Kilkenny Cats

His head pounded and pulsed in time with the mass of shadow and colour circling the pair. Shapes swayed to the beat of the over-powering music. She smelt of expensive perfume and cheap liqueurs; enough to blear his eyes, though his vision already had naught but bitter-sweet memories of a time when focus came easy. His mouth gaped wetly as he leaned in for the kiss.

Spun about, a fist smacked him solidly in the eye. His vision had enough, threw a few things in a battered suitcase and beat a hasty retreat. As the chair he was in sailed backwards, and him in it, he paused to wonder  how his brain could so distinctly hear the crashing white light that flashed in the ebon vacuum behind his eyes.

He came up swinging wildly, half-blind, but half-mad with anger too. A chair was plucked up single-handed and rolled up over his head into a double grip. Somewhere between intending to dash his opponents brains out and lurching forward, bent almost double, the chair was pulled out of his hands from behind.

He thought to catch the knee that snapped towards him. He succeeded, but with his already throbbing eye. Collapsing sideways, he curled on the floor. The shadow and colour closed in on him, pressing him down with many hands. A face, dark of aspect and yellow of eye, declared, "Fetch a steak."

---

Declan held the raw meat to his eye, sitting on his jacket atop the white sand, looking out across Jumby Bay. The sun had almost set and dappled shadows rode the dark blue water as a lone speed boat, with whooping water-skier in hot pursuit, skimmed the surface. He could smell the faint whiff of brine, and the tantalizing smells of a beach barbecue thirty or forty yards down the sands.

"Here, take this." It was Connor, the bride's brother. He held out a plastic bag filled with ice. "You'll get an infection off that."

He sat down beside Declan and said, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have hit you."

Declan pressed the ice to his face. Unsure what to do with it, he held the steak in his other hand. "It's fine. I didn't hurt your knee, did I?"

Connor snorted a laugh. "Ah, it'll be grand." He was silent a moment. "It's just..."

"No need to say it. I was out of order. Carrying on with your mother... she's a well-preserved woman... but I shouldn't have done it. I can imagine how I'd have felt if it had been you, with my mother."

"That's not likely," Connor said.

"What are you implying?"

"Not a thing. I just have too much respect for your father."

Declan nodded. "That's under- hey, I didn't think you'd met my father before today."

"I hadn't, but he makes a wonderful first impression."

"I suppose. He's awful plausible."

"Are you coming back?" Connor asked.

"I'm going to sit a spell. Clear my head."

Connor followed Declan's gaze out over the water. "She's beautiful isn't she? Antigua."

Declan nodded. "And then we arrive."

"You can take the wedding out of Ireland, but you can't take the Irish out of the wedding."

"True."

Connor got up off the sand. "Don't leave it too late. She's wanting more photographs tomorrow."

"More? Lord preserve us from more photographs."

"She wants it to be memorable."

They exchanged a wry look and both laughed weakly.

"I'll need to be careful what side of my face I show the camera," Declan said.

"No problem," Connor said. "We'll use plenty of concealer."

"Concealer? That's a sly trick."

Connor winked. "This isn't my first wedding."

Declan sat a while after Connor had gone. The speedboat was no longer visible, but the distant putt of the engine and the faint holler of its tow was just audible. The ice had melted in the bag. He pinched a hole in it, letting the cool water drain into the sand, then crumpled the bag and stuffed it in his pocket. In another time, and at another place he might have left it there, but the sand and the sea was so perfect he couldn't imagine defiling it.

He looked to the hotel, thinking on an early start and more photographs. Then he looked at the steak, still in his hand, and instead, walked slowly towards the barbecue, drawn to the noise, the scents and the promise of new adventure.

The Happiness Tree and Me

Deep in the Valley of Despair, in the midst of the flame pits and just down the road from Mr Dead's Dead Shoppe, was the chapter house of the Led by the Nose Manic-Depressives Club, Valley Original.

Big Sol Kaminski slouched on the podium, psyching himself into a deep blue funk before addressing the assembled hoards of blood-shot, party-killers, here for the monthly general meeting. He'd remembered to set out the seats this time, though there were a few who preferred to lean their foreheads against the side walls, muttering savagely to themselves, and rubbing their cheeks against the condensation which their breath formed on the slick black paintwork. Someone had brought a boombox and was playing early sixties songs of teenage suicide. but it wasn't cheering anyone up. Not that that was the idea.

