Tag: short-story

The Unquiet Land

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excerpt

“But aren’t you trying to change souls with your sermons? Aren’t you trying to make them more acceptable to your God?” Finn leaned forward on the table, his massive hands cupped around his glass of wine. “The soul cannot be so untouchable.”
“With the word of God one can indeed reach into the soul,” Padraig consented. “But no instrument devised by man has the same power.”
“Ah, we have a conflict here,” said Finn. “Sweeney, fill up my glass and top up your own. Any of you others care to join us, help yourselves to whatever you want. That stage is getting set again. See why I prefer to act than to watch?”
“You don’t act, Finn,” Sweeney observed; “you direct.”
He poured the wine for Finn. The last drops from the decanter he shook into his own glass. His sunset face was blazing crimson, with purple only in the shadows. He replaced the empty decanter in the centre of the table and turned up the wick of the low-burning lamp. Shadows flickered on the walls, on the dark sideboard and the cabinets, on the tall clock and the pale porcelain of the Victory.
“So, Padraig,” Finn went on, “you think the word is mightier than the surgeon’s knife.”
“The Word that was in the beginning, yes; the Word of God that was made flesh as Jesus Christ.”
“What do you say to that, young Clifford?” Finn asked. “Does the Word of God tell us more of man and nature, life and death, than your brain and blade will ever reveal?”
“You’re confusing two separate realms, Finn,” Clifford argued in a precise, dry voice. “The brain is a material thing. We probe into it, repair it, understand it, with the aid of material instruments. The soul is immaterial. We change it, if we change it at all, with immaterial instruments: with words, thoughts, ideas, emotions, that reach it through the mind.”
“Body and mind; matter and spirit; material, immaterial.” Finn repeated the words reflectively. “That sounds reasonable enough. Conflict resolved.” He sipped some wine, then looked at Clifford. “You say that the soul is reached through the mind. So you separate mind and soul?”
Clifford looked around the table self-consciously. Michael was asleep with his head fallen forward on his chest. Seamus and Sweeney stared at their wine and looked as though they wished they too were asleep. Only Padraig, facing Finn across the length of the dish-and-bottle-laden table, stayed alert, leaning back in his chair with his left hand dangling and his right hand holding a half-emptied glass of wine.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203

Still Waters

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excerpt

nterior stunned her, and she felt a twinge of guilt. This must be terribly
expensive. Why had Cam chosen such a place? To impress her?
But he appeared at ease in their surroundings, was recognized by
both the maitre’de and the wine steward, and had obviously been
here often. Determined to enjoy the evening and the company of
the man who had lavished attention on her since the moment he
had appeared at the door of her apartment, she settled back in the
delightfully comfortable chair and relaxed.
Until the wine was brought and their order taken, they made small
talk about the hospital, his parents and her family in Emblem. Then
Cam smiled and raised his glass.
“To our meeting again, and to our future meetings. Together we’ll
set the Holy Cross on fire.”
He touched his glass to hers, then put it down and looked at her
soberly. “I want to ask you something – at the risk of having you tell
me to mind my own business.”
“Ask away.” She knew what was coming, but her spirits were too
high tonight to be dashed by the mention of Morley’s name.
“Are you … that is, are you still seeing Morley?”
Tyne raised her glass to her lips, and looked steadily into Cam’s
eyes. “No,” she said.
“Oh.”
He appeared baffled by her brief, straightforward answer as if he
had expected her to simper and evade his question. Well, she was
through simpering over Morley Cresswell. He had dumped her, and
that was that … all in the past … over … done. And why should she
care? She did not need a stubborn, pig-headed, unsympathetic farmer
in her life. Was she not here, in this posh restaurant, being wined
and dined by the handsomest intern the Holy Cross had ever had the
honour of admitting to its program? And was he not looking at her
with the fondest admiration? So she did not need Morley Cresswell.
Goodbye, good riddance.
Tyne put her glass on the table with a thump. And to her horror
and distress she burst into tears.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763068

