By Mike

A Winning Bet……

Paddy Murphy was a hard worker at the large Bakery in Dublin. He was fond of his drink but to be honest, he never overdid it. There was probably not a single person in the whole of Ireland that had ever seen him drunk. He also liked a flutter on the horses or once in a while on the dogs, but he had his taste for gambling well and truly under control.

He looked after his family, that is, his wife Maureen and three young children. Young Paddy was now ten years old and the twin girls were now seven. He kept his family well fed, well clothed and healthy. They were a happy and united family and life was good.

On a Wednesday evening, if he had any spare cash, he would sometimes take himself down to the Dog Track at Shelbourne Park. He would have a few small bets and every now and again he would win a few pounds. He never won a lot but then again he never bet a lot either.

This particular Wednesday he and his best friend Jim were having a drink after work in the pub a few doors away from the bakery. He noticed a man whom he had seen several times at the dog track and he was known to be a heavy gambler. He was one of the rare breed who really knew what he was doing and had good inside information.

“Jim”, Paddy said to his friend “do you see your man over there. Well he’s worth a few bob and seems to get great information on the dogs. He must have something good going tonight down at the Shelbourne”. “Be Japers Paddy”, Jim replied “we could do with a nice few bob ourselves, sure the way he is dressed in that suit, he must be well off. It must have cost him a small fortune”. “Wait ‘till you see his big car outside, it’s one of them big German things, a Mercedes I think. It must have cost him all of thirty grand” Paddy sighed then took a swig from his beer. “I bet he never did a good day’s work in his life neither” Jim gave an even bigger sigh.

They both watched the man through the bar mirror for the next few minutes with envy in their eyes. After about fifteen minutes, another man came into the bar and shook hands with the one they were watching. This one looked rather untidy wearing working clothes and a soft peaked cap.

“I bet you Jim that he trains greyhounds” Paddy guessed. “You could be right Pad” Jim replied “and I bet you he has all the inside information”. “If only we could get some of that info Jim, we could make a few bob alright” Paddy replied. Both men this time sighed in unison.

The second man again shook hands with the first and handed him a piece of paper. The first man merely put the paper into his bulging wallet, drank the rest of his beer and left.

Shortly after, Paddy and Jim drank up and made their way to the door. Immediately as they stepped out onto the pavement, Jim tripped on something underfoot. “Are you alright Jim?” Paddy asked a little anxiously. “Ah sure enough Pad” Jim replied “Sure I nearly broke me fecking neck”. They looked down to see what Jim had tripped on and there it was – the bulging wallet that they had seen earlier.

(Now listen, don’t start running ahead of the story and don’t think what I think you are all thinking)…..

Both men were as honest as the day is long and not for one second did either of them think or consider keeping the wallet and its contents. They did nothing more but decided there and then to make their way to the greyhound track and try to find the owner. On the way there, Jim stopped and grabbed Paddy’s arm.

“Don’t even think it Jim or I swear to God I’ll never speak to you again” Paddy said sternly. “No, no, no Paddy” Jim quickly replied “You know me Pad, I wasn’t thinking of his money. I swear it”. “Well” asked Paddy “what were you thinking of then, you had that look in your eyes”.

“Well it’s like this Paddy” Jim spoke softly and slowly. “Now sure it wouldn’t be stealing if we just had a little peep at the note that man gave to him and see if they are the names of a dog or two – sure it wouldn’t be that wrong. Would it Paddy?” he asked.

“I suppose not” Paddy stroked his chin, “not if we put the note back where we found it and gave him his wallet and all”. “Right then Paddy me boy” Jim was at last happy, “let’s have a little look”.

Sure enough, when they opened the wallet they could see loads of money but they did not touch it. They found the note and took it out. All it said was “Rosheen’s Pet”, “Rosheen’s Double” and “Windfield Lily”. “I told you it was tips Paddy” Jim was getting all excited, “write them down and put the note back. We have the best part of half-an-hour to get up to the track”.

Paddy scribbled the names of what were obviously dog’s names on a scrap of paper and put the note back in the wallet. They began to walk rapidly toward the track.

As they entered the cheap entrance who should they see but the owner of the wallet coming out the other gate at the same time. “Hey mister” Paddy called and the man looked towards them. “We found something belonging to you outside the pub” Jim followed up. The man returned and met them inside the gates. Jim handed him the wallet saying “Every penny is there mister, we never took nothing”. The man opened the wallet and had a cursory glance at the contents. He wiped his brow and held out his hand to shake Jim’s.

“Have you any idea how much is there?” the man asked. “No idea at all mister, as I said me and me friend never touched nothing” Jim was basically telling the truth. “Well” said the man “there is nearly seven hundred pounds in that and I thought that was the last I saw of it. You two are the most descent men I have come across in a long time”. With that he took out and counted ten ten pound notes and handed them to Jim.

“For you and your friend with my eternal thanks” the man said. As they shook hands and began to walk away, he shouted after them. “Just a minute if you are staying for the races” he was now speaking softly “I have a sure thing for tonight which should come in at about four to one if you want to put the best part of that money I gave you on it”. He bent over and whispered in Jim’s ear “Windfield Lily in the third race. God bless you lads and thanks a million again”. With that he was gone.

“I don’t know whether to call him a gobshite or not Jim” Paddy said to his friend “I know he gave us a hundred pounds but he could have given us the three dogs’ names instead of just the one”. “You can call him all the gobshites you like Paddy, sure he’ll never know that we have the three, come on, and let’s look up the race card” Jim was happier than Paddy had ever seen him.

(Now sure this story could go on for ages and as the best parts have yet to come, sure I’ll skip a few bits)……..

The first thing is that Windfield Lily did win by a mile at four to one and they had ten pounds each on her. Rosheen’s Double was beaten in a photograph and as they had bet twenty pounds to win, they made nothing on that one.

However, Rosheen’s Pet romped home at six to one and again they had ten pounds each on her. They now had nearly three hundred pounds which they shared and left before the racing was over. They were not going to chance their luck any further – all their luck for the year was all wrapped up on that one night already.

They returned to the bar where they had been earlier and began drinking heavily. Not only were they drinking pints of Guinness but each time they had a large whiskey to go with it. Within a couple of hours they were both stocious drunk.

They staggered out of the pub at closing time and tried to make their way home. Jim was quite bad but Paddy was even worse. It was Jim who turned the key in the door at Paddy’s house and he literally fell into the hallway. Jim might have been drunk but he was still cute enough to get away as quickly as possible before Maureen came down the stairs. As far as Paddy was concerned, he did not have the faintest idea of where he was or what was going on.

The next day he was not working until twelve noon and he awoke at about eight o’clock with the worst hangover he ever had in his life. He looked around the room and there was no sign of Maureen. He sat up in bed and then noticed the cup of tea and two slices of toast on the bedside table. “Be japers” Paddy said aloud and got out of bed. He was wearing a fresh pair of pyjamas. “I don’t remember putting them on” he said aloud. He looked and his clothes were neatly folded on the dressing table. He stood there scratching his head in wonderment.

As he made his way out onto the landing he met his son young Paddy. The boy smiled at him and said “You were as drunk as a sack last night dad but you were lucky?” “Lucky?” replied Paddy, “where’s your ma?” “Oh she said she was running down to the shop to get you some nice rashers and sausages for your breakfast, you are well in her good books alright”. Young Paddy began laughing as he made his way downstairs.

Paddy followed and grabbed young Paddy’s arm. “What in the name of the good Lord is going on Patrick, tell me, what’s going on?” “Well it’s like this Dad” young Paddy began slowly, still with that silly grin on his face. “You fell through the door so drunk that I don’t think you knew who you were or where you were. Ma came down and tried to take your clothes off you to get you to bed. Well you know what dad?” the boy asked. “No son, just tell me?”

“Well when she opened your trousers and tried to take them off you screamed ‘Leave me alone woman, I am a happily married man with the best and most beautiful wife in the world’. I think you passed out then and I helped ma get you to bed”.

As an enormous smile came upon Paddy’s face, young Paddy asked “Tell me dad, were you really drunk or just pretending to be for ma’s sake?”…………………

By Bill the Butcher

One day early in the summer vacations, Mirabelle’s parents took her to the Borderland, where the worlds of Here and There mixed and merged. She’d been promised this trip as a reward if she did well in her examinations, and she’d done so well that they hadn’t been able to wriggle out of it, though they’d tried. Oh, how they had tried.

“Why do you want to go there?” Mummy had asked. “It’s going to be hot and crowded, and there’s nothing you can’t see on the TV right here. Why don’t we just go to the hills like we do every year?”

“I might not be able to get time off from the office,” Papa had added. “I can’t let your mother and you go alone all that way. It wouldn’t be safe, with all the pickpockets and criminals. It’s better that your mom and you go to the hills.”

But Mirabelle had no wish to go to the hills. “You promised,” she’d said, and to her horror had felt her eyes brimming over with tears and her lips starting to tremble. It was something only little girls did, and she was almost twelve and not so little any longer.

“Don’t begin blubbering,” Papa had snapped. “We can’t always have everything we want. Tine you realised that.”

But in the end they’d given in.

So now they were walking through the gate that separated the world of Here from the Borderland. No cars or any other machines were allowed through that gate, of course, not even cameras or cell-phones.

“It’s just a tourist trap,” Mirabelle’s Papa grumbled, as they waited impatiently behind a fat foreign lady who was arguing with the guards, in an almost incomprehensible accent, that she had to be allowed to take at least one camera through. “And it’s an overpriced tourist trap at that. Just look at these entry prices – it’s a disgrace.”

“And we have to walk everywhere too,” Mama sighed, wiping her face. “In this heat. It’s not right.”

Mirabelle didn’t want to listen to either the fat lady’s yammering or her parents’ grumbling, so she took the opportunity to look up at the gate and the wall instead. She’d seen them both on TV, of course, but they looked different in reality, higher and more imposing, the top of the grey wall lined with instruments, boxes with shiny round lenses and spiky antennae growing out of them.

“What are those?” she asked, pointing up at the boxes. “Papa? What are those things on the wall?”

Papa looked up at the boxes impatiently. “I don’t know,” he snapped. “Security cameras, maybe, keeping an eye on everyone. How does it matter?”

Mummy squeezed Mirabelle’s hand sympathetically. They both knew when Papa was in one of his moods. “We’ll buy a guide book,” she said, pointing at the stall outside the gate. “It’s sure to have a lot of information.”

Papa began grumbling about the cost of the guide book, so Mirabelle looked at the gate instead. It was in the shape of an arch, very high, and decorated with all kinds of carvings, of unknown creatures with the faces of frogs and the bodies of feathered snakes, and the like; and strange scenes, such as mountains hanging upside down and water flowing uphill. The carvings were done very intricately, so that the animals seemed alive, and the water in motion.

The foreign lady, having lost her argument, had deposited her cameras at the counter and stalked through the gate, and Papa was at the counter taking a long time paying for the tickets and trying to bargain for a discount. Mirabelle watched the people in the line behind her, many of whom were foreigners from all parts of the world.

“My teacher says,” she told Mummy, “that we should all be proud that the Borderland’s situated in this country, and not in America or Europe or somewhere like that.”

“Um,” Mummy replied. “Why should it be something to be proud of? It’s not as though we had something to do with its being here. Did your teacher say anything about that?”

Mirabelle thought for a moment. “All these people have to come here to see the Borderland, haven’t they?” she argued.

“And if it were elsewhere, they’d have gone there instead,” Mummy replied. “It’s not as though we had anything to do with it. So why should we be proud?”

Before Mirabelle could find a reply to that, Papa came over with the tickets. “It’s even more expensive than I thought,” he grumbled. “Even the half-day tour is twice as much as I expected.”

“Half-day tour?” Mirabelle repeated, stricken.

“Of course, the half-day tour,” Papa snapped. “Do you think we can afford one of the longer jaunts? As it is, even this one costs more than I thought it could possibly could.”

“I heard the half-day tour’s very good,” Mummy said quickly. “They show all the most interesting things.” She flipped through the guide book. “Yes, they show the Portal to There, the Goblin Grounds, the Lake of Rainbow Fire, and…”

“What about the Wind Dragons?” Mirabelle asked. “Do they show the Wind Dragons?”

“The Wind Dragons?” Mummy flipped through the table of contents. “Well, they’re listed as an optional. We can see them or the Rain of Stars.”

“I want to see the Wind Dragons,” Mirabelle declared firmly. “That’s what I want to see the most in the Borderland.”

“Are you sure?” Mummy asked doubtfully. “We’d have to climb right up the cliffs, in the heat. And they aren’t really anything much to see at all. Now, the Rain of Stars looks so pretty.”

“I want to see the Wind Dragons,” Mirabelle repeated, her voice rising in pitch. “I’m not interested in the Rain of Stars.”

“But –“ Mummy began to argue. “But they can’t even really be seen.”