"I hereby bring this, the one hundred thousand three hundred and ninety seventh meeting of the Led by the Nose MDC to order," Sol said.

Last Bobby ambled over to the podium clutching a sheaf of papers, and awkwardly leaned over to speak into the microphone. "The meeting started with a general proposal to... look, does it matter? I mean, we'll all be dead in a few centuries, right? I don't even feel all that well today. I've a terrible headache and I think it might be spreading to my lower intestines. My doctor says I'm-"

"The minutes, Bob. The minutes. Remember?" Sol sighed wearily.

"Wait a minute!" came a voice from the audience. "I think Bobby has a valid point."

Sol looked out at the crowd. Mox. Might have known.

"Do the minutes of the last meeting really matter?" Mox continued. "They won't make my life any better. I say, we put it to a vote."

Sol shrugged. Who cared anyway? "So the proposal is that we do away with the minutes? Entirely?"

"Well..." Mox ventured. "We could shorten them. Just list successful motions and suicides."

"Any second?" Sol asked.

"Not half! I'll second that," Last Bobby said. "It really gets me down, having to go over all that old business again. It wasn't much fun the first time around, and then I'm expected to drone on about it again at the next meeting? I get hate mail, you know, My dog has left home, and sometimes I wake up at night for no good reason and can't think why I don't go downstairs and stuff my head in the food processor. On Mince! I get stopped in the street by complete strangers who hurl insults at me and poke me with pointy sticks, just because of my reputation."

There was a silence for several, long, seconds, then a voice from the back of the hall said, "I used to have days like that... God, it was bliss. Now, things are really bad."

"Look, can we address any comments through the chair," Sol said, trying to regain control of the meeting.

"Might as well," the voice said; Sol still couldn't place it. "Sometimes I feel so miserable that talking to furniture is the only comfort I get. There's nothing like a sympathetic kitchen table to keep you from slitting your wrists, is there?"

"I used to talk to my shoes," Last Bobby said, sounding half-distracted, as though he was thinking of far-off coral islands and grass skirts. "It didn't help. We never got to the root of anything. I just couldn't open up to them. My own shoes, and I didn't feel I could trust them with any of the important stuff. Christ... I'm a failure." He began to sob, slumping against the lectern with a crash as the microphone dislodged and fell towards the floor.

Sol watched as the microphone was brought up sharply when the cord ran out, swinging back and forth on the flex. He remembered the last time he'd tried to hang himself. He smiled. It was only the few good times that kept him going.

"Right!" Sol said, "we'll put that to a vote then, shall we?" Nobody heard him. The microphone was still swinging like a phallic pendulum. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

Idly, Sol wondered why he bothered. It was the same every month. If he hadn't already been depressed nigh unto death, he might have let it get him down. As it was he felt only mild upset and a slight impatience with Last Bobby, who was now dampening his sleeve.

"This is awful! You can't go on like this!" Another, unfamiliar, voice, Sol mused. "We should call on someone to seek out the Happiness Tree and bring it back to solve our problems, liberate us from the darkness of being, set our souls free, afloat on the raucous helter-skelter of enjoyment."

"Do we have a second for that?" Sol asked. Nobody spoke. "Next item of business..."

Sea Sixteen

Her feet teased the ground with a tread so light she rivalled the soft touch of the winds that playfully stroked her body at each graceful step. She could smell freshly mowed grass and the sounds of labourers from beyond the patchy hillocks that ran the length of the beach. Gulls squabbled amongst the weeds that bound the damp, sandy soil together. The birds, so elegant when riding invisible air current far above, hop-scotched and squawked impatiently as they fought over scraps in the scrub.

Then she heard him; turned to his voice, flashed him a wide smile then, laughing, sped away. Her feet tore at the white sand, the air was rougher, catching at her loose clothes and pawing jealously at her hair. She ignored it, eyes closed, half against the sandy wind, half from the laughter that creased her face. Soon, and just as she had expected - longed for -  she was folded in his grasp, his sweet scent in her nostrils as they fell to the sand and he rolled on top of her.

