The Odyssey - by Brian Martin

The Odyssey
by Brian Martin

"There's nothing wrong with me" - I'm surprised I let those words out. But it's always been my tendency to lie to doctors, as if good health consisted only of the ability to lie to them.

"Calm down Daniel. What have you taken?"

"Nothing... No... Noth... I'm Fine"

"Are you hearing unusual sounds or voices?" the doctor asked.

"Help us, oh God it hurts," the boxes of syringes screamed.

"Not exactly" I said

"Not exactly," he said. "Now, what does that mean?"

The wheels of my trolley were laughing at me again.

"I'm not ready to go into all that," I said. A yellow bird fluttered close to my face, and my muscles grabbed. Now I was flopping like a fish. When I squeezed shut my eyes, hot tears exploded from the sockets. When I opened them, I was on my stomach.

"How did the room get so white?" I asked.

A beautiful nurse was touching my skin. "These are vitamins," she said and drove the needle in.

If the reading is from Luke: 24. The one when Christ returned to his loved ones, then it was raining. Gigantic ferns leaned over us. A forest drifted down a hill. I could hear a clear creek rushing down amongst rocks.

A secret rave in the Wicklow Mountains... A taxi driver who shared his vodka while sleeping... A Volkswagen no more then a bubble of hashish fumes, captained by a senseless maniac... An old Mercedes with three blond college students in it. Low slung hipsters and dark rings around their eyes tempting me. You couldn't possibly expect me to remember what order they came in; but I knew they were coming. I'm almost sure we were all trying to get back to Dublin.

I rose up sopping wet from sleeping under the pouring rain; thanks to the rave I was something less then conscious. An angel shaped puddle had formed where I had lain. At the head of the entrance ramp I waited for them to come. I thought what was the point of rolling up my sleeping bag when I was too wet to be let into anybody's car? I draped it around me like a cape. I couldn't afford to lie back down and give up. These people deserved that I should at least try. The downpour raked the asphalt and gurgled in the ruts. My thoughts zoomed pitifully. During the dieing embers of the rave an unrepentant whore fed me a pink pill that made the linings of my veins feel scraped out. My jaw ached. But I knew every raindrop by its name. I sensed everything before it happened. I knew a certain taxi would stop for me even before it slowed. And by the sweet essence of the warmth that emanated from the opened door I thought maybe it was too late. Maybe I could never save him.

But I didn't care. He said he'd take me all the way.

The taxi man put his crate of beer into the back seat beside my dripping bedroll. "Alright bud hows it goin? Listen Im not gonna take you anywhere very fast" he said. "I dont exactly need to be stopped by the pigs if you know what I mean"

Yes, you are the one. There was a chance for him. I piled my jacket against the left hand door and rested my head on it. I stared at the wing mirror. I looked at my double. My face wasn't even two feet from mine. I got that flutter in my heart that we all get when we happen to stroll past a car parked off by itself somewhere, with a leather jacket or a guitar on the front seat. I couldn't see very well, the raindrops on the glass made sure of that. I got the impression the poor soul staring back at me was upset. I could have touched a teardrop; he was that close to me. I was pretty sure that, shadowed inside the car, behind the glass, my double wouldn't notice me, unless perhaps I made a movement, so I stayed very still. I peered at his dark face. His hair formed into wet snakes running down over his face. He was losing his looks. A couple of years before girls would be intrigued by his boyish features but these days beautiful women in the corner of his eyes disappeared when he looked at them. It looked like he was grieving- chewing his lower lip, staring, and letting tears fall across his cheek. But no one else would notice them as they just absorbed into the psychic pollution of his wet skin.

From outside the vehicle it must have looked like the driver and I had just finished some cruel argument. Our body language purchased far too much meaning. I was leaning away from him, head turned away, and from the corner of my eye I noticed how sorry the taxi man looked. If somebody could sit like a boxer or maybe a footballer trying to walk with an injury, then my driver could. His sincerity was plain in the way he sat there with his jaw stuck on a word and kind of holding an apology in his hands. Yes maybe I could save him. I opened the window; soft ribbons of rain began to whirl around the interior of the car. I turned towards him and smiled.

