This is the opening of book 2 -- A New World. Brendan has witnessed a horrific bombing and crashed into a psychotic break in order to handle it.
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There was black, peeling paint on an old windowsill. Paint weather-beaten and dried and bleached by the sun till it curled into little sections to reveal gray wood that used to be pine. I think. Bits had shredded away thanks to rain and wind...maybe someone’s careless pulling at the splinters. Maybe mine. It was almost lovely in its weaving patterns and grooves. But what caught my attention most was the steady line of ants whispering back and forth across it. Dismantling what was left of a half-eaten sandwich and crisps on a dish. Once some sort of meat salad on light bread. Not so very old. Part of a crust lay next to it. Had it been mine? There was a taste in my mouth that was rather fishy. And in my hand was a long bottle of Coke. Still chilled and half gone. If it was I who sipped it, as well, I don’t remember it.
From that sandwich, my eyes led me around a room larger than Ma’s, with a single bed against the wall to my left, a table beside it with a lamp and clock that read 11:42. A unit of shelves to the other side of it, filled with books, then a door and a well-stuffed chair in another corner and a writing desk jammed behind me. Paper with soft lines of golds and browns and oranges and greens covered the walls while plain tan paper swiped across the ceiling, and picture-prints in black frames hung here and there, with areas around some of them faded, as if there had been larger items in their place.
I finally noticed I was sitting in a swivel chair that seemed to belong to the desk, and on it was a typewriter under its own cover. The bed was mussed. Slippers and a robe lay on the floor, which led me to notice I was in pyjamas. Bottoms only, but it was good they were. The air was warm and thick, not at all like early winter.
My window was on the second floor and looked out into a yard that was nothing like what you would find in Derry...and could have used some tending. Half was covered in grass that was forcing its way between the tile and concrete encompassing a rectangular swimming pool. At the far end was a small house built of brick, with black trimmed windows with a slanted roof. A wire fence laced with vines of thick, drooping, fragrant yellow and white flowers encompassed the yard, with a pair of trees offering deep shade from its two corners, a hammock strung between them. An old bicycle, rusted but workable, was propped up against a section that had a wire gate. A brick garage was to the right of one tree, unto itself, a well-tended gravel drive leading up to it and an old Volvo 544 parked to one side. It all had the feel of expensive, but worn and in need of serious work.
I heard children laughing in the distance and --
-- I looked around to see a boy and girl chasing from the sweets shop and dancing around each other and the boy falling against the car and --
I bolted up from the chair to pace the room, my breath harsh and sudden, my arms wrapped around me. Panic filled my entire body and I put my hands to my ears but still I could hear the laughter...and I walked the length of that room, back and forth and back and forth...until it faded away...and my pacing stopped and my arms drew down...and I let myself notice a smell that came from my skin. A scented soap so clean and fresh and --
-- My shirt was removed, carefully, by two men, one my age and one twice as old, and I was sat on the toilet to remove my boots and socks then guided to my feet for one set of hands to tug at my pants as the other held me up and --
I spun to look at a door beside the desk. I knew it was the loo before I even crossed to open it. Which it was -- long and narrow, with a massive tub and shower curtain around it and a pair of sinks with a tall mirror opposite it and a small window in the wall above the tub to let in light and a door at the far end that I knew would be locked. I slipped in and saw the toilet was behind a partition on the far side of the tub, and everything was in perfect condition -- save for the towels hung haphazard from neat little bars affixed to the wall. I smelled one, and it held the same lingering aroma of that soap and --
-- The older man rubbed me down with one, talking in a voice I couldn’t understand, as the younger one brought in the pyjamas and robe and my hair was toweled off then combed, as if he’d done it a hundred times before and --
I sat on the edge of the tub, not so much from confusion as from dizziness. It seems I’d been bathed and dressed and put to bed like a sleepy child. Was it the day after? Two days? A week? I honestly had no sense of the time. But the weather was warm to the point of hot and the stillness of it oppressed almost to where you couldn’t breathe. This could never be winter in Derry. Nor summer. Was I in the tropics?
I rose and leaned against the sink to look in the mirror and saw looking back this hollow-eyed lad with a scruff of a beard...well, in the places it would grow. My hair was longer and ratty with curls. My skin was grey and I looked as if I’d lost two or three stone, the way my bones showed on me. I began to shake and my knees give out and I dropped to the floor and --
-- I flew through clouds of the finest mist molded into perfect playthings, with the sky as blue as blue could be and all seen through a small window with rounded corners that distorted everything but I didn’t care because the clouds were heaven and souls filled them to bursting and dreams danced in the shadows of their billowing tufts and I whispered a song to them -- Farewell Angelina? -- as they soared past and a hand touched me and I looked around and --
Someone entered the bedroom, without knocking.
