smells of the garden. Jack sat sipping a second Brandy, the first had water-fallen quickly: burning then warming, then soothing. He sat, the painting on a table, propped upward by a Westminster Chime clock that ticked the seconds and chimed the quarters and bonged the hours: sharing with a stranger the story he had to tell; a story that in some strange way she had become part of.

He couldn’t remember how they met. They drifted into being part of the same loose collection of teenage companions, who went to movies, to tennis hops, for countryside walks, for swims in the river and then later they went to real dances, dinner dances and functions, always a pair expected to be together.

Many times he tried to recall the first time he became aware of Deirdre Rachel Eames. Late at night unable to sleep, he tried to roll back the kaleidoscope of scenes, searching, examining, discarding, all the time hoping, to remember that first time: when his heart leaped and his insides churned and he felt weak with happiness. He was certain that was the way it had been: perhaps at the tennis pavilion on the Station Road, or the Hall on Foxcroft Street, across from her Grandmother’s house.

They would have danced together: a jive? She liked jiving, her skirt swirling outward, body leaning backwards, for moments trusting his outstretched arm, his hand, his fingertips, to balance her and keep her upright, twirling and smiling, happy and laughing; and then just before she overbalanced to draw her back, upright and into his safe arms.

They started to meet secretly at the pictures: her mother didn’t want her around boys so soon. She would sneak in just when the film started; wait while her eyes adjusted to the flickering twilight reflection from the screen, then vision restored she would find him. They sat together arm in arm snug and silent and watched the world of gangsters, cowboys and romance flicker its way into their young lives.

His story telling was slow, sometimes long pauses held the story traffic-jam bound while he waited to sort the images and find the train of events. On a long pause: one that breathed sighs that might end the telling, Brigitte entered the studio and brought back a small under-elbow of brown backed frames. “More, I have more. They have been telling me their story for a long time.”

“No.” Jack said. “She has been telling you our story.”

Met one of those recently. 

You know Know-Alls!

He was trying to be all things to all men, calling everybody “Buddy” or “Madam”. But the names didn’t mean a thing. He had usurped and was sitting on King Joe's throne. 

He was definitely not my buddy, and if he called me madam, he would be looking for his dentures. Back to the story Laz, back on track here Buddy.

For a short time, he was trying to be the soul of the party. Agreeing with comments made, or butting in with his take on things.

Beside me one of the local, No Worldwide Celebrities was trying to have a quiet drink. His business singing with his band, as it turns out in the Pandemic, literally for his supper, was at a standstill.

We were all, about nine of us called him by his name, as we shared the outdoors pub banter. We discussed, strangely for Ireland the heat and factor 30 or 50 protection cream – Sun Block some call it. All outdoor all socially distanced, with servers masked and careful on approach to anyone. No invading our personal spaces, at all.

The know-all's wife was in the company and she complimented the Celeb, on how well he was looking and how he had aged very well over the last 25 years or so.

This conversation was interrupted by Know-All who got up and stuck his face into Celeb’s face and asked. “What’s your name?” The reply was the same name as we had been using all the afternoon. When it was provided, he asked. “Is that short for something?”

Then the plonker took Celeb's hand and muttered. “Pleased to meet you.”

Then he put on his mask, shook his shoulders and tacked out of the patio area.

He had been sailing close to the wind - all afternoon.

 

Abandoned the WW Sequel - Got sense back to Here Lies...

Anna Collins stood and waited while her Granddad Willie Collins, continued the ritual of breaking a pony. She watched while the animal trotted in circles, first one way then the other, while he halted, stood, and then ran and cantered and trotted again, all the time she strained her ears to hear the commands given or see the signals thrown from the hand down a long rein to the halter, but was unable to determine any instruction at all. In truth, in the brightness of the day she could not even see the rein. Yet there must be one otherwise how could the man control the animal.