"Shut that Fuckin window ye dopey bollix!" He leaned across me and closed it. His sudden movement jolted my stupor but I understood. "Jesus Christ what's wrong with you kids these days, too much money if ya ask me. What's wrong with having a couple of pints in town or in the local? I mean dancing in a disused artillery range in Wicklow. I mean for crying out loud look at the state of ye. Iv been driving up and down to Dublin and back all morning bringing people back."

By that afternoon the taxi man and I had swept into county Dublin. We'd developed a dangerous cynical camaraderie. I ate up all the beer he had and every so often we pulled off the road and had a few sips of vodka

"That's right son get that down ya, it'll warm ye up, ease your exorcist in whah?" Up until the first two sips of vodka I was in that place between life and death. Now I was free. Under eastern clouds like great grey brains we left the dual carriageway with a drifting sensation and entered Dublin City's rush hour with a feeling of running aground. We drove into one of those new satellite suburbs that before they are fully built are left shipwrecked in a sea of countryside.

Derek, he had since introduced himself as Derek. Asked me if it was ok if we could make a detour. Before I could answer he told me to go fuck myself because I wasn't even paying for the trip. We pulled up to a lopsided block of apartments set on a hill of grass.

"Here head Im only gonna go in for a few secs" he said, "You want to come in?"

"Who's here?" I said.

"Come and see," he told me.

"I don't think my legs work"

"Wha?!"

"Nuttin... Nuttin.... ok"

It didn't seem anyone was home when we climbed the porch and he knocked. But he didn't knock again, and after a full three minutes a woman opened the door, a slender redhead in a printed nightgown with small blossoms. She was slightly younger then Derek, or maybe she was softer. She didn't smile. "Hi" was all she said to us.

"Can we come in?" Derek asked.

"Let me come onto the porch," she said, she crossed her arms and walked past us to stand looking out over the fields.

I waited at the other end of the porch, leaning against the rail, and didn't listen. I don't know what they said to one another. She walked down the steps, and Derek followed. He stood hugging himself and talking down at the earth. The wind lifted and dropped her long red hair. She was about forty, with a bloodless, waterlogged beauty.

In a minute he said to me, "Come on" He got in and started the car. I came down the steps and got in beside him. He looked at her through the windshield. She hadn't gone back inside yet, or done anything at all.

I turned around in the seat and studied the woman as we drove off. What words can be uttered about those fields? She stood in the middle of them as on a high mountain, with her red hair pulled out sideways by the wind, around her the green and grey plains pressed down flat, and what was left of the rolling grasses of Dublin were singing one note. I knew who she was. I recognised her. A picture of her hung from one of the panelled dials on Derek's dashboard. She looked up at the sky, shook her head, and began to laugh. I guess Derek was the storm that stranded her there.

"Nurse hold him down I think he's coming through again," I gasped for air.

The nurse was holding what looked like a tiny steel bucket right underneath my chin.

"Daniel try and vomit it will make you feel better"

"I bet you it won't" I grinned. A powerful love for the world outside that theatre gripped me.

The clouds were brilliance until night. Then, in the dark, I didn't see the storm gathering. Three ghost complectioned college girls with bodies to die for called for me to come closer to their Mercedes. They offered me a lift. They said they'd take me wherever I wanted to go. The music that was playing in the car was so beautiful.

"Hey is that Danny?"

"Wanna take a ride?"

They offered to stoke my head with all the free drugs I could dream of but I had enough of free drugs. Never mind the speed, the acid, and the pink pill. I looked at their red lips, their black wild eyes. Their soothing tempting voices trying to draw me down the grassy slope into the back of their car. I couldn't, they didn't need me. They were beyond my help. I waved them away. I was too overcome to stand up. I lay out in the grass off the exit ramp and woke in the middle of a puddle that had filled up around me

"We're not going to lose him not on my shift. I'm off in twenty minutes and I don't need that much paperwork."

Now the yellow bird was on the good doctor's shoulder.

