The Reported Elsewhere
By sean mcnulty
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They were interrupted by a snort in the air, a snort familiar to Moloney. To his shock and strange joy, Hilda came waddling out from behind the oak tree. She was covered in bog matter. It was as if the great oak was in fact a spirit-jail holding onto everyone he’d ever known and was now releasing them one by one for good behaviour or something. First the Oul Lass, the Oul Lad, now Hilda. Shirley MacLaine and Gay Byrne the prison guards? He was happily agnostic about it. It was this wood after all and all its fiendish magic was out tonight.
Where in the bushes fairies hide
And the devil’s on their side
Bring a big stick, son
To batter them with
as the Oul Lass used to say.
But the big stick he carried with him seemed feeble now against whatever forces were at work for here was Hilda the survivor. She trotted past the woman and stopped at Moloney’s feet. She looked up at him. Then sniffed about in the grass. She appeared unchanged, perfectly pig-healthy. He checked for the wound where he’d put the slug yesterday. But so much dirt from the bog was scattered over her fleshy hide that there was no way of telling where it was anymore, or if it had been there at all.
Jesus, Hilda, did you crawl out of that grave all by yourself?
His intention yesterday after plugging her in the belly was to bring her home and feed her meat to the others. Despite these plans, he was prompted to do something entirely different after carrying her dead weight for such a lengthy period of time. Now that was some job. Towing the thought-dead pig over Steever Hill, dragging her by the ears some of the way, down-rolling her on those slopier parts. As far as he’d known during that onerous slog, she’d been absolutely and completely stone dead. Exhaustion got the better of him, yes, but another thing prevented the farmer from doing what was expected of his kind and turning her carcass into a meal for some willing customer: he respected the sow of all sows and that was no lie. Having no tools to dig a sizable hole for her, he found Hilda a clear area in the marsh, kicked up a bit of soil and then covered her in the gullion with bladderwort, for prettification, as one would do for a human grave, for some human graves. Hilda’s eventually was not quite as pretty as the Oul Lass’s, but a sight prettier than the Oul Lad’s, that was for sure.
So you didn’t poison her after all. I suppose I should apolo...
Mid-sentence, Moloney stopped. For the woman he was addressing had left. Perhaps she’d gone back behind the tree for a bit. Careful not to step on any supernatural traps near the oak, he checked both sides to see if there was any sign of her. Nothing. She had vanished like a ghost. Which he had to remind himself she was. To keep the wits aligned. Better she a ghost than him amongst the brain-popped. Yet Hilda remained there. Pottering about and snorting. A real pig.
Will you be flying in the air next, ye fat oul swine?
Hilda snorted.
Woodland and sky continued their secret consultation, the soft flashing of stars and wiring. Blink. Blink-blink. Moloney stood around, waiting to see if the woman would return, and he wondered just who she might return as. A girl he once loved would be nice. An old headmaster might be good too so he could batter him senseless but he was wise enough to know the futility in attempting such a thing. For it would only be a ghost. Not the real bastard.
Silence resumed in the dell. That was until a crunch sounded out, somewhere in the clearing, a crunch like that of a toadstool giving way under a foot. Hilda was the likely culprit, but Moloney’s suspicions widened, and a chill like it was the morning of the first of February went through him, when he noticed the bog man was no longer sitting by the stones. The body had disappeared much like the woman had. Did she grab it before running?
Then another toadstool went, clearly this time to Moloney’s right. When he turned, there standing over him was all six and something feet of the bog man. The fear that had come over Moloney earlier in the attic once more returned. But this time he had the Beretta Silver Pigeon. He raised the shotgun defensively; there was no need, it appeared. For the long and gaunt shape did not move towards him. In fact, it was not moving at all. That it was a living and breathing creature was unclear as it stood like a window doll, a less than lively one but a pretty frightening one, its leathery old skin appearing now like white cement dried-in-dripping in the half light, and that weeping expression still frozen on the face as it looked down at Moloney like the grimmest of all paintings the grimmest of all the world’s galleries had to offer, not even a reflection in the black pits where its eyes had been. However, whatever malevolence it bore was tempered by its stillness. There was no vengeance in its wrinkled face, just pause, endless pause, and the pain saved on that face was clearer to the eye.
Who could be sure of anything anymore, Moloney thought. Here it was, standing in front of him, the corpse he had dragged to this place, miraculously come to life yet for all the bells and whistles seemingly still a dead thing.
This was no apparition. It was as real as the pink of the pig.
Moloney stepped back, not from fear of attack, but because his mind was suddenly overwhelmed. Looking into the face, he felt, or imagined, or discovered it was projecting onto him the melancholy of all those forgotten and trapped in the reported elsewhere, those unfortunate souls the woman had mentioned. In a flash Moloney glimpsed the Oul Lad standing there too in place of the bog man, wizened and decrepit, bits of brain spilling out of him, there was also accompanying him that melancholy of the spirits, the sadness in his face as he whacked off to the Farmer’s Weekly, the back of his head as he fell that day; even he, the bastard who had beaten Moloney and the Oul Lass so badly over the years, begged to be saved. For the first time a little guilt. But just a little.
All of this caused Moloney to wonder if the mulligans had put something in the brandy.
Old...Man, he uttered, thinking of no other way to address the risen fellow.
The bog man did not speak – inertia prevailed.
Moloney refused to get closer to the figure but inspecting it in silence for a moment he began to notice some movement; the body was caught in a light shudder, so miniscule as to be overlooked easily, not an awful shiver as you might suffer in the morning of the first of February, just a bit of a tremble like that of someone about to make a speech in front of a large crowd for the first time.
Hilda’s tour of the dell wound up at the withered feet of the bog man. She stuck her big snout in between its giant meshed toes and sniffed. Then sniffed around its thin ankles. The shape was yet to stir.
Then Hilda halted in her sniffing tour; she let out a louder, more concerning snort and looked to the dell’s entrance. Moloney turned and saw Sullivan standing there, and he had a strange look about him as though he had just woken from a deep sleep; he too was like a resurrected corpse.
Kill me, please, Sullivan said, the words aching out of him. He seemed possessed.
Will you catch yourself on, ye oul wino, Moloney said to him.
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Comments
The re-animation of the Bog
The re-animation of the Bog Man and the return of the Farmer's Weekly. I can't keep up with it all. Entertaining, engaging and very original. Keep up the good work, Sean!
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inertia always prevails or it
inertia always prevails or it wouldn't be inertia.
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