Yella Man Collins, was a small, hunched man, with an over big head, long out-sticking ears and a crop of wild red hair that at times stood high on his head, or lay matted tight after he took off his green bonnet. You could never call his head gear a hat, or a cap, only a long triangular bonnet. When he was in argumentative mood his beard and his ears bristled and moved with a motion known only to their owner.

Daideo Willie, liked people, onlookers, who came to watch him train ponies to be mesmerised at his skill, without rein, or whip, or spoken command to control the pony.

Anna knew that this illusion did not tell the story of the long hours under the full brilliance of a cloudless full mooned sky when those implements were used to train the animal to a stage where they were not required.

Fairy magic dust Willie called it. Anna's dad called it fairy cuteness.

Daideo, greeted her as usual, “Well Geartla. How's the care?”

Like always she replied, “I have no care.”

Then he chuckled and finished the statement for her, “That's right, You lot, the family, are my care. Today's task, Anna, is for you to start writing down the story of my secrets. No! A manuscript, Bedad. It will contain the secrets of the Rath Mór, the fairy home. I'm old now well over the allotted span.”

“How old are you Daideo? No one can tell me.”

“That's because I never told any of them. Let's say that the span of a man's life is long behind me, and the span of fairy life is nearly over.”

“I thought fairies were immortal?”

“That's what we tell the humans, but in my case living here, a changeling, among the humans has shortened my years. But that's old piseogs! I need to start the telling. Give you the tools to carry on some of my magic. To give you some fairy gifts.”

Govt/HSE talking Coc Tarbh... Coc is what comes outa yer end - and a Tarbh is a Bull!

 In this pandemic the biggest challenge is trying to work out what is real and false.

NPHET Daily News briefing Another 8 people have died of the virus. 

Afterwards you find out only 3 have died this month - the rest are older death figures - often over a month or so old.

NDLS Ireland. All driving licences (including Provisional ones) have been extended, if expired, until the end of the year. 

If you are over 70 and are healthy you can apply online - PRESS HERE - after you say you have a MYGovID - the software says P.F.O.  as you are too old - and apply in person at a Centre. The subtext in this is BRING YOUR HEALTHY SELF - TO OUR CENTRES SO THAT WE CAN RENEW YOUR LICENCE AND GIVE YOU OUR COVID INFECTION.

Announcement: If you are partying in your house - we can fine you and break the party up!

 Minister for Health says same on TV News - but adds only inextreme circumstances. 

FAKE NEWS AS YOU KNOW WHO - THAT DINGBAT - SAYS.

A fly on the wall an opinion on Creation....

Bzzzzz, bzzzz. Let me introduce myself. I'm Fly on The Wall, an observer of history, unseen mostly. Who would imagine that a tiny fly on the wall was a listener, a chronicler of all that he or she (never found out whether I was male of female: or both), but that is not important, in the realm of history reporting. After all gender does not colour opinions: well that is what the experts say. I would have preferred to say experts put out there, but that phrase has been hijacked by the media as well. I put the story out there, I put out the cat, she, puts it out there?

Where was I? Yes as an observer of humanity, what other creature is worth observing? Lions? They lie around most days, with an occasional stirring of themselves to kill another beast, for a feast, that can last days – worse that ancient Rome that kind of debauchery, eating and.. I'm diverted again. Psst...the lady does that, the Kill. The male gets engaged now and then in another kind of stirring, Ha. Ha. A lion with a stirring in his lions.

When you are flitting around observing, or spying if you like you can learn things. A fella was just Googling about flies and he found out, and so did I, that: male fruit flies enjoy relief, according to research published in Current Biology. The study also found that when fruit flies are denied sex, they consume more alcohol than usual.

It's amazing what scientists can come up with when they are being Grant Aided.

So fruit flies, or should that be flys? Quick someone Google it so I can look over your shoulder. As I was saying fruit flies have a lot in common with humans. Not getting any? Go on the sauce. Then if you get some you can't perform, without aid, sometimes chemical other times not. Just the lady giving you a helping hand.

So where was I before I got diverted? It happens with all that is going around a fella. I have decided I'm male – just like the fruit fly.