"Daniel we need to know what you have taken and how much have you taken. We think you may have hypothermia as well"

"Doctor. His body is going into convulsion again"

"Cut it off I don't need my body, I'm going to rise soon"

The rain was so heavy it was like a dust storm and sometimes dust storms stand off in the desert. They can tower so high it's like another city- a terrifying new era approaching, blurring all of our dreams. I was coming down. I was a whimpering dog inside, nothing more then that. I held up my hands before my eyes. I was slowly feeling better. For the first time that night they were steady. They were as still as sculptors. Except for that strange pink pill, which made me feel like Styrofoam the whole way through, I felt my body was beginning to absorb itself again. How the hell did I end up all the way out here? Did someone say this was an artillery range? The sudden rain was making people flee. Where were my friends? A small four-seater was revving its engine close to me. When I waved my arms it stopped in front of me and turned off the engine. I heard music from the inside - trance music. It sounded sophisticated and lonely. I took a subtle distance from the car before letting one of the occupants open the door. The car smelled of a house a few friends of mine used to rent in Rathmines. You know them; we've all been in one. High ornamented ceilings, winding staircases! Everything you could ever hope for. But the house got raided and they all got taken away.

The driver was beautiful; she was sitting in front of me, wearing a skirt but not a blouse, just a white bra like someone in an undies ad in a teenage magazine. But she was older then that. Looking at her I thought of sneaking out into the fields with my girlfriend. All bundled up, with a scarf over her ears, in her innocence she looked like Eva Marie Saint in On the Waterfront. That was before she died; when we were so in love we didn't know what it was.

The driver's mascara was blurred and her lipstick was kissed away. She wiped her nose, a sleepy gesture. Her attendant in the passenger seat was the biggest blackest man I had ever seen. He was slapping his hands to the music with a pair of gloves; he was looking blindly down at me with the invulnerable smile of someone on heroin.

"So where you goin little man?"

"Dublin I suppose"

"We gotta stop of at a hospital first though ok?"

"Yeah sure, why? Is everything ok?"

The young woman said "Look behind you for a surprise"

Her companion was delighted "That's a beautiful way of saying it baby."

I looked behind, there was a man in the boot sitting like a bad sculpture, posing unnaturally with his shoulders wilting, as if he couldn't lug his hands any further. There was a knife in his left eye.

"Why is there a guy sitting in your boot with a knife in his eye?"

I looked back again. He greeted me with a magisterial sadness and a nod at the girl in the drivers seat. It wasn't his physical condition that had him there, it was his sadness.

I asked again "Heh why is there a guy in your boot with knife in his eye?"

"We fought over her man... We fought over her, don't wanna get any blood on my girlfriends car" The giant black man leaned over and squeezed his new girlfriends chin. I'm the new man in her life. Aint that right babe"

She giggled coquettishly and put the car into first.

"The names Antoinne so little man you want some acid?"

Normally, the thought of doing acid in a tiny blood splattered car with the Bonnie and Clyde from hell strung out on heroin with a grieving Cyclops whimpering behind you is not the best idea. But it was no normal situation.

It took a while for it to kick in. It wasn't as strong as I had hoped. Of course I thought it would take me away and banish everything that was plaguing me but I had to be content with a fuzzy rush and a profound glint to the corner of each colour. Objects smouldered at the edges. I sat still, raised both hands slowly behind my head, and tightened my ponytail. I tried to grab the yellow hummingbird that was scanning near the window but I couldn't lay my hands on it. I began to make broad random arcs with my arms. I looked at the blood on the back of the seat.

"There's so much goop inside of us man" I said "And it all wants to get out"

"Heh little man what are you crying for?" Antoinne said he seemed worried

"What am I crying for?" I said. "Jesus. Wow, oh boy perfect!"

Will you believe me when I tell you there were kindness in Antoine's heart? His left hand didn't know what his right hand was doing. It was only that certain important connections must have been burned through. If I opened up your head and ran a hot soldering iron around in your brain, I might turn you into something like that.

"Let me out of the car! I'm serious let me out of the car."

"Look at the rain. We're still in the middle of nowhere."

"I don't care I know what I have to do."

They threw me an old sleeping bag behind me after I got out of the car. I rolled it like an ancient scroll. I began towards Dublin. I thought of when I used to have a job. It seemed like a million years ago. When I used to be good. The last job I held was on a bee farm. It wasn't what you think. You become part of their daily drill. You see it's all part of a harmony.

Like this story my mind was turning a maddening loop. Through the relentless shower I could just about see the Wicklow Mountains above me. I closed my eyes and went to where the drifts run deeper.
"There's nothing wrong with me" - I'm surprised I let those words out. But it's always been my tendency to lie to doctors, as if good health consisted only of the ability to lie to them.

"Calm down Daniel. What have you taken?"