“I don’t care,” Mirabelle said. “I want to see them, and I want to listen to their songs. There’s nothing else here I’d rather see.”

“They sing?” Mummy asked. “Really?”

“Yes,” Mirabelle replied angrily. “I’ve read all about it. They fly around the cliffs, and they sing so beautifully.”

“Oh, let the child have her way,” Papa said irritably. “She’ll just start whining otherwise. Let’s get this thing over with so we can go home.”

They walked through the gate after passing through security. Of course, they’d known not to bring cameras, but they were still searched. The uniformed lady even made Mummy take off her sandals and checked the heels.

“We’ve found people trying to smuggle spy cameras in their shoes,” she apologised, handing the footwear back. “You can’t believe what people will try.”

“What happens if someone does take a camera through?” Mirabelle asked curiously. “Why don’t they allow it?”

The guard lady smiled. “The scientists say all kinds of bad things can happen, imbalances of energy and so on,” she replied. “They don’t allow anything mechanical at all.”

“That woman doesn’t know a thing she’s talking about,” Mummy said once they were out of security and walking through the gate. “They don’t allow cameras only because the government wants to make money out of selling the pictures.”

“But my teacher says,” Mirabelle began, and then didn’t say anything more, because they’d gone through the gate and were in the Borderland.

Even though she’d heard what it was like, Mirabelle was taken by surprise at the difference from the world of Here. The air was still as hot and dry, but there was a strange smell to it, faintly acrid, and it tasted of cinnamon. The sky was a deeper blue, and things seemed to look sharper and clearer, because there was no dust in the air.

And all around was the strange landscape of the Borderland, the hillocks which looked like human faces, the tiny castles which grew out of the rock, the weirdly twisted trees and giant reddish mushrooms. Mirabelle looked around at it all, gawking, and wished she could run off to explore.

“It feels like the place is full of magic,” Mummy said wonderingly. “You know, it’s the sort of atmosphere in which you’d expect ogres and wizards and fairies.”

“The half-day tour line’s over there,” Papa said, pointing to a small group of people standing beside a small stone bridge. “Come on.”

So Mummy and Mirabelle followed him over the little bridge, and for the next few hours a uniformed guide escorted them around. He had a high-pitched voice like a squeak, and his English was so terrible that Mirabelle had to fight down an urge to giggle whenever he said anything. But even though it was only a half-day tour, the things they saw were so strange and wonderful that they filled her mind with wonder.

At the Goblin Grounds, they looked through a falling sheet of water at the goblins – brown and leathery, with small heads and long needle teeth, which stared back at them with beady little black eyes. They stood on a platform of rock high over the  Lake of Rainbow Fire and stared through the round tunnel of the Portal to There, looking out at that strange and enigmatic world, with its clear blue light and sand as white as silver. The time passed so quickly that Mirabelle was amazed when the guide announced that the tour was almost over.

“Optionals only now left,” he said. “Wind Dragon group? Any Wind Dragon?”

“Yes,” Mirabelle said loudly, before either of her parents could speak. “We’re going to the Wind Dragons.”

The guide grinned with stained teeth and pointed. “To the right.”

Mirabelle’s Mummy sighed with exasperation.

*********************

To get to where the Wind Dragons flew, they had to climb up to the top of the Cliffs of Storms, which thrust up into the clear blue sky like serrated teeth. There was a winding path going up, covered with thick green grass like a carpet, and it wasn’t really difficult at all to climb. Still, Mummy sighed when she saw it, and Papa refused to go up at all.

“I’ll just wait here,” he said, sitting on a flat rock. “You go on up and enjoy yourselves.”

A different guide led them up the path, a short young woman with a broad face and a sprinkling of moles on her cheeks. There were about fifteen people in their group, and the way to the top was empty. Only one group was allowed on the Cliffs of Storms at any one time.

“Are they really so stormy?” someone asked the guide. “Is that why they call them the Cliffs of Storms?”

“It can get windy up there,” the girl replied. “But it’s just a name, really.”

“Are the dragons dangerous?” someone else asked.

“Not at all, sir. They’re made of wind and light, and can’t hurt you.” She glanced at them over her shoulder. “Please be silent when we’re up there,” she added. “The Wind Dragons don’t like noise, and besides only if there’s no other sound can one hear them singing.”

“They actually sing?” Mummy asked. “That’s really true?”

“Yes,” the guide said. “But nobody knows why.”

Nobody said anything further all the way to the top of the path, where there was a broad platform of stone with flat-topped boulders like benches to sit on. Before them was the cliff edge, beyond which there was only the endless blue distance of the World of There, from whence the dragons flew.

“Where are the dragons?” Mummy asked the guide, after they had been waiting several minutes. “It doesn’t look like we’ll see any.”

“Please be patient,” the girl replied. “They’ll come. This is one of their favourite places.”

But for a long time nothing happened.

“I’m sorry,” the guide said at last, rising to her feet. “It must be one of the days when they don’t appear. We’ll have to go down soon. Our time is almost up and the next tour party will be –“

It was Mirabelle who first saw the dragon at that moment, even before the guide put a finger to her lips and pointed. It was more a glitter in the air, a sparkle like rainbow dust, twisting and twining just past the cliff edge, as though a long tail was lashing back and forth. She caught a glimpse of writhing antennae, and spiky horns, and what might have been beating wings. And for a moment she was sure she saw two great lambent eyes, and they were looking straight at her.

The Wind Dragon saw her, Mirabelle knew. It was looking at her as a single, special human being. It was watching her.

“Listen!” someone whispered softly.

As though from infinite distances came the dragon’s song, notes warbling up and down the scale, building up into rhythm after complex rhythm. Another dragon joined in from somewhere unseen, a deeper note, the two voices merging and building, until it was impossible to tell which was which.

Entranced, they listened, the music resonating through the rock and their bodies, making the very air vibrate in sympathy. And the air glittered and turned on itself with the movement of great wings, as all around them, the dragons flew.

And then, suddenly, the air ceased to move and glitter. Like a door shutting, silence fell.

It was over.

Nobody said anything all the way down. Three was nothing to say.

“Well?” Papa demanded when Mummy and Mirabelle had rejoined him. “Had a good time chasing around after invisible flying lizards?”

Neither Mummy nor Mirabelle replied.

**********************

That night Mirabelle had a dream. In the dream she was standing on the platform on the Cliffs of Storms, alone. The sky was clear and blue, but there was no sun, and she could feel no heat.

All around her were the dragons, close enough to touch, and she could feel the beating of their wings. They circled her, they sang to her, and as she listened to them she began to understand.

“Come with us,” they said. “Come with us to the world of There, where no human has ever been. Come with us to the land of wonder.”

“Why me?” she asked. “Why did you choose me?”

“Because you are the one we’ve waited for,” the dragons sang. “You’re the one who is in perfect tune with us, the one who can understand us, the one who dreams and wonders. Come with us.”

“How?” Mirabelle asked. “How do I come with you?”

“Nothing simpler,” the dragons sang. “Step off the ground, and let yourself fly. Fly with us. But if you fly with us, you can’t come back again.”

“Yes,” Mirabelle said, and she tried to step off the ground, but she could not. Her feet held her tight.

“Come with us,” the dragons sang, their wings carrying them away. “Fly with us.”

“Wait,” Mirabelle called out desperately. “Wait for me.” But they didn’t wait.

And then she woke up.

She never told anyone the dream, but she never forgot it.

************************

Years passed, and turned into decades; and Mirabelle grew up and went to college, and became a successful career woman. But nobody ever got close to her, really close; and those who called themselves her friends came to feel that she was not really happy, or could ever be.

One day, when the chill of winter was in the air, Mirabelle looked at herself in the mirror of a hotel room, and saw that her hair was streaked with grey. She looked at herself and thought of her world, of business deals and money flows, and thought how sterile and futile it was. And then once again she remembered the wind dragons, and the song they had sung to her.

So it was that she caught a plane and flew across the world, back to the country of her birth. The Borderlands were still there, but the tourist trade had long since dried up, victim to civil unrest and economic collapse, to war and global warming, and the security guards and guides were long gone.

So it was that there was nobody to object when Mirabelle walked up the grassy path to the top of the Cliffs of Storms, alone, and sat waiting for the Wind Dragons.

They came, twisting and writhing, their wings beating rainbow glitter, and they sang to her.

“Come with us,” they said. “Let go of the ground, and fly with us. We’ve been waiting so long for you. But if you fly with us, you can’t come back again.”

“I’m coming,” Mirabelle said. “Wait for me.”

And it was absurdly easy then, to let go of the ground and fly with the wind dragons, through the vast blue distances, to the world of There, where wonders never ceased. It was a small price to pay, not to be able to come back again.

Nobody ever saw Mirabelle again.

But if one goes up to the Cliffs of Storms, there’s a new voice on the wind, a new note in the dragons’ song.

It is the voice of Mirabelle, singing.

By: Bill the Butcher

One morning, when Gregoralingam Samsamurthy woke from uneasy dreams of buxom maamis with big breasts and oiled black hair, he discovered that he had been changed in the night to a gigantic insect.

Yes, it was all there, he saw, lying on his back and looking down the length of his body through his compound eyes – the three pairs of jointed spiny legs, moving spasmodically; the relatively long antennae whipping back and forth, the mouth parts which he worked against each other in a futile attempt to lick his teeth.

“I’m an insect,” he thought. “Now how did that happen?”

Trying vainly to wriggle into a more comfortable position, he thought about how it might have occurred. “Perhaps,” he said to himself, “it was that woman in the dream with the very big – I mean the one who told me to quit bugging her when she caught me looking at her very big…! Well, if she didn’t want me to look at her she shouldn’t have walked around without anything on but panties, even if it was a dream.”

This train of thought gave way to another. “Assuming that this is not also a dream,” he thought, “I suppose I am actually an insect. This is a bit inconvenient. The kids in school won’t take too kindly to being taught by an insect. Especially in biology class,” he added, “they’re going to say they want to dissect me!”

The idea proved so distressing that he tried to find solace in the poster he’d bought from the bearded old Muslim man who had a stall in the lane behind Kumaramangalam Hardware Stores and sold porn books and photos under the counter. He’d bought the poster just yesterday in the evening and had intended to hide it away before sleeping, but had forgotten, and it stood propped up against the cupboard, the woman smiling coyly at him over her bared and, if truth be told, rather pendulous bosom. He couldn’t bend his head enough to see down to her exuberant thicket of pubic hair, but for some reason she no longer looked appealing at all. He wondered what he’d ever seen in her.

“Ayyo!” he thought. “Maybe I’ll only ever be sexually interested in insects again. I don’t even know how one would go about seducing a cockroach or a beetle, even supposing one could find one my size.” The thought was so appalling that he forgot to worry about the kids for some time. But the growing demands of his body brought his mind back to the situation.

“I had better get up now,” he thought. “It’s probably something like six in the morning and if I don’t get up soon I’ll be late for the morning tuitions.”

This proved to be easier said than done. His carapace, with its chitinous plates, was convex, inflexible, and proved difficult to manoeuvre on the soft mattress. He hated the mattress, but his mother had insisted on him putting the softest one in the house on his bed. “You work hard,” she’d informed him, as if he didn’t know that, “and you need to sleep comfortably.” So he’d had to take the accursed thing, which was so soft that it had always hurt his spine. Now, of course, he didn’t have a spine, but instead of giving him leverage to get up, it just led to his wriggling around like, well, a bug on its back.

As he lay wriggling, there was a knock at the door. “Perianna”. It was, of course, his sister Umaparvathi. “Perianna, your kaapi is ready. You should get up now. You’ll get late.” Samsamurthy waited, hoping she would go away, but Umaparvathi was a persistent girl, always had been. “Perianna,” she called, knocking at the door, “are you sick? Your kaapi is getting cold.”

Samsamurthy began to get exasperated with her voice. He’d never, he thought, noticed just how whiny it was, and he wished there was some way of making her shut up. But she just went on and on and on.

“Amma Appa,” she called, “Perianna is not answering. I think he may be sick.” This, quite predictably, brought Amma scurrying. “Kanna,” she called urgently. “Kanna, open the door. Are you ill?”

Samsamurthy attempted to deny this vigorously. Indeed, he was not ill. He was merely an insect. But all he managed was a kind of hissing noise through his spiracles.

“I can hear him coughing,” Umaparvathi said.

“Maybe he’s got the whooping cough,” Amma replied. “I can hear the whooping noise. I’m sure he’s got whooping cough. Get a doctor, quick.”

“What’s going on?” it was Appa’s voice, heard faintly. “Where’s my breakfast? What are you two doing outside the boy’s room? Why isn’t he up yet, anyway? He’s getting lazy; he needs a good beating, but you never let me hit him when it would have done some good.”