Yes! Fairy Tales put out by religions to control their flocks, not flocks of sheep, flocks of people who follow a leader, just like sheep.

Take the story of Adam and Eve and The Garden Of Eden. Not true at all. Just poppycock. Who was there as an observer of creation? No one! Not even a fly on the wall! Why? 'cause there were no walls - end of story. So who knows what went on, or came off.

Well the way I see it with my grain of sense, and that's all the space I have in my head for sense, a space to fit a grain, is that God was having a day off, and The Creator was filling in. His job, that day was to create Man. Well God was after earning a rest and a nap, and a few choccies, at the time. Well maybe God had a sweet tooth and created sweets and chocolate and the like, before he was due to create Man, so he was resting. He had just made the World, land, seas fish animals, the lot and was tired. The Creator, who was standing in then made a mess of creating humans.

He made one man, and thought the job was done. He perhaps realised that man needed a companion to as they say to keep him company. That reminds me in the 1960's the church in Ireland railed against men and women keeping company, said it was a big sin.

So Hubba Hubba, back to the job at hand. Creator got lazy and forgot to give man a companion to - they say, keep him company. Then he hurried the job and made a woman out of an auld bit of bone lying around after he made man. You know when modern man is fixing a clock and when he is finished some parts remain over. Well, in my opinion, that's where the rib came from: a left over part.

So he bowls on and made Woman, with all he jiggly bits, even though God had plans that man and woman would never do the bold thing: as he, God saw it. In my opinion if there had been a fly on the wall at that time in God's workshop, he might have pointed out the problem in proper planning. If it were me I would pipe up (yes we can speak when it suits us). Hey Bozo - calling God a Bozo? You would have gone to hell! No Smartie this was early in the game and God was not even thinking of sin, so no hell. So Hey Bozo, how are they going to produce little humans to worship, and marvel, and be in awe of the great job you think you made. A universe, of myriad planets, stars and suns, expanding across the spaces and no one there to benefit. A blank canvas and no one has any paint to paint a plan of action. I guess man invented pencils and the like after. Charcoal! From burned wood, that is what they would have used to scribble: in them early eons. But where did the fire, the flame spring up from? Will O' The Wisps maybe?

Anyway I need to buzz over to another wall, where someone has just invented fly paper and sabotage their plans.

Be safe, stay apart, and be healthy. Or as we say in Ireland in God's language - Slán.

Seclusion is forcing me to write worse rubbish than usual: from Little Lifetime Foundation posts.

Dreamers of Literature

Pal and Polly are human, well almost, he is a Bogger (from the midland bogs) . The rest of the characters are slugs, frogs, hares and assorted bugs. Hedda Hopper the intrepid reporter is a frog. And Jimmy Magpie on air is just: well Jimmy the TV star. Sports reporter. The Gunship Bismark is Pal's wife. Whether she is human or not is up for discussion!

Polly, Pal, Slugger, and an assortment of eves-droppers sat in the dripping-dew of the dazzling moonlight.

They were silhouetted eerily on the side of the potting shed. A late night revelling Leaving Cert. Student on the way home from a “Having Failed - I Will Party” party saw the tableaux and started making notes. He went away wondering should he write a book about the apparition of call on the bishop.

Pal was smoking pipe tobacco he had rolled from some leaves that has mysteriously grown in the Polytunnell. Probably a seed that was blown in on the wind or carried in by a bird and left as a deposit.

Slugger was casually munching on the pieces Pal had spilled when he rolled the flakes: now his eyes were closed as thoughts filled his head: a rare feat, about as rare as feet on a slug, or a one-leged man in a backside kicking contest.

Smiling he formed the words to describe Pal as he filled the pipe bowl - as solemn as any old-time priest of pipe and plug: he pared and rubbed between his palms the peat and heather, and dropped the chaff along the floor and blew the fragrance to the air and scattered the gardens on her bed. And told her he was sorry and called her his first love. Slugger was away writing his great masterpiece of a buke: the whacki backi was working.