"Nothing... No North... Im Fine"

"Are you hearing unusual sounds or voices?" the doctor asked.

"Help us, oh God it hurts," the boxes of syringes, screamed.

"Not exactly" I said

"Not exactly," he said. "Now, what does that mean?"

The wheels of my trolley were laughing at me again.

"I'm not ready to go into all that," I said. The yellow bird fluttered close to my face, and my muscles grabbed. Now I was flopping like a fish. When I squeezed shut my eyes, hot tears exploded from the sockets. When I opened them, I was on my stomach.

"How did the room get so white?" I asked.

A beautiful nurse was touching my skin. "These are vitamins," she said and drove the needle in.

If the reading is from Luke: 24. The one when Christ returned to his loved ones, then it was raining. Gigantic ferns leaned over us. A forest drifted down a hill. I could hear a clear creek rushing down amongst rocks. And you, you ridiculous people, you expect me to help you.


The Odyssey by Brian Martin
"There's nothing wrong with me" - I'm surprised I let those words out. But it's always been my tendency to lie to doctors, as if good health consisted only of the ability to lie to them. "Calm down Daniel. What have you taken?" "Nothing... No... Noth... I'm Fine" "Are you hearing unusual sounds or voices?" the doctor asked. "Help us, oh God it hurts," the boxes of syringes screamed. "Not exactly" I said "Not exactly," he said. "Now, what does that mean?" The wheels of my trolley were laughing at me again. "I'm not ready to go into all that," I said. A yellow bird fluttered close to my face, and my muscles grabbed. Now I was flopping like a fish. When I squeezed shut my eyes, hot tears exploded from the sockets. When I opened them, I was on my stomach. "How did the room get so white?" I asked. A beautiful nurse was touching my skin. "These are vitamins," she said and drove the needle in. If the reading is from Luke: 24. The one when Christ returned to his loved ones, then it was raining. Gigantic ferns leaned over us. A forest drifted down a hill. I could hear a clear creek rushing down amongst rocks. A secret rave in the Wicklow Mountains... A taxi driver who shared his vodka while sleeping... A Volkswagen no more then a bubble of hashish fumes, captained by a senseless maniac... An old Mercedes with three blond college students in it. Low slung hipsters and dark rings around their eyes tempting me. You couldn't possibly expect me to remember what order they came in; but I knew they were coming. I'm almost sure we were all trying to get back to Dublin. I rose up sopping wet from sleeping under the pouring rain; thanks to the rave I was something less then conscious. An angel shaped puddle had formed where I had lain. At the head of the entrance ramp I waited for them to come. I thought what was the point of rolling up my sleeping bag when I was too wet to be let into anybody's car? I draped it around me like a cape. I couldn't afford to lie back down and give up. These people deserved that I should at least try. The downpour raked the asphalt and gurgled in the ruts. My thoughts zoomed pitifully. During the dieing embers of the rave an unrepentant whore fed me a pink pill that made the linings of my veins feel scraped out. My jaw ached. But I knew every raindrop by its name. I sensed everything before it happened. I knew a certain taxi would stop for me even before it slowed. And by the sweet essence of the warmth that emanated from the opened door I thought maybe it was too late. Maybe I could never save him. But I didn't care. He said he'd take me all the way. The taxi man put his crate of beer into the back seat beside my dripping bedroll. "Alright bud hows it goin? Listen Im not gonna take you anywhere very fast" he said. "I dont exactly need to be stopped by the pigs if you know what I mean" Yes, you are the one. There was a chance for him. I piled my jacket against the left hand door and rested my head on it. I stared at the wing mirror. I looked at my double. My face wasn't even two feet from mine. I got that flutter in my heart that we all get when we happen to stroll past a car parked off by itself somewhere, with a leather jacket or a guitar on the front seat. I couldn't see very well, the raindrops on the glass made sure of that. I got the impression the poor soul staring back at me was upset. I could have touched a teardrop; he was that close to me. I was pretty sure that, shadowed inside the car, behind the glass, my double wouldn't notice me, unless perhaps I made a movement, so I stayed very still. I peered at his dark face. His hair formed into wet snakes running down over his face. He was losing his looks. A couple of years before girls would be intrigued by his boyish features but these days beautiful women in the corner of his eyes disappeared when he looked at them. It looked like he was grieving- chewing his lower lip, staring, and letting tears fall across his cheek. But no one else would notice them as they just absorbed into the psychic pollution of his wet skin. From outside the vehicle it