Samsamurthy listened to this peroration with mounting irritation, and tried without success to push himself upright in the bed. All this did was bring the poster into full view, dimples of cellulite, unkempt pubic puff, unshaven legs and all the rest of it. It provoked a moment of such pure nausea that he tried to close his eyes so as not to see it. But, not having eyelids, he couldn’t. Hissing with disgust, he sank back on the bed.

“Now I’ve had it,” he thought. “At least I hope I’ll be interested in female insects.”

There was a much louder banging on the door. “Get up!” Appa commanded. “You young ones have it too easy, disobeying your elders and betters. I’ve a good mind to break my walking stick across your back.”

“He’s sick,” Amma protested, in the whispery little voice which was all she dared use in counter to her husband. “He has whooping cough.”

“Whooping cough?” Appa yelled. “When I was his age I had malaria, and measles, and still I wasn’t ever one minute late getting up. Open, you! I tell you, if my dad had caught me locking my door, he’d have whipped the skin off me. I’ve been far too indulgent with him.”

“Appa,” Umaparvathi broke in. “The students are coming for morning tuition. I can see them from the window.”

There was a pause. “You get up,” Appa shouted. “You’re supposed to be a teacher, and you know that the tuition brings in more money than your salary, and you owe it to us to earn, and…”

With a convulsive movement, Samsamurthy rolled off the bed and fell on to the floor with a thud. Fortunately he fell the right way up and didn’t hurt himself too much. He was about to scuttle to the door and open it when he thought of the poster. His parents couldn’t be allowed to know that he had bought a nude poster. It wasn’t what good boys did – good bachelor boys weren’t even supposed to know or care what a naked woman was like. Even though the thought of a naked woman was enough now to make him puke, he went to it and yanked it down from where he’d propped it up on the wall. Not finding anywhere else to put it, he finally slid it under the bed.

Then he went over to the door, but he found himself labouring for breath, since his spiracles couldn’t oxygenate his tissues fast enough. Whistling like a boiling kettle, he heaved himself up to the door and somehow slipped the latch open.

Perhaps he should have known what would happen next. In his defence, though, he wasn’t exactly thinking straight.

Fortunately, though there was a stampede, nobody was hurt.

********************************

“I’ll go to Tirupathi Temple tomorrow,” Amma sobbed, “and shave my head. I’ll beg the Lord Balaji to cure him.”

It was later in the day. Samsamurthy was locked inside his room, his parents and sister whispering urgently outside. They’d phoned him sick at work, and sent away his tuition kids. Fortunately, none of them had caught a glimpse of the big insect or it would have been the talk of the town.

“I talked to the astrologer,” her husband said. “He says it’s because of the positions of Rahu and Ketu, and we shouldn’t do anything until the malign influence passes.” From inside his room, Samsamurthy could hear Appa’s urgent whisper. “Most of all,” he said, “we can’t let it out that this happened. Who would marry Umaparvathi then?”

“I don’t want to get married,” Umaparvathi said sullenly. “I want to become an engineer.”

Her parents ignored her. “This is what happens when we don’t keep tight control over children,” Appa said. “They go wild and then the gods get angry, and this kind of thing happens. I told you again and again, he needs to be beaten, but you would never let me put a hand on him. Now see where that gets you.”

Samsamurthy tried to protest, but only ended up hissing angrily.

“Listen to him!” Amma said. “The poor boy must be suffering. Now if only Lord Balaji takes pity on him then everything will be all right.”

“In any case,” Appa responded, “he has to recover quickly, so as to keep earning. We can’t risk his losing his job.”

“At a time like this,” Amma sobbed, “all you can think of is money?”

“Well, what do you suggest I think about? If he doesn’t recover, who’s going to earn? Do you expect me to go to work at my age?”

“I can work,” Umaparvathi declared. “I can easily get a salesgirl’s job in Muthuswamy and Sons. They pay well, and I can work in the evening, after school. All I’d have to do is give up music class. I hate music class anyway.”

Neither parent looked at her. “Your music class is important,” Amma said. “You’ll be able to get a better husband if you can sing. And I won’t let you go work somewhere like Muthuswamy where you can talk to boys.”

“The astrologer told me he’ll do some special calculations tonight,” Appa said to Amma. “He’ll be able to say when the influence of Rahu and Ketu will ease.”

“Give your brother some dosa to eat,” Amma told the girl. “He’ll be hungry and dosa is his favourite.”

The thought of dosa made Samsamurthy’s stomach turn over just as the naked woman in the poster had earlier, but he was hungry. Suddenly he realised he was famished. So when his sister pushed open the door and timidly slid a plate of dosa into the room, he made an attempt to eat. But he could not taste the food at all, and found it excessively crumbly – his mouth parts couldn’t handle it. So he flung it down again, and, disconsolately wandering about the room, suddenly he smelt something that felt to him like heaven. Throwing himself upon the bookcase, he pulled out the school textbooks, and, one by one, began to eat the paste binding the pages together.

Later, he had a sudden idea. He had heard Appa going out, stomping angrily across the floor, and knew he was going to the astrologer to find out what the reading had disclosed. Amma was sitting in front of her household shrine, praying loudly, and Umaparvathi had gone to evening music class. He decided to see if he could crawl up the wall and through the ventilator under the ceiling.

It turned out to be extremely easy. His spiny legs proved able to adhere easily to the plaster, and his broad but flat body squeezed without difficulty through the narrow space. He didn’t even have as much trouble breathing as he’d had down on the floor.

He squatted on the terrace of the building, looking out at the city, and especially at the big shopping complex opposite. Without too much difficulty, he thought, he’d be able to crawl across the intervening space and through ventilators like the one he’d just come through, all the better to find things he could eat, like the wonderful glue earlier in the day. He could even perhaps rob a safe or two and bring back the money, and leave it lying around, so his parents wouldn’t feel the pinch. He’d do it tomorrow, he thought. For tonight, it was enough that he knew he could do it.

After a while, he climbed back through the window, rooted around and ate a little more, and then went to sleep.

That night he had a dream. He was scuttling around in a huge room full of other insects, all of whom were very attractive and female. One particular lady cockroach drew his attention immediately, with her long sexy antennae and the come-hither look in her smouldering compound eyes. He ran after her, trying to caress her with his own antennae, but she kept on flicking him away. At last, with an angry hiss, she scuttled away faster than he could follow, squeezed through a hole in the floor, and disappeared. And when Samsamurthy looked around, he found that all the others had disappeared as well. He was alone.

He woke so bitterly disappointed that it was some time before he realised that his spine was aching. This was followed by the discovery that he had a spine, and a moment after that he realised that he had the usual four limbs again, and a nose and mouth and the rest of it. In the wan light of dawn, he saw that he was sprawled on top of his terrible soft mattress, human once more.

“Ayyaiyyo,” he said. “I wonder if I’m attracted to women again? There’s only one way to find out.”

Leaping up eagerly, he bent under the bed and pulled out the poster, his heart already thumping with excitement. And then, looking at it, he let out a hollow groan.

Sometime during the evening, he’d eaten most of it.

By: Bill the Butcher

The sky outside is reddening with the glow of the sunrise. Soon, the sun will push above the horizon, as red as the blood which will soon follow.

For today will be the day the war ends, the day when we make the final victorious assault.

From inside my tent, I can hear the noise of the army preparing for action. To the untutored ear it will be as chaos, a medley of purposeless sound, as of a crowd, but the military ear can easily pick out the shout of orders from the crack of whips urging on the lowing oxen as they strain in the harnesses dragging up the big guns, the creak of the cannons’ carriage wheels from the tramp of marching boots. It’s a grand sound, marking the transformation of the army from a collection of men and animals and weapons into a single fighting force.

Many times, in the past, I’ve heard that sound, sitting in my tent, and thrilled at the knowledge that this great instrument of war was mine to command. And to this day, every army under my command has won every battle it has ever fought. The instrument of war has never failed me.

I have no doubt that it will not fail me now, but for the first time ever, the thought brings no joy.

I should be going out now, out of the tent to where my staff officers await me, to plan out the battle; I have to go, but I don’t want to, not today. I want to postpone the going as long as possible, because the coming battle fills me with dread. The fact that I know quite well that we shall win is the most dreadful thing of all.

If only I could have, I think, I’d have left this battle to one of my generals, but on this occasion I have to be in command. It’s perhaps the most important battle of my life, certainly the most important I’ve fought since I ascended the throne, and the fact that I’m going to win it makes no difference to that at all. I cannot leave it to a general – not even the most trustworthy of them is quite trustworthy enough for this.

From where I’m sitting, if I look over my left shoulder, I can see the battlements of the fort through the tent’s entrance, the red sandstone like clotted blood in the dawn. I know this fort very well. I lived in it for years, and each passage, each staircase, is familiar and precious to me. Yet, today, my own artillery is going to blow those walls down.

Right now, the captains of artillery will be emplacing the batteries of cannon so as to be able to concentrate their fire on vulnerable spots of the fort wall; spots I’ve marked out myself, because there’s nobody in this army who knows this fort quite as well as I do. My artillery, bought from the French down on the coast, is the best anyone in this country has, and my gunners, trained by the same French, can hit a coin-sized target with the fire of an entire battery at these distances.

The enemy, who crouch now behind those battlements, and stare out fearfully through slit windows at our army’s trenches and earthworks, know these things too. They know that their defeat is certain, and that before the day is out our flag will fly above their fortress and those of them who survive will be in chains and dreading the morrow. That is the lot of the weaker side in battle, and always has been, and I wouldn’t normally feel the tiniest grain of pity for them. If the situation had been reversed, they would have given as little quarter as we’d give them.

But this time it’s different, because the enemy army in the fort is of our own people, not an invading horde; and their commander, the rebel against my Imperial Crown, is my son.

*******************************

The partly folded-back flap at the tent’s entrance is raised slightly, and my colonel of cavalry peeps in. “Sire,” he says, “the officers are waiting.” He looks faintly surprised to see me not yet dressed for battle in my chain mail vest and helmet. “We’re waiting for you, Sire,” he repeats.

“Yes,” I grunt, without rising. “I’m coming.” The colonel of cavalry has a thin, ratlike face with wispy grey whiskers. I don’t like him at all, but I can count on his loyalty – and in a civil war, loyalty is a rare and precious resource. “I’m coming,” I repeat, and finally he withdraws, still staring. The tent flap falls back into place.

It’s a strange thing, loyalty. If you’d asked me which of my senior officers would stick with me if one of my sons had risen in rebellion, this cavalry colonel wouldn’t have been among those I’d have thought of. But the general I’d have named, who’s been at my side through many campaigns, is now in that fort, by the side of his chosen new master, my son.

My son, the Prince Jamil, the rebel and traitor.

I still remember the shock I’d felt when the news of his rebellion had first reached me. It’s not that I’d been oblivious to the possibility that one of my sons might rebel, but he would have been the last one I’d have expected. I’ve not yet named an heir, but I’d planned on him succeeding me. All he’d have had to do was wait.

Now, of course, there’s no question of anything like that.

Before I’d left the capital on campaign, his mother had come to me. The Begum Sahiba Faizunnisa isn’t my principal wife, but she is and has always been one of my favourites. I’d been talking to one of my ministers, and she’d waited quietly until I’d finished and the man had gone.

“What are you going to do?” she’d asked. Her eyes had been red and swollen from crying, but, typically, she’d lined them with kohl and made herself beautiful before coming to me. “He’s not really a bad boy,” she’d pleaded. “He’s been put up to it by others.”

This is actually almost certainly true. I even know who those people are, plotting to be the powers behind the new occupant of the throne. My assassins have already gone to take care of those of them who are within reach. But that makes no difference as far as he’s concerned.

“Whether that’s true or not,” I’d explained, “it’s not just against me, personally, that he’s raised his hand in rebellion, but against the Empire. If the Empire has to endure, I can’t allow any kind of rebellion or secession, and I can’t forgive rebels and traitors. You do see that?”

“But Jamil is your son,” she’d pleaded. “You watched him being born. You’ve played with him on the floor and you held his hands when he first learnt to walk. He’s not like your Ethiopian or Hindu generals or one of those oily Turkish ministers. Can’t you just forgive him this once?”

“And then what?” I’d asked her. “Suppose I do forgive him. Will he be willing to let the past go? Will his backers allow that? Or will they keep on with their intrigues?”

“I could get a message to him.” Of course she has her own network of spies and couriers; everyone does. It’s a necessity of survival in the political maze of the Court. “I could tell him to ditch them and come back to you. He might listen to me.”

“That wouldn’t work,” I’d explained. “Do you think this can be allowed to pass? However much I want to, I can’t spare him. See here, Faizun,” I’d added, sitting by her and taking her hands in mine. “What kind of message would I be sending out if I forgave him? That anyone can get away with raising his hand against the Imperial Throne if he’s got the right family? Just how long do you think it would take before my other sons rebelled too? They’re already straining at the leash. In six months the Empire would dissolve in civil war, brother fighting brother to succeed me.” I didn’t add that we were already in civil war, and that the provincial governors were watching with keen interest. Unless I scotched the rebellion speedily and brutally, the more distant provinces would begin declaring independence, and after that we’d never stop the slide. She’s more than intelligent enough to work that out for herself.