“Brendan?” asked the kindest voice one could imagine. “Are you all right, son?”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t think of the words to say.
-------------
There was black, peeling paint on an old windowsill. Paint weather-beaten and dried and bleached by the sun till it curled into little sections to reveal gray wood that used to be pine. I think. Bits had shredded away thanks to rain and wind...maybe someone’s careless pulling at the splinters. Maybe mine. It was almost lovely in its weaving patterns and grooves. But what caught my attention most was the steady line of ants whispering back and forth across it. Dismantling what was left of a half-eaten sandwich and crisps on a dish. Once some sort of meat salad on light bread. Not so very old. Part of a crust lay next to it. Had it been mine? There was a taste in my mouth that was rather fishy. And in my hand was a long bottle of Coke. Still chilled and half gone. If it was I who sipped it, as well, I don’t remember it.
From that sandwich, my eyes led me around a room larger than Ma’s, with a single bed against the wall to my left, a table beside it with a lamp and clock that read 11:42. A unit of shelves to the other side of it, filled with books, then a door and a well-stuffed chair in another corner and a writing desk jammed behind me. Paper with soft lines of golds and browns and oranges and greens covered the walls while plain tan paper swiped across the ceiling, and picture-prints in black frames hung here and there, with areas around some of them faded, as if there had been larger items in their place.
I finally noticed I was sitting in a swivel chair that seemed to belong to the desk, and on it was a typewriter under its own cover. The bed was mussed. Slippers and a robe lay on the floor, which led me to notice I was in pyjamas. Bottoms only, but it was good they were. The air was warm and thick, not at all like early winter.
My window was on the second floor and looked out into a yard that was nothing like what you would find in Derry...and could have used some tending. Half was covered in grass that was forcing its way between the tile and concrete encompassing a rectangular swimming pool. At the far end was a small house built of brick, with black trimmed windows with a slanted roof. A wire fence laced with vines of thick, drooping, fragrant yellow and white flowers encompassed the yard, with a pair of trees offering deep shade from its two corners, a hammock strung between them. An old bicycle, rusted but workable, was propped up against a section that had a wire gate. A brick garage was to the right of one tree, unto itself, a well-tended gravel drive leading up to it and an old Volvo 544 parked to one side. It all had the feel of expensive, but worn and in need of serious work.
I heard children laughing in the distance and --
-- I looked around to see a boy and girl chasing from the sweets shop and dancing around each other and the boy falling against the car and --
I bolted up from the chair to pace the room, my breath harsh and sudden, my arms wrapped around me. Panic filled my entire body and I put my hands to my ears but still I could hear the laughter...and I walked the length of that room, back and forth and back and forth...until it faded away...and my pacing stopped and my arms drew down...and I let myself notice a smell that came from my skin. A scented soap so clean and fresh and --
-- My shirt was removed, carefully, by two men, one my age and one twice as old, and I was sat on the toilet to remove my boots and socks then guided to my feet for one set of hands to tug at my pants as the other held me up and --
I spun to look at a door beside the desk. I knew it was the loo before I even crossed to open it. Which it was -- long and narrow, with a massive tub and shower curtain around it and a pair of sinks with a tall mirror opposite it and a small window in the wall above the tub to let in light and a door at the far end that I knew would be locked. I slipped in and saw the toilet was behind a partition on the far side of the tub, and everything was in perfect condition -- save for the towels hung haphazard from neat little bars affixed to the wall. I smelled one, and it held the same lingering aroma of that soap and --
-- The older man rubbed me down with one, talking in a voice I couldn’t understand, as the younger one brought in the pyjamas and robe and my hair was toweled off then combed, as if he’d done it a hundred times before and --
I sat on the edge of the tub, not so much from confusion as from dizziness. It seems I’d been bathed and dressed and put to bed like a sleepy child. Was it the day after? Two days? A week? I honestly had no sense of the time. But the weather was warm to the point of hot and the stillness of it oppressed almost to where you couldn’t breathe. This could never be winter in Derry. Nor summer. Was I in the tropics?
I rose and leaned against the sink to look in the mirror and saw looking back this hollow-eyed lad with a scruff of a beard...well, in the places it would grow. My hair was longer and ratty with curls. My skin was grey and I looked as if I’d lost two or three stone, the way my bones showed on me. I began to shake and my knees give out and I dropped to the floor and --
-- I flew through clouds of the finest mist molded into perfect playthings, with the sky as blue as blue could be and all seen through a small window with rounded corners that distorted everything but I didn’t care because the clouds were heaven and souls filled them to bursting and dreams danced in the shadows of their billowing tufts and I whispered a song to them -- Farewell Angelina? -- as they soared past and a hand touched me and I looked around and --
Someone entered the bedroom, without knocking.
“Brendan?” asked the kindest voice one could imagine. “Are you all right, son?”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t think of the words to say.
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