must have looked like the driver and I had just finished some cruel argument. Our body language purchased far too much meaning. I was leaning away from him, head turned away, and from the corner of my eye I noticed how sorry the taxi man looked. If somebody could sit like a boxer or maybe a footballer trying to walk with an injury, then my driver could. His sincerity was plain in the way he sat there with his jaw stuck on a word and kind of holding an apology in his hands. Yes maybe I could save him. I opened the window; soft ribbons of rain began to whirl around the interior of the car. I turned towards him and smiled. "Shut that Fuckin window ye dopey bollix!" He leaned across me and closed it. His sudden movement jolted my stupor but I understood. "Jesus Christ what's wrong with you kids these days, too much money if ya ask me. What's wrong with having a couple of pints in town or in the local? I mean dancing in a disused artillery range in Wicklow. I mean for crying out loud look at the state of ye. Iv been driving up and down to Dublin and back all morning bringing people back." By that afternoon the taxi man and I had swept into county Dublin. We'd developed a dangerous cynical camaraderie. I ate up all the beer he had and every so often we pulled off the road and had a few sips of vodka "That's right son get that down ya, it'll warm ye up, ease your exorcist in whah?" Up until the first two sips of vodka I was in that place between life and death. Now I was free. Under eastern clouds like great grey brains we left the dual carriageway with a drifting sensation and entered Dublin City's rush hour with a feeling of running aground. We drove into one of those new satellite suburbs that before they are fully built are left shipwrecked in a sea of countryside. Derek, he had since introduced himself as Derek. Asked me if it was ok if we could make a detour. Before I could answer he told me to go fuck myself because I wasn't even paying for the trip. We pulled up to a lopsided block of apartments set on a hill of grass. "Here head Im only gonna go in for a few secs" he said, "You want to come in?" "Who's here?" I said. "Come and see," he told me. "I don't think my legs work" "Wha?!" "Nuttin... Nuttin.... ok" It didn't seem anyone was home when we climbed the porch and he knocked. But he didn't knock again, and after a full three minutes a woman opened the door, a slender redhead in a printed nightgown with small blossoms. She was slightly younger then Derek, or maybe she was softer. She didn't smile. "Hi" was all she said to us. "Can we come in?" Derek asked. "Let me come onto the porch," she said, she crossed her arms and walked past us to stand looking out over the fields. I waited at the other end of the porch, leaning against the rail, and didn't listen. I don't know what they said to one another. She walked down the steps, and Derek followed. He stood hugging himself and talking down at the earth. The wind lifted and dropped her long red hair. She was about forty, with a bloodless, waterlogged beauty. In a minute he said to me, "Come on" He got in and started the car. I came down the steps and got in beside him. He looked at her through the windshield. She hadn't gone back inside yet, or done anything at all. I turned around in the seat and studied the woman as we drove off. What words can be uttered about those fields? She stood in the middle of them as on a high mountain, with her red hair pulled out sideways by the wind, around her the green and grey plains pressed down flat, and what was left of the rolling grasses of Dublin were singing one note. I knew who she was. I recognised her. A picture of her hung from one of the panelled dials on Derek's dashboard. She looked up at the sky, shook her head, and began to laugh. I guess Derek was the storm that stranded her there. "Nurse hold him down I think he's coming through again," I gasped for air. The nurse was holding what looked like a tiny steel bucket right underneath my chin. "Daniel try and vomit it will make you feel better" "I bet you it won't" I grinned. A powerful love for the world outside that theatre gripped me. The clouds were brilliance until night. Then, in the dark, I didn't see the storm gathering. Three ghost complectioned college girls with bodies to die for called for me to come closer to their Mercedes. They offered me a lift. They said they'd take me wherever I wanted to go. The music that was playing in the car was so beautiful. "Hey is that Danny?" "Wanna take a ride?" They offered to stoke my head with all the free drugs I could dream of but I had enough of free drugs. Never mind the speed, the acid, and the pink pill. I looked at their red lips, their black wild eyes. Their soothing tempting voices trying to draw me down the grassy slope into the back of their car. I couldn't, they didn't need me. They were beyond my help. I waved them away. I was too overcome to stand up. I lay out in the grass off the exit ramp and woke in the middle of a puddle that had filled up around me "We're not going to lose him