Polly, who was now in a Southern Belle phase, was trying to whisper to Pal that their great romantic, Scarlet O'Hara relationship was gone with the wind. But to no avail: Pal was away with the fairies too.

Strangely it was even the same buke - same chapter and paragraph: I gave her soft air born of pine fronds that wafted chestnut smells and whirling seeds of sycamore. I made for her the rustling sounds of leaves, wind-tossed against the swaying bark of ash and beech.

Even the eves-droppers dropped their heads and slept into the night.

Hey! Hold on a second! It's me Fly On The Wall and this Buke is getting' outa hand. Leave that kinds stuff for the Chicks to Lit. Let their Mother Hen tell them dem kinda stories. Hubba! Hubba! Back on plot here.

“Hey! Pal! Snapouta it. She says she's coming back. Yer woman - your woman. Bismark, says she is coming home.”

Ah! Ha! Thought Pal; this backi is powerful – a talking fly tellin' me the good news. And it was that: good news – well it's only after when you really think about it that good news sometimes is not as good as it first seems. You know: you just inherited a million squids from an uncle Jeremiah. Who? But you hafta email a fello' first and give him access to your Bank Account.

“Me Missus, who rarely misses,” he said, carried away and rubbing his forehead, where she had brained him with the heavy frying pan. “Wonder am I still Made in China?”

“Wha' abit me?” Polly cries: in all her Southern Charm.

“Wha' abit me ….your own litter' honey chil'. My! My! What will Pappa say?” She knew Pappa Don't Preach. But it was a good sound bite.

“Ashley. Ashley. My Ashley” she called as she tripped lightly away through the Rod and Dendrons. “Ashley..Ashley....” The rest was lost in a scream as she fell into the nettle encroached compost heap.

There she goes, thought Pal, another Polly: you wally; your canoodling's gone away. Ashley? Who's Ashley? Another footballer I'd say. But even as he shouted “Good Riddance.” He stared to miss her.

Pal glugged out of a bottle lying on the ground outside the potting shed and instantly grew another finger. “Bloody Miracle Grow...” He roared as he threw it after her.

Always one to look on the bright side, Pal thought: now I can count to eighteen on my fingers.

“Eight, nine, ten, eleven …..” And the rest was lost as the invisible dog, now promoted to invisible watchdog, growled to warn of approaching danger.

But it wasn't danger approaching: it was only Hedda, as out of breath she said.

“ I c-have sss-news. Harry's ttt-rying to.... to KILL US ALL."

See…. She wasn't too bad when she spoke without her mouth being full of creatures who were trying to do an Alcatraz Escape.

Found stuck to the bottom of a folder....

Tons of Crap (Retd.)

‘Once up on a time.’ When we were growing up didn’t all good stories start like that?

Aye! And didn’t most end ‘and they all lived happily never after’? It’s hard to find a story like that nowadays.

Once up on a time I worked for a large international airline, you know the one I mean, Yea that’s it. It was a good place to work in then: good management, good staff, good pals and after work a good social life, and fun like the Inter Departmental Competitions.

Once when our section was training some staff from another airline, Air Lanka, here in Dublin, we would have won the Inter D hockey competition, except some smart ass discovered that two of the players we had successfully petitioned the ALSAA council to allow play with us were Sri Lankian hockey internationals.

One was the goalkeeper, the other an attacking forward. That was one story that didn’t end ‘and they all lived happily ever after’.

One of the teams in the soccer tournament for a couple of years was The Tons of Crap team. Their mission was never to win a match and never to have a man or woman booked for tackling another player. The goalkeeper would be dropped if he stopped a shot and any forward who failed to shoot over the bar at an open goal, would be transferred to a better team: and a transfer payment would be made to that team if they took him.

For a few years the team played badly enough and lost all their matches, then disaster struck. Late in injury time in a nil all match the other team scored an own-goal and the referee blew up before the Tons of Crap team could pay back the favour. They had won a match and despite their appeal and protests to the Fair Play Committee the result was a win for Tons of Crap.