With fingertips light as whispers, he brushed the sand off her face. She opened her eyes to look into his face, but fleetingly before closing them anew, as her mouth opened to meet his kiss. His hand slowly caressed her side, then with increasing urgency he pulled aside her clothes to stroke her breasts, playfully tweaking a nipple. She gasped, a noise that came from low in her belly. He pressed his mouth against her hungrily, his tongue slipping into her mouth.

She coughed.

Then again, harder this time. She had to sit upright, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, her body gripped by a series of spasms that stole her breath away. Finally, when she was able to control the attack, she looked at her palm, spattered with white phlegm, flecked with dark blood. She wiped it off on the tattered top that was more glued to her body, rather than worn.

She stayed in that position for several minutes, catching her breath. The drip of rain water into a plastic pail in the corner of the room marked time with her panting inhalation. Gray light threatened to shine through the single white-washed window. Morning then.

Her lumpy scalp itched and tingled. A shower of dry flakes dislodged as she scratched at the tufted hair still left on her head. She reached her scarred and twisted hand, each fingertip wrapped in scraps of rag where the nails had been, to the large plastic bottle of sleeping pills on the side table. She gave it a shake, to assess the contents.

Still enough for many more nights of sweet dreaming.

Or, perhaps, just enough for one.

Mister Fluffy

"Miaow!"

"What's that, Mister Eff? What did you say?" Martha clasped the tea towel she had been using to dry the breakfast dishes to her ample bosom and looked down at the floor.

"Miaow!" Mister Eff said, rubbing his head against against her plump, stockinged calf.

"Whatever am I to do with you?" Martha asked, shaking her head, mouth twisted into a crooked grin. She flicked the tea towel at him. "Shoo! You've had your breakfast, now be off with you. I've a million and one things to do today, and I'll be lucky to manage half that."

Mister Eff plucked at her leg, making her jump like a startled sofa.

"Now that really is quite enough, you silly creature," she scolded, lips pursed, tea towel twisting in her grip.

"Miaow..." The sound was plaintive with just a hint of apology.

"Well, no more to be said then, Mister Eff," Marta said. "But you really have to get up off the floor. You're going to be late for work, and I've got a lot of cleaning to do. I'm a house-keeper, not a psychiatric nurse."

Dogfight

As the extremes of acceleration eased, Major Brad Charmington relaxed. He flicked an eyelid to change the range on his display. The enemy was less than ten thousand kilometres away and closing fast on the transports that Brad was escorting.

He took his hand off the controls to manually assign the incoming star-fighter as a live target.He could have used the jawbone cadence system to achieve the same effect but Charmington was old-school. He loved the tactile feel of combat.

FIRE ALL. His finger brushed the screen. Brad's eyes closed monetarily, savouring the feeling as his payload deployed itself in an orderly fashion.

Once his ship had finished launching its deadly ordnance,  he turned about, back to the carrier that was his home in the fleet.

He slapped hands with his crewmates, took a few drinks in the mess hall and finally fell into his bunk with a weary sigh.

The next morning, just before he had the machine clean his teeth, Brad clicked on the viewscreen to watch the results of his assault. He barked a laugh, as one by one his foe evaded or destroyed each of the missiles and torpedoes that had been launched at him. Brad cocked an eyebrow, as the enemy turned away from the cargo fleet, his defensive arsenal too reduced to continue. Job done.

Charmington snapped a salute towards his unknown foe. It had been a worthy battle.

Bad Decisions

It wasn't like me to say anything, but I'd been drowning my sorrows with a succession of one-drink-too-manys since just after noon and it was now who-gives-a-fuck o'clock.

"Watch who you're shoving," I said, as an elephant slumped onto the stool to my right, jostling my hand on the drink I'd been cradling for at least the last forty five seconds.

He laid a mitt on me that blotted out half my forearm, then gave it a squeeze that threatened to pop my fingertips. His knuckles stood out like bony boulders, mashed and whitened with scar tissue.

"Sorry, pal," he said, his voice a low rasp. I glanced his way and half-sobered up at the sight. Wide blue eyes regarded me from under a cliff of creased and sweaty brow. His nose had unwisely decided to settle in the middle of a pock-marked, ruddy battlefield and looked like it had thrown itself under a bus, but he had a big soft mouth and thankfully it was almost grinning at me.

"No problem... sorry," I said, reverting to type.

