q
I rolled about in the bog and tumble weed, over marsh marigolds, flattening all in my path. My dead weight was immense.
A concrete block thrown from a train would do no less damage than my fledging corpse.
I came to rest in some thickets, bruised but with little other damage to report.
I still had my notebook.
I opened it and flicked through it.
Nothing.
It was all bollocks.
No.
Wait.
On the bottom hand corner of the left hand margin, I caught sight of some ancient scribble.
It was a phone number.
01.
I was very faint.
6285.
Yes.
147.
Yes.
It sounded familiar, and as I said it, it sounded doubly so.
Perhaps I was deluding myself.
No so!
01-62855147.
It was the number of that mad monk, the one I sought solace from before they captured me.
Ring him.
Yes!
But how?
I pulled myself up without aid (impossible) and made my way back towards the tracks.
I walked along them all day, until I got to the edge of town. I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t recognise anything. Had I been away that long?
I hitched a ride into the city centre with some old farmer. He told me stories. About how bad things were.
—Things don’t change, do they?
—Of course not.
He left me at the foot of Grafton Street and to be honest nothing was as I remembered it. Maybe I had been talking too much to the farmer. Because I didn’t notice the amount of cars, and the size of the roads.
Everything was bigger.
I was lost.
I wondered down towards O’Connell Bridge.
I was amazed.
Everything was the still essentially the same, but it was also dramatically different. I could not explain it.
—What year is it, I asked someone.
—Fuck off, they said, pushing me aside.
It had started to rain.
I was not dressed for this weather.
I stood under the old central bank. I was shivering.
Where could I go?
I suddenly remember the number in my pocket.
—The Mad monk, I shouted out, hands flaying in the air.
I must have been some sight.
It took me a while though.
There were no public phones left in Dublin.
An awful travesty.
Some nice gentlemen in a finely embroidered suit lent me his phone for a moment.
I did not return it.
Rather, I ran as fast as I could away from him and his vague supplications regarding his sick wife and such and such.
We are all on the cancer ward, my friend.
—Hello.
—Yes.
—Is this Martin?
—Yes.
—The Monk.
—Yes.
—I need some information.
—What kind?
—Information information.
—Ah. That kind.
—Yes.
—Who are you looking for?
—My father.
—Is he alive?
—I don’t know.
—Is he dead?
—I don’t know.
—Strange.
—Can you help me?
—I can help everyone, who can help themselves.
—Fuck your philosophy.
—Do you want help?
—Yes.
—Then fuck you.
—Sorry.
—It’s ok.
—I’m having a bad day.
—Aren’t we all? Act accordingly.
I can’t record any more of that drivel.
The long and short of it was that I was to give him my father’s family name and last known whereabouts.
I did.
I should have asked him the year. Maybe I was inside for twenty years. Did I really age that much? I needed a mirror.
I was at a loss of what to do.
My escape has created as many problems, if not more, than I had when under incarceration.
Perhaps I should go back.
I really thought that.
Fuck it.
I jumped on a number 66 bus and made my way to Maynooth.
If my father was anywhere he was certainly not in the fucking pale.
Blind Mick Quinn might help me, I thought. If he was not dead.
The mobile rang.
—Yes.
—Yes.
—Yes.
—Yes.
I hung up.
It seemed I was heading in the right direction. Except I would have to go further still.