The following year the team did not play in any competitions in protest and to my knowledge have not participated in any Inter D to this day. Another unhappy ending.

If they made a comeback today how would they line up? Who would be recruited to play with them? What strategy would they adopt to loose all their matches?

As it so happens, this reporter has been contacted, by their old manager Snitchy and that is just what he is now proposing: the All Old Tons of Crap (Retd.) Team. He even has a wish list of the type of players he wants to attract if you feel you can fill any of there positions contact snitchy@tonsofcrapagain.com.

For the goalkeepers he wants someone who once guided large aircraft to their stand on the ramp. Snitchy told me. “I want men who when they see a ball approach will confuse it with the nose cone of a large jet. I want them to put their right hand to their ear and scream, LEFT LEFT LEFT YA SO'NSO and then jump out of the way and run along the end line with both hands over their head”.

He is looking to appoint a Team captain who would once have been a manager or director of a division. He will play in the midfield position, a kind of Roy Keane role. When he gets the ball, Snitchy says, “I’m hoping he will fall back towards defence and pass the ball to the vice-captain, also midfield, who will run with it, while the captain shouts CARRY IT, CARRY IT, DON’T LET US DOWN, KEEP WITH THE PLAN. MAKE SURE IT’S IN THE BUDGET!”

He says he might have a bit of a problem if he messes up the rest of midfield. The players he need to attract will once have been sales or marketing managers who will bring with them two forwards that have previously worked with. “My master plan, depends on them regressing back into their work role. When they get the ball they will only pass it to their man, the sales or marketing forward, with instructions to do their best and report back. The best men for that job would be ex-cargo, they could run at the opposing team roaring NETT NETT, FIVE PLUS FIFTEEN. This would be real confusing in that the NETT NETT would confuse the other team: they would think we were serious about having a real go. I don’t know what the FIVE PLUS FIFTEEN means, as what it was all about, was a secret.”

That’s his plan for the one-four-two roles. The backs he says will be a real problem. He needs stoppers who will fall over when challenged. Retired Business Development Analysts looked promising but when he put the case to them they said it would take three months before they could get together to discuss it. He met a few retired systems programmers but when he said Good Morning at the meeting they replied SIX MAN MONTHS. So he gave up on them as well.

He asked the pilots, if they could supply two centre backs, but they were all working for other outfits and had to look at the roster to see if they would organise a gash day so that they could meet him.

In the end they appointed a committee and two outside advisors to discuss the issue and report back. Then they propose to have discussions and ballot their members to see if they will participate, they also proposed that if they did take part all their members would have to be trained at Old Trafford so that they could rotate players in case of work commitments. If a potential player had not been called on for a certain time they indicated that would need a Soccer Skills Simulator at base in Dublin for refreshers. Snitchy says he is waiting , but not with much hope of a result, for their representative, “TO GET BACK TO HIM.”

He says he rang Reservations three weeks ago and he is still listening to The Jingle, and sometimes he even gets up at night, just in case he is off hold. He considered going in and establishing contact in one of the booking offices but he can’t find any in town. He asked a travel agent to help, get him in contact, but they asked him for a commission. He says he went out to the HOB but he couldn’t get into the car park.

So then he fell back on the old reliable and went looking for the Personnel Department to ask for advice but the PCB is now a Lap Dancing Club. For some reason he said that didn’t surprise him. I advised him to put an advert in Aer Sceala: he said it was gone too. He went up to the Dublin Passenger Terminal but couldn’t find the front door and when eventually he got in all he could see were Ryanair desks.

In the end he fell back on an old reliable; he went to ALSAA on a Friday evening around five, but it was empty; a fellow called Tommy said he hadn’t seen a face he knew in ages.

Snitchy has given up. He says he never thought putting another Tons of Crap Team (Retd,) together for a few Sunday morning games would be such a difficult thing.

All I could say to comfort him was, “Maybe they all lived happily ever after.”