"Ain't we a couple of sorry characters," he said, squeezing my arm again. I flinched, afraid that an exploding fingernail might have an eye out. My fight or flight instinct had already taken a vote, but with his meaty fingers digging into my arm, my brain was too stunned to come up with a witty reply. Or a reply. For the first time I think I truly understood why a trapped animal will gnaw off a limb to escape.

"Did ya spill your drink?" he asked, eyes locked on mine, while he gestured at the bartender. I noticed how he pushed words through his mouth like it took an effort.

"No," I managed to say, but not before another glass had been set before me. I saw that the bartender had also placed a tall glass in front of him, filled with ice and burnt-caramel colored liquor.

"What ya doing in this dive?" he asked, "I ain't seen ya before, and I'm always here... ain't I always here?" This last directed at the bartender, who I could see was uncomfortable.

"Sure are, Pete," the bartender said, his back pressed up against the bench behind him, straining to be as far from my neighbour as possible.

The gorilla still had his hand on my arm, so I reached across with my left to get my old drink, threw it down in one and reached for the newest. My hand hovered over it for a moment before I grasped it, but I didn't bring it to my lips.

"I think I did something stupid," I said. "I think I screwed up my life today."

"Oh, ya sure did, kid," he agreed. "Ya sure did. Know why?"

"Why?" I asked, wondering who would identify my corpse.

He released his grip on my arm so he could pat it, twice, then clamped back on. "Every day we do stuff that screws up our lives. Ya make the right choices every day, ya gets to be a billionaire, dying in your eighties, kids fighting with a twenty year old widow over the money." He winked at me, natural as a bear doing a handstand, then took over half of his drink in a single gulp. He moaned with satisfaction. "That hits the spot. Know many billionaires?"

"I guess not."

"Bad decisions. We all make'em. Some you live with, some you don't." He squeezed yet again, but my hand had already gone numb.

"No going back?" I asked.

"Up to you, kid," he said. "Sure, it depends, but one bad decision doesn't stop ya making a bunch of good ones."

I drifted away, thoughts racing, then a wave of reality helped clear my head. I stood, and as I did so he released my arm, after just one more bone-crushing squeeze.

"What's her name, pal?" he asked.

I tried to say, but the word choked in my throat. I couldn't declare her name until I'd spoken to her, and made things right. He seemed to understand.

"I get it," he said. "Do what ya gotta, pal. No more bad decisions, right?"

I wanted to say something, but the alcohol hit me again. Fear may have momentarily driven the effects away but now they were back with a vengeance. I swayed, lips goldfishing, while my arms hung at my sides, forgotten.

"Promise," I managed, but I kept looking at him. I wanted to leave but I had forgotten where the door was. Everything was swirling. Thankfully, the bartender put his arm around my shoulder and guided me towards the exit.

"You're bleeding," I said, staring at the smears on my palms as he pushed me towards the door.

"Get out!" he snarled at me. "I'll leave you if I have to."

My hands and arms were covered in blood. I stared at them, feet trudging diligently in step with the bartender as he escorted me from the near-empty bar. I sensed, but didn't really see, the people who pushed past us on their way into the bar.

"Am I bleeding?" I asked. I could see gray light through a half open doorway. It was early evening. The night was still young.

The bartender shoved me into the half-night, throwing the door shut behind him. I felt fine.

Anniversary

May 22nd 2009.

Gwen watched her mother's wheelchair edge closer to the precipice. Her heart was in her mouth, even though she had been through the process several times before. This was Maude's yearly ritual, carried out for as long as Gwen could remember, though this was only the sixth year that Gwen had been permitted to attend, and the third that her mother had been in the wheelchair. She's so old, Gwen thought, then chuckled, realising she had been abusing the term middle-aged herself.

Stray words floated her way, bourne on the stinging wind, but nothing Gwen could make out. She wanted to get back into the car but felt like she would be letting her mother down if she allowed the gusts to chase her into shelter.

Eventually her mother finished and gave a jaunty wave to summon Gwen over.

"All done for another year?" Gwen asked.

Her mother nodded, her expression difficult to read.

"I'll be retiring soon, and Terry asked me to visit him in Australia. You'll come too. We could be there, this time next year. Wouldn't you like to spend some time with your grandson?"

"And his partner?" Maude asked with a wicked grin.

"Yes, and Richie."

"He's a lovely boy. Very well-built."

"I'm sure your grandson - remember him? - would be glad you approve. What do you say, mum? Think of all that sunshine."