“Well then,” she’d said, and it was clearly her last throw of the dice. “Abdicate in his favour. Hand him over the entire Empire while it’s still intact.”

“It’s too late for that, Faizun,” I’d replied. “The moment Jamil took the advice of those who put him up to this, he showed himself unfit to wear the crown. Somebody who doesn’t know his own mind can never be the Emperor. At times like this, a weak monarch will bring disaster down on everyone. Besides,” I’d added, cruelly but unable to help myself, “nobody who launches a rebellion quite so incompetently can be allowed to succeed. Anyone fit to win the crown should fight for it properly or not at all.”

“At least then,” she’d begged, “spare his life. Can you at least do that?”

I’d said nothing, unwilling to make a promise I knew I couldn’t keep. Faizunnisa caught it at once.

“You love him,” she’d wailed. “You must save him for the sake of that love!”

“It’s because I love him,” I’d finally told her, shaking my head, “that I can’t spare his life, and won’t. If I take him prisoner, at the very least I’d have to blind him and lock him away for the rest of his life. The other princes will settle for nothing else. Can’t you see that? And when I die, the first thing whoever succeeds me will do is have him poisoned. He’ll spend years in a tiny room, unable to see, waiting for death to come without notice in his food or water. Do you want that for him, Faizun?”

“Go, then,” she’d said, turning her face away, and, rising, left on silent feet without saying goodbye. I’ve not seen her again since then.

Sighing at the memory, I get up from my stool and beginning pulling on my armour. From my days as a soldier, I’ve always preferred to do this for myself, clumsy as the chain mail is and though it would be convenient to have an attendant. Also, I always use the armour of an ordinary officer; the only function a king’s ornate helmet and breastplate have, it seems to me, is to attract the attention of any enemy soldier with a good musket and a keen aim.

Outside the tent, the noise is beginning to die down, as the army settles itself and readies for the battle. The artillery will be emplaced now, behind the earthworks my men have thrown up overnight, their cannonballs stacked in pyramids behind them. The infantry will be waiting, crouching in their trenches, waiting for the thunder of the guns. And once a hole is blasted in the sandstone walls, they’ll charge the breach, hunched over, hidden in the swirling clouds of dust and gunsmoke. The cavalry, under the whiskery officer who had looked in on me, will sweep out to the flanks, to prevent the enemy breaking out in an attempt to escape.

The slaughter shall be savage. I know this, having seen it many times before. The terraces of this fort will be washed in blood by the time the fighting ends; and the blood will be all our own, the blood of brothers fighting each other to the death.

I wish it could have been different. I wish I might have tried siege warfare, to starve the other side into submission, but there’s no time for that. Nor is there any time to try and establish contact with the men inside the fort, to sniff out someone to bribe and open the gates. This war must be concluded at the earliest, before anyone among the generals or the governors begins getting ideas.

Outside, my officers will be waiting, for the final briefings before I give the word for the artillery barrage to begin and signal the start of battle. I will go out to them in a minute, but I take one last moment to whisper a message to my son, Prince Jamil, in the fort across the lines.

“My son,” I tell him, as though my whisper could reach his ear. “Do you remember, once, how we had gone out hunting the lion, you and I? Do you remember how the lion had turned at bay, full of valour to the last, ready to die but not to yield? You had called that lion a hero, and asked me to spare its life.” I visualised the scene as I remembered it, the tawny monster backing away into the scrub, yellow fangs bared, defiant even in escape. “I have just one request to you. Do not permit yourself to be brought to me in chains, broken in spirit and cringing. Do not let yourself be taken alive. Fight, with knife and sword, with musket and bare hands, but fight until you are killed. Die as you would have wanted to have lived, like the lion, like a hero. Make me proud of you, my son. Make me proud.”

Ducking my head to avoid my peaked helmet catching on the tent cloth, I go out into the red glow of the rising sun.

Anarcho-Syndicalist Flag

By: Azazel

I find myself alone in the church again – not praying for divine comfort but seeking a real answer for everything that has happened recently: the carnage that was, what could have been, is imprinted upon my mind and I want to know just what God would allow this to be.  I’ve been told that evil is the result of free will but also that man is finite and must obey his obligations. Did the riot cops willfully pull the trigger on that poor girl or were they bound to another authority (one that supposedly punishes the evil doer, no less) – and would they have chosen to slaughter the others gathered that day if they weren’t destroyed themselves or would they simply be doing their duty to a higher authority?

Both answers being disturbing in their own way, of course.  If the answer is the former, then God gave man free will because he wants suffering (otherwise why give man the power to harm others – being omniscient God must know that this would be the result, right?).  If the second, then God wants us to fulfill our obligations to society before ourselves or even our fellow man – if fulfilling those obligations to society brings suffering it’s God’s will being imposed over our needs (as God has given society the authority to carry out those acts in the first place): and in both cases this makes God a petty tyrant as far as I can tell – I know that I’m not supposed to cast judgment on the Almighty, but after what I saw that day I can’t help but ask what kind of a world I really live in; do I live in a world where the good man makes any difference or must one be evil to make any kind of mark whatsoever – why is it that the godless people my cousin affiliates with make more of an impact in society than the virtuous ones we’re supposed to follow as an ideal example for living?

Is there any point in the suffering of the righteous?  Or is it all some kind of joke with no punch line?

I find myself reflecting on everything that happened after that fateful day – since the riots in the streets that culminated in the lynching of the police chief.  The unrest in the air inspired the protesting workers to take up arms themselves (against the advisements of the organizers – which have since fallen out of favor…), which led to Dmitri taking the weapons I acquired out of storage and he began to train them (with the help of my cousins associates, of course) into an urban guerrilla unit: the majority of the workers who volunteered to be part of the armed resistance have never held a gun before in their lives, but were more than willing to give their very lives if it meant a *chance* at amounting to something more than slave labor at the docks.  With Dmitri acting as commander of this makeshift armed force that quickly grew in power, they accomplished so much that the unions failed to do: while negotiations for more reasonable wages fell on deaf ears, a few anonymous men holding several members of the management for ransom resulted in the company paying the entire staff a full year’s salary *up front* (which many workers simply walked off with after the fact); where pleas for reasonable quotas failed, the expropriation of product by force of arms has resulted in a reduction lower production requirements (obsessively out of “security concerns” -  but that’s just what Dmitri demanded of them).  And all attempts on the part of the company to meet force with force have failed because their own security forces aren’t strong enough to fight us (many guards simply throw down their weapons when men with rifles and balaclavas approach) and the police are too busy dealing with civil unrest elsewhere to be a factor in this conflict!

I’ve been told over and over again since childhood that it’s impossible to destroy the master’s house with the master’s tools, but that’s exactly what I see around me – those who are skilled in the use of violence and intimidation are effectively repelling a society that thrives on the same.  Come to think of it, this saying doesn’t even work as a metaphor (as any tool used to build can also destroy when used properly): just as a hammer can build up and break down walls, so too can force build up and destroy whole societies – regardless of who claims ownership of the tool, it serves the will of the man who wields it rather than the man who says it’s rightfully his.

Tell me right now God – why is this?  Why is it that the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper and that the only means the righteous have of defeating the wicked is to use their own means against them?  We are told that the meek will inherit the earth, but all observable evidence tells me that the earth belongs to those who have the strength to reach out and take what they want.  Why is this?  Answer me damn it!

The only reply to my queries is silence – I have my answer.  The only excuse that God has for making such a world with contradictory, hypocritical principles forced on us is that he does not exist: that everything I was told was sacred and holy throughout my life is one big lie and that I’ve tortured myself over staying true to these values for nothing – that I should have abandoned this shit long ago.

With that realization I get up and walk out of the church – past the worn and crumbling statue of Christ for the last time…

***

After a final farewell to my old faith I pay a visit to the makeshift headquarters for our militia (we haven’t even given it a name yet) – while there are cells spread out all over town (as well as out in the countryside), most of the command and control functions come from an abandoned warehouse not five miles from the docks I once worked at.  Here Dmitri and a number of representatives elected by each cell plot the course of action this force will take: Dmitri has a solid grip on the title of commander (due to having trained under Gerald Simmons himself – a legend among resistance groups worldwide), but as a matter of practicality the reps from the individual cells hold plenty of influence over his decisions.  Although I sit among them at their meetings where logistics and strategy are contemplated and bear the title of emissary (as I negotiate trades between ourselves and the other armed factions that have sprouted up), I’m very much out of my element – I am really just a glorified “go-fer” in practice, but nonetheless it remains a fact that none of us would be here if not for my decisive actions at the start of the strike.

Sitting among the talk of politics and strategy, my mind wanders off think of how far we’ve come.  What started as a couple dozen angry men is now a force of over a hundred and still growing – with the present level of social unrest being what it is the recruiting grounds are fertile and views that were once only expressed behind closed doors are now becoming more widespread in public (despite the claims of the news networks).  The question is no longer one of whether it’s possible for us to successfully fight the corporate powers that enslave us, but what direction we want to take the fight in: among the youngest recruits there is a hard-core Marxist and Guaverist following who long to see cessation from the U.S. and the establishment of a workers’ collective here (a viewpoint that has become very popular since the rise of the PFLC in the wake of the Roberta Paulson incident), among the older workers there is the desire to keep our operations as they now and use force of arms to ensure that the company doesn’t fuck them over as before (of course, this can only be maintained as long as the police are too busy dealing with the street demonstrations and other armed groups to seriously deal with us) and still there are others (particularly Dmitri) who have seen first-hand the effects of centralized power in an oppressive role and desire to dismantle both capitalism and the state so that all means of production are owned on a community level (instituting an Anarcho-syndicalist society).

As for me I shall continue to serve my role as emissary for contacts for our upstart resistance (regardless of what path it ultimately takes – I’m responsible for its existence and will see through whatever purpose those involved with set to the end), yet there are concerns in the back of my mind.  I have no doubt that this force can withstand the assaults of the company (and the state to a degree), but this eclectic set of motivations threatens to tear us apart before our true potential can be realized…

“Jorge” says a voice from the far end of the table that draws me back to the present – “You are a founding member of this group.  So what input do you have regarding the direction we should take now?”  Ah, how I was just hoping that they would just settle this issue among themselves: I have no mind for politics, but I knew this would come up eventually.

“Well…” I stumble around looking for an answer – “I suppose that the best solution is to just put that up to a vote and let our own units decide that.”  And who could object: regardless of our ideological differences, we’re all about the power of the working people – yes?

“Haven’t you been listening?” the man replies – “opinions among our operatives are split has to what goals we should work toward.  Show some leadership already and tell us if you think it’s better to join forces with the PFLC under their banner or remain an independent militia!”  Having no answer for him, I excuse myself from the room and wait out the rest of the meeting.

Once the meeting concludes and security sweeps completed (as a precaution, the warehouse is secured before and after every meeting) I met Dmitri by his car so that we might have a couple of drinks before the night ends – as I step in the passenger seat Dmitri turns his head and looks at me with a stern face.  “So, just where do you think we should go?” he asks.  “To the bar?”  I meekly reply.

He let’s out a frustrated sigh – “you know what I mean.  Don’t tell me you can’t speak your mind in the presence of a trusted friend.”  I turn and look out the window towards the docks, and with a deep breath I tell him that I have no idea: “I honestly didn’t look this far ahead – my concerns have always been for immediate survival in a world of shit.  I had the insight to get this movement off the ground, but I’m not a man of vision or some kind of natural leader like you.”

“Well,” he lets out as he starts the engine – “like it or not our fighters now look to you for guidance: I don’t want to unduly influence you here, but this is a crossroads and we need all the input we can get.”  I turn my head back towards him, cracking a smirk as I quip about my word potentially contradicting his own.  To which he replies “especially if it contradicts mine.  Now let’s get some scotch.”

***

Dmitri and I had just finished our drinks and were leaving the bar – as we got in the car and were about to leave the parking lot I notice a large, black van approach from down the street: moving at high speed, it immediately cut us off from the exit – behind us I see two more vans just like it proceeding to cut off the other parking lot exit and the front door to the bar.

Within seconds, three men clad in black body armor and carrying assault rifles surround the car and demand to see our identification – Dmitri and I come out with our hands in the air and comply with the demands of these men.  At the same time more of them pour into the bar, proceeding to drag out multiple patrons and also demanding identification from them: they then begin dragging certain people away from there – no reading of Miranda rights, no word on charges brought against them.  Nothing.