Savages and Beasts

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“Yes, I do. I’ve been in this position for almost five years
and since my first month, one November night, around nine
o’clock I was paid a visit by the Head Master of this facility,
Father Jerome, who, that night for the first time but not the last
violated me in the most disgusting way; He has been doing this
occasionally, whenever he would feel up to it, no questions asked
no permissions granted…”
“Father Jerome” Anton talked to himself, “somehow the
impression I got for the man, the first time I met him, was that
he would never take no for an answer…”
Mary turned a little so her eyes would dive deep in Anton’s
and smiled at him. Her smile seemed forced, stressed smile, yet it
was her smiling lips that Anton looked at and enjoyed their shape
and promising tomorrow. She took his hand before she continued.
“Yes Sister Gladys and Father Jerome are lovers, for a long
time, I’d say from the day of his arrival here, they seem to match
in many different ways and the way our rooms are lined upstairs,
you’d notice when you come for some reason upstairs and spend
time you’ll realize that her room is next to Sister Helen’s and next
to hers is mine, all the men’s rooms are on the opposite side of
the upstairs hallway with Father Jerome’s in the middle. He’d
just walk out of his and within ten or so feet he accesses Sister
Gladys’ room or mine.”
She stopped and took a breath, the freshness of the August
day just outside the truck window and the freshness of the slow
flowing water of the Thompson River blew certain moist on her
face moistening it; she pulled Anton closer to her and kissed him.
“Sister Gladys followed Father Jerome each time he paid a
visit to me and since she saw me as a competitor who I never have
been nor would I ever want to become, in fact each time Father
Jerome came to my room, he plainly and simply raped me,

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763602

In Turbulent Times

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Liam Dooley was thirty-eight, going on thirty-nine. His fair, wavy hair was receding alarmingly at the temples. He believed a baldness was spreading at the back of his head also, like a threadbare elbow in an old jacket, but he could not see for sure in the mirror and he would have been embarrassed to ask. There was no one he could have asked in any case without feeling foolish. His parents were dead; his sister, after her twenty-first birthday, had moved to Belfast to marry the father of her daughter; and Liam lived alone in two rooms, a kitchen and a living-bedroom that the Church had built onto the back of the new school as accommodation for the teacher, but which could be converted to additional classrooms when the growing number of pupils made the extension necessary. Liam’s baldness and his forties were both approaching rapidly. Both inexorable. He could always have lied about his age to strangers who did not know him but he could not pass himself off as twenty-eight or twenty-nine when his hairline was almost as far back as his ears and threatening to meet up with the circle of skin he felt was spreading at his crown. He had to face facts. Liam Dooley’s youth was irretrievably lost. Lost, not squandered. Liam was no profligate. He was no philanderer. His intimacy with women extended only to walking one or two of them home from church. Once he went as far as holding Molly Noonan’s hand as they strolled home from a choir practice but he could not bring himself to embrace her, nor to give her a kiss as he left her at her door. He wanted to. He wanted to very much. But he was timorous and hesitant. Fearful of rejection, he held back. Molly did not ask him in for tea. Nor did she ever walk home with him again. Sean O’Sullivan, a tenor with large, yellowing teeth, escorted her home after that. Then Molly got pregnant, and she and Sean ran away to Belfast and were never seen again.
Liam often thought of Molly Noonan, of the pert looks she flicked his way, of the teasing scent from her red hair as he stood behind her in the choir, of the smiles she gave him when he entered Lizzie Martin’s shop where she worked. He remembered the late spring evening when they had last walked home together. They had paused where Killeenagh Burn trips down