Maude sighed. "You should go, love. I'm fine where I am. Settled. I have my routine..."

"Go on, mum, Richie will find a hunky Australian senior for you."

"Gwen, dear, I'm not ready for romancing down by the billabong."

"Chance'd be a fine thing at your age. What about Canada? I was talking to John last week and he said he begged you to come over."

"Oh no, lovie. Polar bears! I'd sooner be mauled by an Aussie... I think..."

They laughed, Maude's throaty chuckle quickly turning into a rattling cough. Gwen laid her hand on her mother's shoulder, pressing through layers of wool and nylon until she discovered a bony clavicle. She hugged her mother awkwardly around the wheelchair, until the coughing subsided. The smell of lilac-scented soap was strong, triggering random thoughts.

John was Gwen's half-brother, eleven years her junior, and he was responsible for Maude's trademark aroma. Since Christmas of 1978, when one Bailey's Irish Cream too many had led her mother to over-enthusiastically praise a hastily bought gift-basket, John had been diligently lavishing her with variations on lilac-themed toiletries ever since. Christmas, birthday and Mothering Sunday, every single year. In '92 the birthday consignment was lost in the mail, but Maude had said nothing, fearful of how he might over-compensate the loss.

Cupboards bulged and shelves heaved under unwanted soaps, sprays, candles and bubble bath. Maude didn't have the heart to throw any of it away, but she was not particularly fond of lilacs. Then, fortuitously, disaster struck. One of her, ever more frequent, medical procedures caused her to suffer anosmia. She lost her sense of smell. Undaunted, she saw this as an opportunity to chip away at her lilac-scented stockpile.

Gwen pulled the wheelchair back even further from the edge, before turning it towards the car. Just before they reached it, she asked, "Want to stay at mine tonight? I'll phone to let them know."

Maude reached back to pat her daughter's hand. "That sounds lovely, dear."

There was more laughter back at Gwen's home. Wrapped in blankets until the central heating was at full throttle, they toasted their day with nips of brandy that graduated into fully-fledged bites by the third round. They told and re-told their stories, allowing familiar tales to cushion the here-and-now, like the many layers of Maude's clothing. Every so often Maude would laugh so hard that she would choke, waving Gwen's concerns away, then continue with her anecdote as if nothing had happened.

It was almost midnight when Gwen helped her mother into bed. She kissed Maude on the forehead and made to leave but the old woman held tightly to her arm. Gwen sat by her on the bed.

"What is it, mum?"

So Maude told her. She told her why this day was special. She told her why she came to the cliffside each year. She told her the history they had never discussed, stumbling over the words until late into the night when they both finally collapsed into sleep.

In the morning Gwen phoned her mother's doctor, sobbing and almost incoherent with grief. Maude had celebrated her anniversary for the final time.

---

May 22nd, 2010.

Looking back, Gwen didn't know where the year had gone, but more importantly she was struggling to understand why she was back here again. This had been her mother's ritual, something they had only shared because the old woman hadn't been physically capable in her later years of coping on her own.

Gwen got out of the car and walked to the edge of the cliff.

"I didn't know you," she said, speaking into the wind as it cut at her face, though it wasn't the salty air that dampened her eyes. "Mum never wanted to talk about you, and I never asked her, but I knew she came here because of you. I thought how much she must miss you, how important you must have been. I thought it was some glorious love that made her trek back here year after year. I felt so sorry for her."

Gwen blinked away tears.

"What you did made my mother miserable, but she got over it. She had a good life, a wonderful life. She laughed harder and brought more joy to the people around her than anyone had a right to. I miss her every single day. You threw that away. She found a good man to love her, and when the time came, she was... we all were able to say good-bye to him, properly."

She pulled the sleeves of her jumper over her palms and rubbed the tears from her eyes.

"She loved us so much, and we loved her back just as fiercely. And every year that she came back here, she was counting her blessings for a life lived completely and surrounded by love. Don't you wish you'd known how that felt?"

Gwen started back to the car then, after a few paces, paused and turned back to look out over the cliff.

"Would it really have been so bad to see me grow up?"

When she got into the car and pulled the door shut, just as she was laying her head on the steering wheel and surrendering to heaving tears, Gwen thought she caught the merest whiff of lilac. It was enough to bring a smile to her face, even as she wept.