Dmitri recognizes this from his own home country – some shots ring out from behind the bar, distracting two of the men guarding us: as the only remaining man watched his compatriots move towards the gunfire, he began to reach for a Colt 1911 he had stashed in the side of the car: as the remaining guard turns around to find Dmitri with a .45 to his head, he wastes no time shooting him point blank in the head.  The death of our guard gives me time to dive into the backseat for a 12-gauge he kept back there.  No sooner than I grab the shotgun do two more men in black come out of the van blocking us, only to be quickly dispatched by Dmitri and I and leaving us in control of their van.

As I start the van’s engines the other men in black fire on the vehicle – apparently this is an armored police vehicle (which keeps us from being immediately turned into Swiss cheese), but  we can’t keep taking shots like this.  I gun the engine and put distance between us and the men in black, only looking back to see if I was being chased: but as I turned my head I do not see anyone chasing us, but rather the sight of motorcycles and muzzle flashes – whoever those men were after this night, it apparently wasn’t us…

***

Tonight is a critical moment in our history – the close call at bar a few weeks back awakened me to the fact that this urban guerrilla unit must evolve or die.  Yes, the Homeland Security agents (as our sources have since identified the men in black) were looking to bust a meeting between the PFLC and a Lawless chapter that night but it won’t be much longer before we are in the crosshairs of the state as well: we can’t continue to simply harass the company and expect to get away with it anymore – we have to escalate to stay viable as a unit, and to that end we need allies.

During the last meeting we had at the warehouse I finally took an active role in leadership – proposing that we expand our goals in the direction Dmitri had previously outlined, starting with recruiting assistance from the other guerrillas via a demonstration of our competence as fighters along with gesture of goodwill: I proposed that we assemble our fighters and break out the PFLC and Lawless members that were arrested during the bar raid – such an act would be bold enough to prove our ability and both factions would appreciate the return of their people.

And now, that is what I stand poised to do – our sources tell us that the prisoners are being held at a detention facility set up by FEMA in a vacant lot near the train depot: the facility is heavily guarded by Homeland Security agents and a National Guard detachment as well as local SWAT teams – but Jeffe tells me that a little after nine tonight much of that force will abandon the post.

How does he know this?  “I know a guy who can arrange for it.”  That’s all he can tell me – had he not come through for me before when I needed him I would not be here, hiding in a roadside ditch under a camouflage net.  I check my watch to see that it’s now 9:02 and feel my heart leap to my throat: I wasn’t given an exact time when to expect the enemy to leave the base but a part of me starts to have doubts – as if he could sense my anxiety, Jeffe (who is under a net behind me) softy whispers “it’s almost time.”

What seems like an eternity has passed and I once again look at my watch – 9:10.  And still no sign of the guards leaving the compound.  Then in the distance I hear the cracking of gunfire: lots of it – and it sounds as though it comes from the center of town.  Where the demonstrations are being held…

Suddenly the creaking sounds of a gate swinging wide ring out – I hear some powerful engines rumbling down the road.  Tanks?  APCs?  Whatever they are I can tell you that it’s no civilian vehicle I’ve ever encountered: as they pass by our camouflaged position in the ditch I count at least half a dozen of them before the rumble of the engines fades in the distance (presumably towards the continuing sounds of gunfire from downtown) – I rise up out of my position, take my binoculars and peer into the FEMA compound.  It seems that at least two-thirds of the total armed force in the area has been removed, which makes our mission that much easier.

Jeffe takes two other goes into a sewage tunnel at the end of the ditch and drives out our vehicles – three pick-up trucks with some light machine guns (acquired from the Black Flag, who, presumably, took them from government troops) mounted in the back.  I man the turret of one of the vehicles and on my signal two of the trucks drive out into the field near the compound’s west end while my truck attacks the front gate: I fire short bursts into the watchtowers to pin down the snipers whilst the truck break through the gate – then we proceed to drive towards the guard barracks and shower the rudely awakened soldiers in a hail of lead.

As I keep the troops busy, Jeffe has the other trucks smash gaps in the razor-wire fences – allowing the imprisoned dissidents to make a run for freedom, during which they search out the Lawless and PFLC members we came for: within two minutes, Jeffe raises me on the radio and tells me that over 100 people slipped through the gaps in the fences – of which were most of the men we came for, leaving only one man on our list.  A man the prisoners we’ve just rescued identify as Skegs.

One of the prisoners informs Jeffe that this Skegs is being held for interrogation and that he may be incapacitated – he was last seen on the north side of the camp: the place where I’m presently engaged in a firefight with the surviving guards – without a moment’s hesitation I order the driver to take control of the machine gun.  I then take out my 12-guage and have the two riflemen in the passenger’s seats to come with me towards what’s been identified as the prisoner’s infirmary; if this Skegs is incapacitated this is where he will most likely be.

There is hardly any resistance encountered on the way to the infirmary – it seems that we caught them completely unprepared for a fight and pinned most of the guards down at their own barracks.  I raise my shotgun to shoulder, breach the door and take point going into the medical ward: what greets my eyes is the sight of a multitude of broken bodies and only slightly less broken minds – most hardly took any notice of our presence as we make our way down the hall of gurneys lined up in this plywood shelter, and the few that do believe us to be their torturers.  Screams for mercy fill from these poor souls echo in our ears as we approach the end of the corridor of beds, finding this Skegs we are searching for deprived of the use of his legs.

The riflemen fetch a stretcher and proceed to carry him out the door while I take point once more – this time, right around the corner of an adjacent structure,  I encounter a figure in an officer’s uniform with a Berretta pointed at my head.  Without a moments hesitation I put two rounds of buckshot into his body, killing him instantly.  With less than 20 yards separating my men from the truck, I send them ahead of me while I identify the officer: as I approach the corpse, I see a colonel’s insignia – right away, I knew I had killed the commandant and decapitated the chain of command.

After taking his Berretta as a trophy, I sprint for the truck – I arrive in time to find my men loading Skegs into the back whilst the driver continues to deliver intermittent suppressive fire when appropriate.  I hop in the driver’s seat, get on the radio and declare this mission over: I then take us out of the base to meet Jeffe at our rendezvous point where the prisoners will be returned to their own people – and the cause of our newly-formed workers’ army will grow stronger for the bonds formed this night…

B Purkayastha

That was the day they were going to fit the girl with her artificial leg at the clinic.

The girl and her mother were already waiting outside when the doctor arrived, the girl sitting on a small plastic stool. The mother was peering anxiously down the street in the wrong direction, and the girl attracted her attention by tugging on her ao dai at the doctor’s approach. She turned, with a relieved smile.

“Good morning,” the doctor said carefully. It wasn’t easy for her to speak the language, because the tonal variations often proved too much for her to manage. “I am glad to see you.”

The mother ducked her head, grinning shyly. She looked even thinner and more tired than when the doctor had seen her last, three weeks ago, when she had come for the check-up and measurement of the girl’s stump. The girl herself was happy and cheerful, just as she’d been each time the doctor had seen her.

The girl’s name was Truong. She was seven years old, with a round face which fell naturally into a grin – a grin made even more engaging by the fact that she was in the stage of losing her upper front milk teeth. She was vivacious, friendly, and in love with the world – even though she had lost her left foot and most of the leg below the knee.

The doctor had done the emergency amputation herself, several months ago, just three days after arriving in the country. She still remembered the mangled mess of tattered flesh and splintered bone which had hung from the girl’s unconscious body, that night in the hospital with the big moths fluttering at the window. She had done what she could, clamping off the blood vessels in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, knowing that despite all her efforts the girl was almost certainly going to die.

Truong had stepped on an anti-personnel land mine. She’d been running through the fields with her family dog, when the mine had gone off under her left foot and hurled her through the air, her lower leg smashed. The dog, who hadn’t been harmed, had fetched help, otherwise Truong would have bled to death right there in the field.

The country was full of the mines, left over from the war, though the war was over a decade or more ago. They were vicious little things, flat plastic cans coloured to match the earth and leaf mould, and not even merciful enough to kill outright. They were far more sadistic than that.

The doctor had come to this country specifically because of the landmines. She’d heard of them, of course, with some disquiet but not a lot of interest. After all, they were only ever used in little bush wars on the opposite side of the planet. And then, one day, just after she’d finished her surgical residency, she’d – to please a friend, an anti-mine activist – gone along to an exhibition by an anti-landmine group in the city.

The exhibition had a lot of things that had dismayed and disturbed her – pictures of wounded kids and crippled farmers, dogs and buffaloes with missing legs, maps of the countries where mines had been planted with shading indicating just how much still needed to be cleared, the legacy of long-dead wars.  But the most disturbing part of the exhibit had been much more personal.

It was simply a stretch of raked ground, over which visitors were invited to walk. What they didn’t know, but soon found out, was that fake anti-personnel mines had been randomly planted under the dirt, ready to go off at the slightest pressure and shower their legs with puffs of talcum powder. The doctor had frozen, terrified, halfway through the stretch, suddenly wet with a cold sweat as she imagined the talcum powder replaced by high explosive and shrapnel.

The next day she had signed up with a UN agency as a volunteer to do mine-clearance work. They had accepted her with open joy, because they’d needed someone like her. As a surgeon, she was assigned to a trauma clinic, to repair the damage done by the mines, not to remove the mines themselves. But she was still an important part of the effort.

She was also throwing away a lucrative career as a surgeon in one of the top hospitals of her home city. Nobody had understood – not her parents, not her classmates from the medical college, not even the activist friend she had gone to the exhibition with. But it was not important that they understand. Two weeks later, she’d been on a long distance flight, with vaccines in her body and no clear idea of what awaited her in her mind.

And three days after that, there had been Truong. Looking at the girl now, the doctor still couldn’t quite make herself believe she’d survived. The morning after the surgery, it had seemed a miracle enough that she was still alive. And now, several months later, the stump had healed up and she was finally going to get her prosthesis.

As the doctor inspected and massaged the stump of her leg, Truong prattled on in her own language. The doctor could only understand a word here and there, and got only that the girl was talking about all the things she intended to do with her new leg.

“You will have to take great care of the stump,” the doctor told the mother, slowly and carefully. The instructions could have been given much more quickly and clearly by one of the nurses, and in any case would be repeated by them, but it was important to her that they would be understood. She felt personally responsible for Truong. One of the things she asked herself sometimes was that if it had been another, more experienced surgeon, whether the girl’s leg perhaps couldn’t have been saved. “You must wash the stump daily with soap and water, dry it and apply the elastic sock, and after that…”

As she spoke, fumbling for the words, the doctor looked up at the mother, wondering if the other woman herself thought someone older and more experienced might not have saved her daughter’s foot, and if she secretly distrusted the doctor, this big ugly foreign woman with the freckled pink skin and straggling brown hair. But the mother was only listening, nodding her head, and clutching her daughter’s hand tight, so tight that Truong winced and said something sharply.

Afterwards, when the false leg was fitted and Truong took her first few steps, the doctor looked up suddenly from the girl to find the mother’s eyes were fixed on her. She had a very strange expression in her eyes, and once again the doctor wondered if the woman shared her doubts about whether the girl’s leg could have been saved. But the woman, though thin and aged beyond her years, had a kind of grave tired dignity, and it was impossible to see through it to her real emotions.

Later, when the leg had been adjusted and Truong had achieved some control over it, the mother smiled, almost apologetically. “Thank you, doctor,” she said, slowly so the doctor could understand. “We, her father and I, we did not think she would be able to walk again.”

The doctor was embarrassed, and began going over the care of the prosthesis again. But the woman laid a hand on her arm.

“I know all that,” she said. “You told me already, doctor. Her father had said, it is enough if she lives. But when he found out she can walk, he could not stop crying.”

“Her father?” The doctor asked uncertainly. She had never seen the girl’s father. He had not come even the first time, the night of the mine, and the woman had not mentioned him earlier, not even once. “He cried?”

The woman nodded her head with slow gravity. “Her father, you are wondering why he did not come. Four years ago, when Truong was three, he stepped on a mine. It blew both his legs off at the thigh. Walking is like a miracle to him.”

Smiling again, gently, she took her daughter’s hand and led her out of the clinic.

@2012 B Purkayastha

By:  Drew White

“You up?”
“No.” I respond.
“You asleep?”
“No.” I respond.
“You holding?”
I take a deep drag and hold it.
“I’m coming over.”
I hang up.

I had a ferret as a kid. I used to try to sleep with it, but it would end up trying to eat my face.

Change the channel. I hear. I didn’t know anybody was here. I toss the controller over. They should make a show about ferrets. Ferret Whisperer, but the host would be Puerto Rican.

How long have you been up? I hear. I glance over. She’s attractive, so I respond.

“I slept Monday.”
“Today’s Monday.”
“I slept on a Monday.”

I stab my Pall Mall into a dozen other Pall Mall’s in what used to be a shoe but is now an ash tray. I never named my ferret. Or any other animal. I just called it ferret, the dog “dog,” the cat “cat,” so on and so forth although my dad would sometimes call the dog dumb bitch which was sometimes confusing because that was also my mom’s name.