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

Poodie James

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He spoke at service club meetings. He lectured at
the college. He played golf as he always had, seldom and badly. It
was a way of socializing; he detested the game.
Sam restrained himself from meddling in the affairs of Winter
and Franklin; he promised his partner and his wife that he would
keep hands off the firm. Despite his efforts to stay busy, the boredom
of retirement began to overtake him. Pete Torgerson’s predecessor
as mayor asked Sam to fill the unexpired term of a full-time
municipal court judge who died. The term had less than a year to
run. When Sam told her about it, Liza was reluctant and then, the
more she thought about it, relieved. Sam accepted the judgeship.
On the bench and in chambers, he discovered in himself gravity
and patience, qualities that during his years of arguing before
judges he never imagined he had. He enjoyed the work. Before the
term ended, he announced himself a candidate for a superior court
seat. The bar association endorsed him. He won easily and was
nearing the end of his second term.
There was nothing official about it, but Sam Winter had
become a sort of guardian to Poodie. In 1934 when the bank foreclosed
on the Thorps, Jeremy Stone asked him to come up with a
legal guarantee that no one would throw Poodie off the property.
On Sam’s advice, the bank gave Poodie a life estate in the cabin.
That’s where he was now, reading, no doubt, Sam thought. The
little man came to the door in his shorts and sandals, grinning,
holding Breasted’s History of Egypt, a book the judge had always
meant to get around to.
“Listen, Poodie” Sam began.
Poodie’s grin expanded. He cupped his hand behind his ear and
cocked his head, eyes intent on Sam’s face.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Sorry, Poodie. I mean, we have to discuss
something. It’s about the mayor.”
The grin diminished. Poodie spoke a couple of sentences. Sam
hunched his shoulders and spread his hands.
“Better get your pad and pencil,” he said.
Poodie invited the judge inside.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W7SHCMV

Water in the Wilderness

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in the far corner of the bed. Her breath spent, Rachael grew still, and Lyssa released her wrists. Without a word she turned away, walked quietly around the bed and, falling to the floor, gathered the doll into her arms. There she sat and rocked back and forth until both cousins quieted and lay still.
Her grief too deep for tears, Rachael lay down on the cold floor. And with the mutilated doll clasped tightly against her chest, she silently made her plans.
“It’s been a good Christmas, sweetie,” Tyne said as she snuggled against Morley on their way home from his parents’ farm. “Our first one as an old married couple. Imagine that.”
Morley chuckled and took his right hand off the steering wheel to put his arm around her shoulders. “Who’s old? Do you feel old?”
Tyne smiled in the darkness. “Not with you around, husband.”
For several minutes they drove in silence, a deep peace enveloping Tyne as she relived the highlights of the day. Her first Christmas off duty for several years was in itself cause enough for rejoicing. But the best part had been her dad’s hospitality towards Morley. She had first noticed his change in attitude when the family had gathered at the farm for dinner in the fall, and she silently thanked God for bringing it about. Jeff Milligan had sat with Morley and Jeremy in the living room on Maple Avenue today, and willingly joined in the conversation.
In the kitchen, she had been helping her mother and Aunt Millie clean up the remains of breakfast and begin preparations for dinner. She smiled now, remembering how her aunt, dishtowel in hand, had stood by the door to the living room and listened for a few moments to the amiable conversation between the three men. Returning to the counter, Millie had picked up a plate and said to her sister-in-law, “I don’t know what you’re putting in my brother’s tea, Emily, but whatever it is, please keep on doing it.”
Tyne’s mother had stifled a laugh, and said in her usual reserved way, “Now, now, Millie ….”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676319X

Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

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Finten took the potion, looked at it and handed it back without
even tasting.
“What is this vile green stuff? It’s going to make me retch again.”
“It’s allium and mint. Drink it. You’ll feel better.”
“Garlic juice! If it kills me, I’ll be relieved.”
Finten closed his eyes and quickly drained the cup. He took a deep breath, then
another. Slowly, the nausea passed.
“Ah, my dear, good friend. Thank you. Thank you. Bless you, Brother. Now look
after your patient, Father Gofraidh.”
Rordan moved toward the old man but Gofraidh motioned him away. Rordan
sat and closed his eyes to the impending headache that always came in stressful
situations.
As the sky grew dark, the wind intensified to gale force. The sea roiled and heaved.
Mountains of angry water tossed the small craft dizzily through the air to the top of
a white-capped wave.
Brother Ailan cried out above the howling wind, “Holy Mother of God.”
Father Finten completed the prayer, “Ora pro nobis.” A reflex bred out of habit.
“Lord, save us,” the usually jovial Ailan whispered as the cauldron shifted, the lid
popped off, and the hapless cook grabbed to rescue a chunk of peat. “Ouch! Damn!”
The tiny craft slipped back, down, down, down. A fountain of icy water washed
over the six miserable monks, huddled together, holding on to the shifting struts.
Leather bulged and snapped against bleeding fingers.
Brother Ailan struggled to unstop a bag of whale oil to pour the contents on the
frothy waves. The bag slipped from his grasp. Putrid smelling oil ran over his feet
into the bottom of the boat and sloshed over Rordan’s and Finten’s feet. “Merda!”
Shit! Rordan swore. Father Finten didn’t even look up.
Once more, Ailan lifted the bag over the side. A wave crashed in, spreading more
oil in the currach than on the waters. While he struggled to return the remaining
whale oil to its storage under the floorboards, Brother Ailan watched a wall of water
crash in to knock the lid from his peat cauldron once more and swamp the smouldering
contents with a mighty hiss.
The shape of the boat seemed to change with each twist and turn. Like a struggling
sheep nipped in shearing, the currach pranced, kicked, and butted with creaks
and groans. The wind howled like demons in agony.
Each time a wave broke against the bow, a torrent of spray swamped the boat. The
Brothers bailed for their lives with buckets and cooking pots.
Father Gofraidh lay half submerged by water in the bottom of the currach. The
old man held a crucifix firmly in his left hand while his right held desperately to the
seat above him.
Mountains of water marched, threatened, marched on. The wind tore the tops
off the waves. Sleet drove horizontally, caking hair and clothing in dripping slush.
Brother Rordan, to stem his own fear, chanted, shakily at first then with increasing
gusto,“Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae.” Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy.
His voice rose above the wind and waves as though the angels sang. The wind paused
to listen. For an instant, there was calm. Then, a mountain of dark green water rose
above the tiny craft and the miserable mortals were about to be flattened by one giant
slap. Miraculously, the currach glided slowly up the sheer wall.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763106

The Unquiet Land

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night beyond the window. But tonight was different. Tonight the heavy, unmoving air grew stagnant; it weighed upon the room unstirred by old Finn’s gusty tales. Tonight the old sailor’s verbal gales had died to barely audible sighs.
Finn appeared to be unaware of the deepening depression that had settled over the homecoming party. His mind was on the day many years ago when he first saw Padraig: a skinny boy in short pants, writhing on the cobbles of a market square, foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog. Never would he forget the sight. The crowd pushed back, staring in ignorance and horror at the boy’s convulsions. Two mongrel pups snapped at his legs and arms, and a sheepdog snarled and barked, its vicious teeth bared as if ready to rush in and chomp them into the boy’s neck.
“The whelp with the trousers isn’t putting up much of a fight,” someone said, and the crowd started to laugh. Ignorance and horror relaxed into mirth.
“I wonder what he’d do with a bitch in heat,” said another.
Finn waded through the crowd as through a field of barley, pushing the people aside in anger. He burst into the clearing where the boy was lying still now, his face in the muck that covered the cobbles of The Square. Finn kicked the sheepdog hard; it ran off into the crowd with a howl of pain. The pups pranced around him, yelping still, as Finn knelt down, rolled the boy over and picked him up in his arms.
“I spit on you all,” he shouted to the crowd and carried the boy away down the sloping street to where his fishing boat was tied in the harbour.
Now the Devil’s child, his own adopted son, was home again, a priest.
“I hoped to make a man of you, Padraig.” Finn was rising out of his reverie. “And I made a monk. Well, I suppose that’s not a bad accomplishment, considering what I had to work with. Come now, gentlemen, let’s not look as if we’re at a Presbyterian wake. Let’s drink. Let’s eat.” He turned towards the door that led into the kitchen. “Caitie! Jinnie! Bring us some supper. We’re half a dozen hungry men in here.”
Supper revived the company. Even Clifford forgot his headache and his queasy stomach. He enjoyed the food, the conversation, the dark red wine that everyone started drinking again in large measures. The more they drank, the more convivial they became. Only Finn MacLir seemed more subdued than usual.
“We had many more people here to welcome you last night, Padraig.” Slattery’s purple face was taking on a crimson cast like a spectacular sunset.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203

