The Corrupted Voice
By sean mcnulty
- 909 reads
Well well we’ll see we’ll see. Who can say what will be and what not in the future, the gypsies, ah? but you’d want one hell of a good one, sure what they say is claptrap and whatnot, is it not, more often than not, what they say is not at all what will be, usually. We all know that. Unless you get a good one. Not in this day and age. There’s more machines out here than ever, you’ll be happy to know. I know you liked your machines. Your tools. Your buckles and broken bottles. Anything you could get your hands on, eh? Anything. And. I scrapped your beloved tractor. Well. She choked her own carburettor to death. Did herself in, to be perfectly honest. What a miserable vehicle she was anyway, bound to give up eventually and give up she did. What’s that all over you? Red, is it? You’re not still bleeding out of you after all that time in the ground? Three years deep. Impossible. Nah nah nah. Too thick. Looks more like jam. Well well well we’ll see won’t we? Well, you won’t. Sure look at you there. Haven’t a notion. Haven’t a brain alive or was it ever alive let’s be honest. I wonder. What shape your brain was in before. Mangled before I got to it probably. I wonder did the wound heal when you were in the bog, I hope not, I hope not at all. I won’t say there weren’t some good days. When you kissed her I trembled. Not knowing what the intent was. Realising you meant affection I could relax and feel warm about it. Yes. When it happened. And you made gibbets of many a man I disliked. Yes. That too. I liked you for that.
A flash of lightning and a chime at the window. The glass had cracked under the pressure and though still intact a whistle got through.
Moloney’s head was spinning. He struggled in his chair. They’d fixed him up with cotton rope, tough and tight; whoever had done the fixing knew how to tie a knot because escape wasn’t happening without assistance. Or a good sharp blade. And good job finding anything sharp to cut with in this empty and poorly-lit place.
Then a voice. Another voice. Another voice in his head.
Music around me. The rolling music of nature. Taranis has come.
And great Oak, as the skies move, you are me; may your long arms always shield us in downpour; may your leaves thrive in green and when the fall comes stay toned in yellow. Stay strong, oh tree of my kin, you that were usurped by the vainglorious, failed leaders, kings.
Is that you, Mrs MacLaine?
Royal family you are falling, kings and queens explode in the heavens, esteemed sons and daughters across the universe they scatter, the anointed are unfavoured, unexalted. How the stars shine brighter in eruption. Now this death shall come to Earthly kings. The harps will have their strings removed. Great Oak, vengeance will be ours.
Son, have you had from the well?
Which well is this?
Drink you should the red water of life, yellow water of sustenance, the white water of love.
I don’t know about that stuff.
There are those who ache to belong, and others who so to belong will be owned willingly. And there are those concerned chiefly with owning.
I have belonged. I have been the owned, and I have been the owner. Now I am released of all possession. I was released when my head was called.
Find the defiler! commanded the king. Find and beat the odious soul from its body.
My sins, my sins. My son.
No woman in Ireland as beautiful. But a child still in the king’s eyes, the third daughter, Ethal. The charge was corruption. Yet no-one is absolutely pure. One comes to purity through deference to Gods. Not to kings. Not to weightless moral statutes. With prejudice yes, I turned many into donkeys.
That all sounds a bit mad, Oul Lad. You sound like one of those television gombeens. I don’t believe this voice in my head. This talk is not you. You were more likely to box someone in the face than aim to make them all donkeys.
Silence then. (In his head.)
Say more, you?
Continued silence.
It’s the wounded brain I have that’s causing all of this surely. Concussion, they would say, or the doctor would, I’m sure.
And it was true the blow to the head had given him concussion, for in this woozy state, the body might have moved. The head appeared to have risen suddenly, between Moloney’s blinks.
Ah now. You’re not going to scare me with all that. If it is indeed yourself, you should know I was never given to claptrap like the Oul Lass was, or like those woolly mulligans what lie beneath, who are more of a threat to me now, with their peace and love and ambush. You’ve no entitlement to eternal life. With no bog, there’d be no you, nothing to dig up, no ghost to come back, your ugly head would be dust now. And I can’t see that bog always being there. The city bastards will be along any minute now to erect a shopping centre for the town they have in mind to build later.
Sure I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger. Would I? I was only codding. Anyway.
Following another blink, Moloney looked and saw the body had leaned forward slightly in its seat. In another blink of the eye, it had shifted from the seat entirely and was standing tall to his right. He battened his heart but it was no use for that central organ had succumbed to an uncontrollable palpitation. Even in his oscitant state, knowing his head to be weak and liable to produce hallucinations, he was grabbed by fear. After another blink, the bog man was right beside him; its arm, this long emaciated thing, was draped over him, like a drunken uncle’s at a family wedding.
- Log in to post comments
Comments
Our Lady, ever pure. there
Our Lady, ever pure. there was that whole debete before Bernadette Soubirous confirmed it for the church. and the old joke, let him without sin, fling the first stone, and trhe virgin mary lobbing a brick from the back. We dont forget our past, it grows through us, as you show.
- Log in to post comments
Some of the dialogue tinkles
Some of the dialogue tinkles like the greenest of Irish. Tinkles, it does.
- Log in to post comments
This continues to be
This continues to be brilliant. It's very quirkily funny - the last line is perfect. This story, as a whole, always impresses upon me what an accomplished and skilful writer you are. And I think all your stories are great. That was a bit gushing wasn't it, but it's well meant. I think it should be Pick of the Day, so it is. Do share it on social media.
- Log in to post comments
Now that's a word,
"oscitant", so it is.
Well done on POD, I shan't be surprised to see this garner more accolades.
- Log in to post comments
Enjoyed this, Sean. Your
Enjoyed this, Sean. Your somewhat less corrupted (narrative) voice shining through, pure and clear.
- Log in to post comments