“Did you know orcas are a member of the dolphin family?” We are watching Animal Planet. “Yes.” I respond. “How’d you know?” Hot Girl asks. I don’t answer. “Majestic animals. They’re like the elephant of the sea.” Her eyes shift slightly. “One day evolution will happen and they’ll jump out of the ocean and fly away.” She adds and then starts asking a string of rhetorical questions.

I hear the fridge open. I didn’t know anybody was here.
“Grab me some food will ya!” I yell into the kitchen.
“There’s nothing in here man.” I hear.
“Go get some food will ya!” I yell.
“You got any ice?”
“Check the freezer!”
“I mean crystal!”
“You wanna smoke?”
“Hell yea!”
“Check the freezer!”

The universe is approximately thirteen point eight billion years old. After the big bang, gases began to accumulate to form stars. Soon, immense heat began to cause a process called nuclear fusion, which is responsible for creating every element known to man, the most abundant being carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen. Fast forward thirteen point seven nine nine nine billion years later and we combine those elements to synthesize amphetamine. Fast forward to yesterday and we synthesize methamphetamine in my basement. Fast forward to now and we’re smoking it. It took thirteen point eight billion years for a tiny piece of star to end up in this pipe.

And have you ever heard of these secret programs designed to keep George Washington alive? Hot Girl keeps rambling.

A guy I have never met until now comes in with a baggie and a donut. “I thought there wasn’t any food.” I say. He stops, my meth in one hand, donut in the other, holds them up chest high as if to ask which one I want although I’m pretty sure they’re both mine. “Halvsies.” I say and he shoves the entire donut in his mouth, so I leap at him before he eats the bag too.

Three people run the entire world. Three. And you know what? Only one’s a Jew.

I toss the baggie and the pipe to Hot Girl, hoping it will shut her up, but without missing a beat, she starts to load the pipe and continues on.

Clouds aren’t real.

I glare at the television and there’s this pelican swooping into the ocean, picking up fish to eat whole and the fish live in their stomachs for a little while because they’re still alive. Pelican’s prefer to breed on islands. I suppose, so would humans.

Someone opens the front door, looks at me, then the tv, then back to the door and says “Knock, knock.”

“Was it you that called?” I ask, then I realize I don’t know this man. “I came to smoke.” Then he nods at the guy I don’t know. Now, there are two guys I don’t know. I hear the click of the butane lighter as Hot Girl presses the glass pipe to her lips, still talking out of the side of her mouth, and I shit you not, she keeps talking as she inhales. Unpressurized butane boils at room temperature.

The new guy I don’t know sits on the futon next to Hot Girl and starts nodding his head to everything she’s saying as the old guy I don’t know starts spouting off in excitement. “Crystal. Meth. Crystal. Meth. Shaboo. Shaboo. Shaboo.”

I read a book about morality and it said something about conditional relevance and how every situation needs to be perceived as if it is the only situation that has ever occurred.

I slept with two midgets. She passes the pipe to me. No wait. I’ve slept with one midget. The other guy was just really short. She exhales. Maybe I just slept with two short guys.

And then I smoke and pass so everyone gets a turn at the product, oh wait MY product, and one of the guy’s I don’t know, I think it’s the new one but could be the old one starts making out with Hot Girl, and I care for a little bit because I think she’s my girlfriend, but I can’t say for sure so I don’t make it an issue.

“Have you slept?” The guy making out with Hot Girl asks. “Monday.” She answers for me. “Today’s Monday.” He responds, confused. The other guy pushes a joint in my face and there’s laughter as I stare at four lion cubs playing under the supervision of their mother without a care in the world.

I purposefully roll my eyes back into my head and begin a controlled breathing exercise I learned from my neighbor who learned it from the likes of Tom Petty. The lungs consist of fifteen hundred miles of airways. The average person takes twenty two thousand breaths per day. That’s thirty three million miles in twenty four hours. I know that’s relevant, but I’m not sure why.

The phone rings. I pick it up and before I say hello I hear “I’m coming over.” I hang up and tap Hot Girl on the shoulder as they are making out. “Are you my girlfriend?” She nods with her tongue in his mouth.

There’s this beautiful tree on the TV and a giraffe is lazily picking at it, and I’m slowly inhaling and exhaling, managing my anxiety and trying not to feel betrayed by Hot Girl.

Giraffes have no vocal cords.

By Bill the Butcher

“Dear,” the professor’s wife said, “there is a dinosaur in the vegetable garden.”

She said it very calmly, with not a trace of a tremor in her voice. Ten years of marriage to the professor had taught her a great deal of self-control.

The professor peered at her over his glasses. “Yes, dear,” he said mildly. Ten years of marriage had taught him the value of those words as a catch-all response to anything she might say.

“Did you hear what I said?” his wife asked, a slightly shriller note sneaking into her voice. “There is a dinosaur in the vegetable garden. And it’s eating the cabbage.”

“Oh, no, dear,” the professor said, returning to his laptop. “That can’t be. You must have been mistaken.”

“Look.” For the first time in a decade, the professor’s wife’s iron self-control deserted her. She reached out and grabbed a handful of her husband’s old sweater. “Come to the window and see for yourself.”

Another thing the professor had learnt in a decade of matrimonial bliss was the futility of resistance. He allowed himself to be towed to the window, already preparing a little speech on how easy it was to be mistaken about such things. And then he looked through the glass and the words died on his lips.

There was a dinosaur in the vegetable garden. And it was just about done eating all the cabbage.

“How extraordinary,” the professor said. “You would appear to be correct, after all.”

“Well then,” his lady declared triumphantly, “there you are. Now what are you going to do about it?”

There did not seem to be much anyone could do about it, so the two of them stood at the window staring at the dinosaur as it demolished the last of the professor’s wife’s cherished cabbages and began on the iceberg lettuce. The dinosaur took no notice of them at all, so they had plenty of opportunity to observe it.

It was a very large dinosaur, about as long as the professor’s wife’s oversized SUV and a half again. It stood on four pillar-like legs, its gigantic head lowered as it ripped lettuce out of the ground with its parrot-like beak, its huge brow horns thrust out in front of a tremendous curved frill, which was itself edged with hooked spines. And the colours!

“I thought dinosaurs were supposed to be brown or grey,” their daughter, who had joined them unnoticed, said to nobody in particular.

The animal was a bluish grey in colour, and splotched and marked with patches of violet on the shield, in a pattern which looked rather like eyes.

“What is it?” the daughter, who asked a lot more questions than, her mother often said, befitted a seven-year-old, queried. “It looks like the child of a rhino and a chameleon.”

“Um, well.” The professor was a physicist, not a palaeontologist, and his knowledge of dinosaurs was not extensive. “It’s obviously one of the ceratopsians – that’s the horned dinosaurs, dear – but I don’t think it’s a triceratops. It doesn’t…” he pointed, “…have a nose horn.” As if hearing, the huge animal raised its head so they both got a good look at the blunt stub of a protuberance atop its beak. “As to what it is, I haven’t any idea. If I were to consult an online identification guide, perhaps I’d be able to find out.” He turned towards his laptop.

“Forget the identification for a minute.” The ten years of self-control had deserted the professor’s wife completely, and she sounded high-pitched and shrewish. “That animal there has just eaten all my cabbages and lettuce, and it’s ripping up what’s left of my garden, and what are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing, I imagine.” The professor sounded faintly astonished that she should ask. “What do you suppose I could do about it – shoo it away?”

“Oh no,” their daughter said. “Please don’t. It’s so cool.”

“Cool?” her mother responded, outraged. “The effort I put into that garden, and that animal ruined it in five minutes, absolutely wrecked it, and you think it’s cool?”

“Mom…” the girl began. “The poor thing has to eat. Why don’t you –“

At that moment, the gigantic dinosaur finished the last lettuce, made a sound like an amplified goat’s bleat, and made for the garden fence the professor’s wife had put up with her own two hands. She was still opening her mouth to utter an anguished moan when it had disappeared into the morning mist, leaving splintered posts and palings in its wake.

That was early on Monday morning.

***********************

“The animals,” the TV presenter said, “have been identified as a type of dinosaur, called…” She looked down at her desk and moved her lips a couple of times, practising. “…Medusaceratops,” she concluded triumphantly. “Medusaceratops,” she repeated, “are a kind of horned dinosaur, and there appears to be an entire herd of them which has suddenly appeared at various parts of the city early this morning.

“I have with me,” she went on, “a scientist from the Department of Palaentology from the University.” The camera panned to the scientist, who had a red face, thinning white hair, and looked more than a little uncomfortable to have been dragged in front of the cameras. “Doctor,” the newsreader said, “how do you explain the appearance of these dinosaurs in this city all of a sudden?”

The scientist shrugged. “I can’t explain it,” he said. “They should not be here. And yet they are.”

“You don’t think,” the newsreader asked, leaning forward to show how earnest she was, “that there has perhaps been a herd of the animals hiding out somewhere in a forest all these years which has finally found its way into the city?”

For a moment the scientist looked as though he would burst out laughing, but he managed to keep it down to a tight-lipped smile. “These animals have been extinct for between seventy and eighty million years,” he replied. “If they’d been around since then, with their size and appearance, do you really think nobody would’ve noticed?”

The newsreader seemed to mutter something under her breath. “But still,” she said aloud, “if they had somehow stayed hidden, in some forest, then…”

“What forest?” the scientist, who was obviously tiring of the interview, cut in. “Where? Can you point out any forest within a hundred kilometres of this city?”

The newsreader glared down at her desktop to avoid having to glare at the camera. “There’s been a suggestion,” she said, “that a clutch of dinosaur eggs somehow survived and have now hatched. What do you think of that idea?”

Now the scientist did laugh. “Keep an egg for a month or two,” he said, “and see if it will hatch after that. We are talking of at least seventy million years. That’s seven followed by seven zeroes. Years.”

The newsreader was beginning to look as if she wished the station had invited anyone else for this interview – a tarot card reader or a psychic spoon bender, or anyone. “But dinosaur eggs have been found, haven’t they?”

“Fossilised eggs,” was the response. “Which means, literally, eggs turned to stone. Like the dinosaurs themselves. Well, obviously, not these dinosaurs, but you know what I mean.”

The newsreader gratefully clutched what seemed to her to be an escape opportunity. “Please tell us something about these dinosaurs, Doctor. Are they dangerous?”

“Well, that depends, doesn’t it?” The scientist was now in good humour. “They’re herbivores, so it’s not as if they’re going to bite anyone or eat anyone’s dog. But they’re also built on the basic plan of rhinoceroses, and rhinos, as we all know, are highly aggressive beasts, so one shouldn’t approach them closely. They’re liable to charge.”

The TV channel switched to a live feed depicting a group of the dinosaurs walking through one of the city’s major parks. A line of police held the throng of onlookers, amongst whom were a large number of media people, back.

“We’ve not had the chance to study them in detail,” the palaeontologist said, in a voice-over, “but we think that the markings on their neck shields are unique to individual animals. They probably serve as recognition markers.”

“You mean,” the newsreader asked, in well-feigned amazement, “that they can recognise each other?”

“Why not? Many animals can.” The palaeontologist pointed, but since the scene in the park was still on screen, nobody noticed the gesture. “You’ll notice that they’ve stripped the cycads bare but left most of the other plants alone, and the grass too. That’s because most of those plants, and the grasses, didn’t exist when these animals walked the earth.”

“And that means…?”

“That means they are going to have a food problem soon,” the scientist explained. “We’re going to have to fly in food for them if this goes on.”

The camera cut back to the studio. “What do you intend to do about them?” the newsreader asked.

“Do about them?” The palaeontologist was obviously taken by surprise. “What should we do about them? Nothing, except keep them under observation, and learn what we can.” He paused. “This is the opportunity of a lifetime, to learn all about dinosaurs.”

“Some people feel differently,” the newsreader said. “The National Hunter’s Association has already demanded that the dinosaurs be exterminated as an immediate threat. We’re going now, live, to an interview with the NHA chief…”

That was mid-morning on Monday.

**********************

By noon, the city had virtually come to a standstill.

The medusaceratops were everywhere. One appeared in the middle of a traffic island, shaking its gigantic head in confusion at the streams of vehicles moving past on either side. Another couple strolled through a school playground, ignoring the stampede their presence caused amongst the children. Some more had gathered in the square outside the town hall, where the mayor had scheduled a press conference. To his baffled fury, the conference failed before it began because all the media people he’d called to disclose his plan for dealing with the dinosaurs promptly abandoned him in order to get a closer look at the animals themselves from the safety of the town hall steps.