The Circle

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He sits down and looks around the office; the lieutenant catches his eye and
says, “Well, it’s as functional as any other, I suppose.”
The Admiral smiles thinking of his own office, which is very similar.
“Yes, I suppose so, lieutenant. Well, tell me what we know so far; do you have
an autopsy report?”
“Yes, it arrived a little earlier,” Bonetti gives him the written report of the
autopsy.
The Admiral reads the half-page brief and hands it back to the officer.
“It appears to be a clear-cut case, I suppose. Anything else on your mind,
lieutenant?”
“It’s strange that, when we got the phone records from the house, we
determined the widow had made a few calls when she discovered the body. The
first call was to a lover, then to the daughter, then to us third. Then to her
girlfriend.”
“To a lover? There is another man in the picture? I never expected that from
Emily. Are you sure?”
The lieutenant looks him in the eye and says, “No doubt, Admiral. She calls
him “sweetheart” and he says to her, “I’ll be there shortly.” I have seen this
scenario many times, however we cannot place him at the crime scene at the time
of death. The evidence is crystal clear, ballistics, prints, etc.”
“That means the third person has no involvement, I presume,” the Admiral
says. “Who is he, anyway?”
“A person named Talal Ahem, an Iraqi chemist, presently unemployed.”
“I have met this man, Talal Ahem. He is a friend of Hakim Mahdi,
boyfriend of the deceased’s daughter?”
“Yes, Admiral. He was the one with the limo, when I got there.”
“Yes, I know him as well. He’s the nephew of Ibrahim Mahdi, an Iraqi
billionaire, here for cancer treatment. I wouldn’t think these two boys would
have anything to do with this,” he admits to himself aloud.
“Well, it seems you know these people. Now I have something else for you,
Admiral, and this is most strange. When I conducted my examination at the
scene, I noticed signs of tears on the cheeks of the deceased; the medical
examiner confirmed it. The examiner says this man was in a blissful state of
mind when he took his own life. I find that very difficult to follow. Yet the
autopsy confirms that; as you read in the report they found traces of serotonin in
his bloodstream. On the other hand, there was plenty of adrenaline in his
bloodstream also, which means this man had been quite unhappy and angry
before coming to the state of blissfulness, as the examiner put it.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186524

In Turbulent Times

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‘Not capable enough, Clifford. Caitlin needs a doctor. Mother Ross says so herself. She’s worried. Mrs Starkey says she’ll give you anything you need from the doctor’s surgery.’
‘No, it’s all right,’ said Clifford. ‘I have everything I’m likely to need here.’ He dithered. Then he drew a deep breath and said, ‘Very well, Michael, I’ll come right away. Let me get my stuff together and put my rain-gear on.’
He climbed back upstairs to his room.
Hurry, Clifford, hurry, hurry, Michael kept saying to himself. For God’s sake, hurry.
At last Clifford came down again, buttoning his raincoat. He carried a black bag in one hand. He shouted down the hall, ‘Timmins, we’re leaving. I’ll be back in an hour or two. Don’t lock the gates.’ Then he turned to Michael and said with a levity lost on the distraught father-to-be, ‘Now, let’s be off to the rescue of this fair damsel in distress.’
He followed Michael to the main road and climbed into the trap. The shafts tipped up, the harness jingled and creaked, the pony snorted and tossed its wet head. Michael jerked the reins a couple of times and shouted. He turned the pony and trap around, and off they went, slowly at first, until the pony found its stride.
God, what a miserable night to be born, Clifford thought. He was nervous. He had already delivered three babies, but they were easy, straightforward births, the first two under supervision. This one sounded difficult. A breech birth at least. Perhaps a Caesarean. He would rather have kept clear of this ordeal but found it impossible to refuse. He had a reputation in the village where many already regarded him as the best new doctor in Belfast. The village was proud of him. This birth would enhance his reputation or shatter it like a dropped mirror. Clifford was worried in case it might go badly. As the rain-beaten cart bounced and swayed towards the MacLir house, Clifford frantically recalled everything he ought to know about breech births and Caesarean sections. By the time he and Michael arrived in the yard behind the house Clifford was confident he could handle any complication. His reputation was assured. It was not the village that was looking on, he thought with typical self-importance, it was the world.
As he rushed across the farmyard to the back door, Clifford slipped on a wet, muddy cobblestone and almost fell. He only just reached the door in time to check his forward fall with his free outstretched hand. That frightened him. Tonight he could not afford to be clumsy.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270