The streets began to clog with traffic as medusaceratops began blocking the ways, wandering at will through lanes and avenues alike, and dropping occasional piles of greenish dung. The herd in the park had long since emerged, broken up into small groups, and shambled off in different directions. Inevitably, they approached cars, many of whose panic-stricken drivers promptly abandoned their vehicles, jamming the ways behind them and bottling traffic up for kilometres. Helicopters lent by the Air Force clattered overhead, trying to make some kind of sense of the confusion, the noise disturbing the dinosaurs and making them disperse into even more areas of town. And meanwhile, the highways leading to the city were themselves full – of hopeful hunters, scientists, and tourists, all jostling for space with military convoys.

And though the medusaceratops had as yet to injure, let alone kill, a single person, something clearly had to be done, and many were the suggestions of what that something was.

Evangelical sects got into the act early, claiming that the dinosaurs were an attempt by the Devil, in conjunction with atheistic scientists, to overturn religious order, and a purge of science from day-to-day life was necessary to send them back where they came from. Psychics said they’d been conjured out of the collective unconsciousness, and a mass focussing of the collective consciousness would be required to get rid of them. A general advised capturing them and releasing them across the border of Iran to create confusion and help destabilise the Ayatollahs. The animal-rights activists wanted them put in a national park, where they could live happily ever after. And the hunters wanted to use them for target-practice, of course.

By mid-afternoon, the first clashes began between animal-rights activists and hunter groups, with the former waving placards and the latter guns. They would undoubtedly have come to blows, and perhaps worse (given the hunters’ guns), but for the sudden appearance of a few medusaceratops, who – probably and not unpardonably confused by the shouting and threats – made a brief abortive charge, whereupon the animal rights activists dropped their placards, the hunters their deer rifles, and both groups rushed off with wild yells of terror. The medusaceratops reassembled and ambled off in order to find something to eat.

Meanwhile…

**********************

“But I have to go to work, dear,” the professor said for the tenth or eleventh time that day. “The experiment with the new particle accelerator has been going on since Saturday night, and I have to see what the results are.”

“Don’t you dare leave me alone,” his wife said. The ten years of self-discipline had by now evaporated as though they had never been. “Those awful beasts are everywhere, and one of them might break in here again at any moment, and then what shall I do?”

“You aren’t alone,” the professor said logically, pointing at their daughter, who sat before the TV enthralled. “Besides, if one of them actually broke in here, what do you suppose I could do about it?”

“So you’re going to abandon me here and go to your dreadful little experiment? Can’t it even wait until the government does something?”

“The dreadful experiment,” the professor explained patiently, “as you call it, can’t wait. I’ve told you all about the new particle accelerator. It’s built to my design, you know, and I can’t exactly leave the experiment to run by itself. In fact, I should have been there hours ago.”

“What’s so special about your design?” his wife demanded suspiciously. “I thought they were all the same.”

“It’s set in a ring form,” the professor said. “The particles chase themselves round the tunnel at the speed of light. What I’m trying to do is speed them up so much that one of them hits itself from behind. If that happens, we’ll find out all kinds of interesting things…”

“Oh shut up about interesting things! Here we have dinosaurs wandering about and eating my vegetables, and any moment one of them is going to break in and murder us, and you talk about interesting things. And look at her!” With a grand sweeping gesture she turned towards her daughter, who was still watching the dinosaurs live on TV. All the channels were now showing nothing but the dinosaurs, or dinosaur-related news. Even the movie channels had gone over to Jurassic Park reruns. “She’s not moved from in front of the TV all day, while you…” she turned round and her jaw dropped open.

Seeing his opportunity, the professor had slipped away.

*****************************

“We’re still collating the data, Professor,” the research assistant said. He was a young man with greasy black hair and a plump, pimply face. “But the indications are that we achieved a strike this morning.”

Behind him the new accelerator hummed and buzzed like a huge metal doughnut, and coloured lines and dots arced in circles on screens set into the walls. There was so much equipment in the room that there was hardly space to move. But  the assistant had hardly moved away from those screens for hours anyway.

“We did?” The professor had walked to the university through streets jammed with abandoned vehicles and dotted with dinosaur dung, but had failed to see a single animal. He now leaned over the computer readouts, peering at them sharply through his thick spectacles. “That’s very interesting. I wonder…”

“Yes, sir?”

“Those dinosaurs that have appeared through the city; do you think there’s a correlation?”

“Dinosaurs?” the assistant stared at the professor. “What dinosaurs?”

“Oh, you’ve been here all the night, have you? Well, there’s –“

“Professor!” the assistant gasped. “There, look, it’s just about to happen again!”

“What?” The professor spun round, staring up at the screen at which the assistant was pointing. Both men watched a green dot on the screen elongate into a streak. The green streak chased itself in a circle, until the head end met the tail, and vanished in a tiny red spark. Little points of yellow and orange danced off in various directions.

“I believe you’re right,” the professor said in awe. “We’ve done it.”

And, at that moment, all over the city, the dinosaurs began to disappear.

**********************

“So we’re going to be famous?” the professor’s wife said. Her fury at him had abated somewhat by the news of his success.

“Well,” the professor said, “we have achieved something that most authorities said couldn’t be done. But we still only did it twice, and we have a long way to go.”

It was Tuesday evening. The last of the dino dung had been scraped off the streets and gone for analysis. The hunters and PETA activists, the soldiers and tourists had all gone back where they came from. The evangelists had declared that their prayers had banished the dinosaurs back to the depths of Hell. The mayor was trying to think of a way to avoid being wiped out in the next election. A major actress had become embroiled in a sex scandal, and the President had just announced the invasion of another nation on the other side of the planet. So life had, more or less, returned to normal.

“The first thing you’re going to do,” the professor’s wife said, “is help me get the vegetable garden back in shape. And after that…“ She spoke for some time.

The professor’s cellphone rang, and he grabbed it with relief. “Yes?”

“Professor!” his assistant said, breathless with excitement. “It’s just happened again!”

And in the lake behind the park, something many-armed and gigantic began to stir.

By: Azazel

As I come in for yet another day on the docks the hopelessness of my fellows surrounds me like a shroud – every day we come here, load and unload the cargo of big business for shit wages and no benefits to speak of so that we might eek out an existence while some fat cat executive sits on a gold-plated sofa and complains about how ungrateful we are for being here: “Don’t you know just how hard it is to get a job today?” he asks, “you should consider yourselves lucky to have such an opportunity.”

Yeah, lucky – ever since our union sold us out we’ve been struggling to keep roofs over our collective heads.  “The company is struggling,” the union reps say.  “Profits are down and all of us have to make sacrifices – look, the CEO just sold one of his three corporate jets!  Everyone is cutting back!”  Well, the executive can make a decent living without his goddamn jet: those 10-15% reductions in salary and the loss of medical insurance place most of us on the edge of a razor!

“Jorge!” calls out a familiar voice – I turn about to see that Dmitri Stavros, a man I’ve known since I first started working here nearly five years ago, has come to bring me the day’s news and rumors.  “Did you not hear?” he says in his thick Mediterranean accent, “The word going around is that there’s going to be a strike: after all the concessions we’ve made the union finally wants to stand its ground, or so people believe…”

Yes, the executives would want us to believe that – every time the word “strike” comes up in a union meeting strange things happen.  It’s not uncommon for union officials that seriously contemplate such things to be suddenly added to the missing persons list or die under “unusual circumstances”:  One that comes to mind right away involves an organizer that just happened to get crushed under a freight container the day before the strike was scheduled – a cable on the crane just happened to “break loose” as he was spotting the position on the dock for the crane operator (who originally started work here as a scab during the last strike – which is more than a little suspicious considering that he’s also the brother of the shift manager, but I digress…).

Bottom line, such occurrences have prevented any kind of protest action against corporate from ever getting off the ground – yet we’re still expected to believe that our union effectively represents us and has our interests at heart.  What a joke!

“I wonder who’s going to be the next unfortunate soul to meet his fate before this one too is called off?” he sarcastically wonders allowed – “Ah well, better get cracking: our quotas have been raised again, as usual, and the bosses are just looking for an excuse to be rid of us veteran workers – our positions are better filled by the young and dumb types that work for half the pay.”  We both have a laugh at our pathetic plights and get to work for slave drivers that are slowly tearing out pieces of our souls…

***

The day is done and I return to my home – a dilapidated house on the edge of the slums.  Thanks to the crash in real estate my cousin and I got this place cheap while the nation was celebrating the inauguration of it’s first black president.  For a while I bought into the hype and believed that things were looking up – too bad I did not recognize that the new president, as with the house (with it’s rusted plumbing, asbestos ceilings and termite-ridden frame), were not all they were cracked up to be.  In both instances I was sold a bill of goods.

As I come through the front door of this building which I had sunk countless hours into repairing to the point of habitability, I find my cousin Jeffe – a man I would have long ago thrown out if I didn’t need the money he brings in from his drug trade.  While I have nothing against personal use, I find the thought of deriving profit from the sale of poison offensive and would not tolerate it if I myself were not struggling to get by: I suppose that makes me something of a hypocrite, but at least I can admit to myself that I’m too poor to afford morals.

“So, how goes the work on the docks?” he inquires of me as he slouches over an old sofa I had reupholstered at least twice.  “They cracking that whip over you even harder than usual?” he says sarcastically, knowing full well what goes on there.  I respond by telling him that at least I’m earning an honest, legal living to which he quips “honest and legal trades might build character, but they don’t make much bread – which is why you need me.”  As much as my pride is hurt I can’t deny the truth of his words: nonetheless I can feel the guilt of my own complacency towards his deeds eating away at my soul and I badly need to purge myself of it – thus I grab a sandwich out the fridge for a quick supper, reach for my coat and prepare to leave for church (as I have done at least three times a week since I was a boy).

As I head for the door, Jeffe quips to me that God has forsaken us – that there’s no one looking out for us but ourselves.  I try to make a snappy comeback of my own, but I’m tired: the youth of abundant faith I once was is now long gone – all that remains is a weary man hoping for salvation from himself and a world of pure evil that surrounds him.

I leave the house and begin walking through the neighborhood on my way to church – taking in the sight of deterioration that surrounds me.  When I first came here there were a number of local businesses that were flourishing: taquerias, hair salons and other specialty shops lined the streets – sure, they took a hit to their business during the housing crash but we believed that genuine change was right around the corner and that the worst was behind us.  Over the years those shops closed up and were replaced with liquor stores, crack houses and brothels (and now even the liquor stores are struggling – what does it say about a society when one can’t even afford the booze to drown his troubles in?); my heart sinks when I look at the rot around me, but there’s no escaping it.

After about six blocks I reach the old church – even here the rot is visible as one looks at the statue of Christ on the front lawn worn away by erosion from acid rain and peeling varnish on the doors leading to the sanctuary.  However, inside I find a place of solitude: a refuge from the evils of the world that surround me – it’s here that I’ve spent many hours in prayer and confessed my sins, even my sins of necessity, to the priest so that I might be unburdened of all that which weighs down my soul.

However, it’s become harder to get that solace I seek here – year by year by year my faith in the wisdom of God has been wearing away just like the statue out front.  During times of prayer I find myself thinking such terrible thoughts such as “if the wicked go unpunished, then perhaps they are meant to succeed – if that’s so, is God wicked for preordaining their success?”  I try to purge these blasphemous notions from my mind, yet they continue to pop up even as I partake of the Eucharist: as the body and blood of the Lord pass through my mouth, all I could think of was the bosses down at the docks eating me and the fruits of my labor – wondering if, at heart, all men are cannibals.  These unholy imaginings are driving me to insanity!

Failing to find comfort at church, I head home – passing the same stench and decay once more – and drink myself to sleep.  The last thought that goes through my mind before finally passing out is “God, if you’re there, please end the suffering and misery we endure.”  And all fades to black…

***

I come to work the next morning with a slight hangover and resume a dull, miserable existence – slaving for the pittance that the company deems fit to give me once again.  As I report for the shift I hear a number of my co-workers speaking among themselves: they say that the strike is off (surprise…) after a few key union officials changed their votes on the matter – allegedly after death threats were made against them.  Regardless of what the real reason for calling it off was, it’s apparent that the union no longer offers so much as the appearance of resistance to corporate and its ever-increasing demands on labor.

I try to forget about the weak and helpless union and focus on my work – I need to make an honest living as a matter of pride!  I refuse to debase myself as my cousin has done: I refuse to take part in criminal activities to support myself – and if that means I must toil away under working conditions that are increasingly overbearing, then that’s what I must do!

After my shift I check the performance postings at the office – I’m barely making the minimum quota to stay employed, but then again so are all the veteran workers: people who once posted well above quota regularly and received incentive bonuses for doing so are now struggling just to keep pace – it’s as though we are rats on a wheel running ever faster only to go nowhere.  And the young bloods among us; most will be gone by the end of the month – there’s no point in old timers like me worrying about them when we are barely keeping our heads above water.

I leave the office feeling even more dismayed than I was before – with performance expectations constantly rising, wages shrinking, benefits disappearing and the union impotent I can’t tell you how much longer I will even have a job.  Another three months?  Six months, maybe?  How long until I’m broken and entirely reliant on Jeffe?  To lose my position here will only validate everything he’s done, and such a thought is almost as terrifying to me as being thrown out on the streets – such a vindication of his drug-dealing lifestyle can only break my spirit and crush what little dignity I have left!

As my shift comes to a close I feel my heart sink into my chest as my mind whirls over what I will do when the walls close in on me, then Dmitri approaches me and says that he has something he wants to discuss over a drink – I ask him for details, to which he replies “not here, the walls have ears.”  Dmitri isn’t usually the secretive type so I know whatever he has to say is important: I agree to meet him and discuss the matter – after fetching my things from the locker room I head out to the bar we agreed upon, take a table in the back and await Dmitri for a full five minutes before he arrives; after we order ourselves a couple of scotches Dmitri informs me of some startling events.

“As you already know,” he begins “the union has officially declared the strike is off.  However, there are a few of us that are planning to declare one on our own – if the union won’t act we will.”  After pausing to sip some scotch he continues on, telling me about a handful of ex-union reps that are organizing a large portion of the workers in secret: the plan is that in about two weeks anywhere between one quarter and one third of the labor force will simply not report in for their shift and gather at a park in the center of the city – from there, the plan is to march towards city hall and air their grievances before the nation.

After processing this for a minute, I have some concerns about the march.  “While the plan is bold, and certainly boldness is needed right now,” I reply to his outlined plans, “I fear that this will end badly – you do remember what happened to the Citizens Against Police Brutality march last year, yes?  The police shot over 100 people that day!”  I take a sip of my own scotch, put my head in my hands and listen in utter amazement to the words coming out of my own mouth: “if we’re going to do this, we need something to keep the police at bay – we need weapons.”  I’m looking down at the table, realizing that I’m starting to sound like my cousin now and I half-expect Dmitri to distance himself from me for such remarks.

As I look up from the table I see seriousness written all over Dmitri’s face – “allow me to tell you a story” he says with a demeanor like an undertaker.  “Some years ago in my native Greece I was a trucker: we had been saddled with all manner of expenses we couldn’t pay out of pocket and our union resorted to strike – around this time the economy was just starting to show the signs of decay.  Our company refused to meet our demands, the strike continued and eventually the president threatened to call out the army to break the strike; we had no choice but to accept the terms dictated to us.”

From there, he tells me the details of how a civil war broke out and how he and a few members of his family escaped to the U.S. believing that things were better here – only to find out that we were on the same downward spiral.  “Back then,” he continues, “I thought that trouble could be outrun if I just stayed ahead of it: but now, I have nowhere left to run – I can’t go back to Europe, Canada is closing its borders and Mexico is experiencing non-stop drug-related violence.  I can’t run anymore, so fighting is our only option.”  He takes another sip of his scotch, looks me in the eye and presents me with the question I was hoping he wouldn’t ask; “can you get those guns?”

This is not an easy thing for me to do – over the last few years firearms restrictions have tightened to the point where one needs to acquire a license to even buy a gun (such licenses start at $300 for basic shotguns and go up from there).  Also, sales of various weapons have been prohibited altogether: any rife that holds more than five rounds is considered an “assault rife,” any shotgun that holds more than two rounds is considered a “combat shotgun,” any handgun that holds more than seven rounds is considered a “high capacity” weapon – and all are prohibited to civilians by law.  In short, there’s no way I can get the weapons needed to fend off the cops through any legal channel.

I take a deep breath, think over my response carefully and reply in one single word – “yes.”  Jeffe has all the illegal contacts for tactical weapons and equipment and keeps a few caches at various locations to defend his drug-running business: if anyone can get me those weapons, he can.  I feel a knot form in my stomach at the thought of relying on him and his wicked ways yet again, but I know I don’t have much choice; without some means to keep law enforcement at bay, we are defenseless and will in all likelihood be killed when the establishment runs out of patience for us.

Shortly after this conversation we part ways – Dmitri tells me that he intends to meet with a few other key workers to plan out the details of the strike, but all I want to do is rid my soul of the guilt I just had placed upon it.  I return to the church, I light candles and say prayers but I gain no relief from it: all I can think about are the words of my cousin about how God has forsaken us – that there’s no one looking out for us but ourselves.  Failing to find any comfort in my faith, I head back home to humble myself before the resident drug dealer and ask for his help…

***
I’m now standing in an apartment with a camcorder overlooking the city streets – my eyes scan over the throngs of people that have assembled with the striking dock worker one moment then turn inwards to see men armed with heavy military-grade hardware: and in this moment I quietly whisper to myself “how did I end up here?”  Of course, I know damn well what happened but I’m still in a state of shock and disbelief that it has come to this: I could only get so many weapons from Jeffe’s contacts (no easy feat considering that these Back Flag people have so many associates to supply: biker gangs, Libertarian militias and even some crazy new drug kingpin with a street name I can’t pronounce) – mostly M2 Berretta handguns and tactical shotguns with half a dozen M16A2 rifles.

After going through the arduous task of getting enough firepower to equip about two dozen of the 500 or so striking workers, the organizers voted to throw me out (only Dmitri dissented) – they believe me to be some kind of provocateur because I don’t believe that we should be defenseless against an assault by the police (assaults they claim don’t happen without provocation – HA!).

So here I am – once again relying on the contacts Jeffe has to provide security for the protest.   I’m no longer officially a part of it: These men they sent for what they call an “active defense” in the event of police brutality are by far some of the most frightening individuals I’ve known – the large black man (who apparently is the leader) has a look in his eye that can kill just by glancing, the young fellow they keep referring to as “Tater” (must be an inside joke) appears overly eager to shoot at the police every time they come into view; as though he has a vendetta or something against them.  Then there’s the man with the grenades – the way he holds that launcher it looks like he was born with it attached to his arm and the way he calmly glances down at the streets like a hawk searching for prey keeping his hand just below the trigger of his weapon – it creeps me out!

To be honest, if Jeffe didn’t vouch for these people I would run at the first opportunity – but now the die is cast and there’s nothing I can do but wait and record these events for future reference.  I just hope that these guerrillas don’t take me for a liability when all this is over as I would hate to have them for enemies.

God help me…

By: Mike

So, bearing in mind that you only read the little tale after agreeing to keep it quiet, I will start…………………..

The year before last, I decided to take my good lady to Ireland and to visit some of the places where I used to holiday as a boy and youth. Being now in our late 70’s and having been married for over 40 years we decided that we were in no hurry to get anywhere and had plenty of time to take in the sights and sounds of the fair isle.

So there we were stepping off the plane at Dublin Airport, going through the usual rigmarole in getting out of the terminal and collecting our hired car. We headed south to my home town on the east coast………..

The first major shock was that there were so many cars compared to the last time I had been over and the new motorways heading in all directions caused me some problems. Road signs in Ireland can, to say the very least, be quite confusing. However, we reached my sister’s home and settled in.

The next morning, with the promise of a beautiful bright June day greeting us, we headed west to Galway. Once again the quality of the motorways surprised and confused me but we reached Athlone in good time. Having had a wonderful lunch there we continued and within a couple more hours we reached Galway. We chose Salthill on the outskirts as our base and had no problem in finding a first rate Bed and Breakfast. We intended to stay a few nights and then continue on to Achill Island further north.

It was that first night there that the story really begins. We visited a couple of the old pubs that I used to visit when I was younger and fond of my beer. There was Irish singing and music in the first but a little too noisy for us so we moved on. We came to a backstreet pub where everything was soft, quite and very comfortable. Although there was some singing, it was not very loud. Some of the older men were also reciting old poems and telling some beautiful old Irish stories. Some I remembered from my schooldays and they brought back some wonderful memories…………

All in all, it was a beautiful evening and it was quite late when we returned to where we were staying. After a very comfortable and restful night, it was decided that her ladyship (my good wife) would spend the day shopping in Galway whilst I would take the car and my fishing gear to Lough Corrib which was a short distance out of the city of Galway. I hired a boat and was looking forward to a fair day’s fishing.

As I may have said, it was a beautiful sunny day with not a cloud in the sky. The lake was like a milk-pond with barely a ripple on the water. There was little or no sound other than the occasional splash of a trout or salmon jumping in the distance. The birds were in great song. I was at peace with the world and happy with my surroundings.

As I rowed up the lake I was suddenly met by a strange mist on the water which rapidly surrounded me. I quickly lost all sense of direction and rowed slowly trying to get out of the mist hoping beyond hope that I would quickly get my bearings. I had no such luck and as the minutes passed by I was getting more lost…………

I had been rowing for almost an hour when suddenly I came out of the mist and entered an area of the lake that was totally strange and eerie to me. Everything seemed different and the colours were more vibrant than when I started. There was no sign of any buildings on the shoreline and in fact, no sign of life whatsoever……………………….

I turned the boat towards the nearest shore and rowed towards it. When I was about three hundred yards from what looked like a pebble beach and where I intended to land, I began to hear human voices. When I say human voices, I should add that they appeared to be children’s voices echoing across the water…….

As I pulled the boat up onto the pebble beach a group of children made their way towards me. They were dressed as if they were having a fancy-dress party and all looked about ten years old. As they spoke rapidly I recognised that they were speaking Gaelic but far too rapidly for me to understand only the occasional word or two. I spoke in English and asked for directions back to the boat-house. They began to laugh…………..

A taller youth came from higher up the beach and asked me more or less in Gaelic what was my problem. I could not think of the Irish word for ‘lost’ so told him so in English. He laughed and spoke back to me in broken English. He said “Lost is it, you are? Sure now, didn’t I think that you were one of the lucky ones to find us”. “What do you mean?” I asked puzzled. “Sure now, haven’t you reached the end of the rainbow and found yourself in Tir na nOg” he replied in quite a matter of fact tone of voice.

Now it might have been fifty years since I left school where I learned Gaelic, but I knew damn well what Tir na nOg meant. The Land of the Young or more romantically in Irish myth as The Land of Eternal Youth. I laughed at the thought and must admit that I came out with a word that should never be used in front of children. He stepped back and looked at me as if puzzled………….

“And would you be doubting my word?” he asked. “Certainly not” I lied, “I was merely laughing at the children’s clothes”. “Oh that” he answered “sure we have no need for finery here. By the way, my name is Fioneen”. “Hello Fioneen” I replied “and mine is Michael”. “Welcome to Tir na nOg” he said at the same time as giving a low bow. “Would you be hungry?” he asked. “If it pleases you” I answered and followed him up the embankment.

When we reached level ground I could see several thatched cottages and gardens containing all types of flowers in blossom. Once again, I noticed that there was not a single adult to be seen. We entered one of the cottages and there was a table laden with all types of food. It looked inviting and he offered me a seat.

I ate some of the food which was delicious and drank some fresh milk. As I did so, Fioneen and several of the others watched with interest. When finished, I thanked him for the food and drink then said “I don’t mean to be rude Fioneen, but could you direct me back to the boathouse, my wife will be worried if I am too late”.

There were gasps from several of the children and Fioneen seemed quite shocked. “Sure won’t you be staying?” he asked in surprise. “No, no” I answered “I have got to get back”. “And would you not like to be young and healthy again like the rest of us and spend your time in such a peaceful place”. “Not without her ladyship” I answered. “You would not like to stay in such a wondrous place where you will never age again, never have aches and pains and never be sick. In a place where the sun always shines and it never rains or snows nor frosts. You mean you would give all that up for her ladyship?” he asked.

“It is very tempting Fioneen, but no, I certainly would not” I answered in honesty. “She must be a fine woman for you to forego such an offer Michael me boy” Fioneen had a smile on his face as he spoke. “Tis true Fioneen” I replied “not for all the time in the world would I swop her”.

“So be it then Michael. You know, you will never get another chance to come and join us” Fioneen had a sad look upon his face. “Thank you Fioneen” I replied “for your kind offer but sure I will take life as it comes – come what may”.

With that he walked me back to the shore and the boat. As he pushed the boat away and I took up the oars, there was a clap of thunder and a bright flash of lightning. As I quickly looked back to the shore to see if anyone was injured I was shocked to see that there was no one there. There was nothing to suggest that I had been ashore and certainly no sign of any living thing, human or otherwise……………………….

I rowed in the direction that Fioneen had told me and once again I was shrouded in mist. However, this time as I came out of it I could see the houses not far away and the boathouse from where I had hired the boat. I made my way there quickly.

I sat in the car for a good hour thinking about what had happened and although I was happy that the event had taken place, I was a little unsure as to whether or not I had just fallen asleep out on the lake and imagined the wondrous place and people that I had seen.

Tir na nOg – what a magical thought. A place where it never rains, the sun always shines. A place where there is no illness, pain or death……………Magic…….

Now and again, I think of what happened and still, if offered the same choice again – to live in the Land of Eternal Youth or continue as I am – I would definitely make the same choice – after all I don’t know what I would do without Her Ladyship, God Bless Her…………………