not on my shift. I'm off in twenty minutes and I don't need that much paperwork." Now the yellow bird was on the good doctor's shoulder. "Daniel we need to know what you have taken and how much have you taken. We think you may have hypothermia as well" "Doctor. His body is going into convulsion again" "Cut it off I don't need my body, I'm going to rise soon" The rain was so heavy it was like a dust storm and sometimes dust storms stand off in the desert. They can tower so high it's like another city- a terrifying new era approaching, blurring all of our dreams. I was coming down. I was a whimpering dog inside, nothing more then that. I held up my hands before my eyes. I was slowly feeling better. For the first time that night they were steady. They were as still as sculptors. Except for that strange pink pill, which made me feel like Styrofoam the whole way through, I felt my body was beginning to absorb itself again. How the hell did I end up all the way out here? Did someone say this was an artillery range? The sudden rain was making people flee. Where were my friends? A small four-seater was revving its engine close to me. When I waved my arms it stopped in front of me and turned off the engine. I heard music from the inside - trance music. It sounded sophisticated and lonely. I took a subtle distance from the car before letting one of the occupants open the door. The car smelled of a house a few friends of mine used to rent in Rathmines. You know them; we've all been in one. High ornamented ceilings, winding staircases! Everything you could ever hope for. But the house got raided and they all got taken away. The driver was beautiful; she was sitting in front of me, wearing a skirt but not a blouse, just a white bra like someone in an undies ad in a teenage magazine. But she was older then that. Looking at her I thought of sneaking out into the fields with my girlfriend. All bundled up, with a scarf over her ears, in her innocence she looked like Eva Marie Saint in On the Waterfront. That was before she died; when we were so in love we didn't know what it was. The driver's mascara was blurred and her lipstick was kissed away. She wiped her nose, a sleepy gesture. Her attendant in the passenger seat was the biggest blackest man I had ever seen. He was slapping his hands to the music with a pair of gloves; he was looking blindly down at me with the invulnerable smile of someone on heroin. "So where you goin little man?" "Dublin I suppose" "We gotta stop of at a hospital first though ok?" "Yeah sure, why? Is everything ok?" The young woman said "Look behind you for a surprise" Her companion was delighted "That's a beautiful way of saying it baby." I looked behind, there was a man in the boot sitting like a bad sculpture, posing unnaturally with his shoulders wilting, as if he couldn't lug his hands any further. There was a knife in his left eye. "Why is there a guy sitting in your boot with a knife in his eye?" I looked back again. He greeted me with a magisterial sadness and a nod at the girl in the drivers seat. It wasn't his physical condition that had him there, it was his sadness. I asked again "Heh why is there a guy in your boot with knife in his eye?" "We fought over her man... We fought over her, don't wanna get any blood on my girlfriends car" The giant black man leaned over and squeezed his new girlfriends chin. I'm the new man in her life. Aint that right babe" She giggled coquettishly and put the car into first. "The names Antoinne so little man you want some acid?" Normally, the thought of doing acid in a tiny blood splattered car with the Bonnie and Clyde from hell strung out on heroin with a grieving Cyclops whimpering behind you is not the best idea. But it was no normal situation. It took a while for it to kick in. It wasn't as strong as I had hoped. Of course I thought it would take me away and banish everything that was plaguing me but I had to be content with a fuzzy rush and a profound glint to the corner of each colour. Objects smouldered at the edges. I sat still, raised both hands slowly behind my head, and tightened my ponytail. I tried to grab the yellow hummingbird that was scanning near the window but I couldn't lay my hands on it. I began to make broad random arcs with my arms. I looked at the blood on the back of the seat. "There's so much goop inside of us man" I said "And it all wants to get out" "Heh little man what are you crying for?" Antoinne said he seemed worried "What am I crying for?" I said. "Jesus. Wow, oh boy perfect!" Will you believe me when I tell you there were kindness in Antoine's heart? His left hand didn't know what his right hand was doing. It was only that certain important connections must have been burned through. If I opened up your head and ran a hot soldering iron around in your brain, I might turn you into something like that. "Let me out of the car! I'm serious let me out of the car." "Look at the rain. We're still in the middle of nowhere." "I don't care I know what I have to do." They threw me an old sleeping bag behind me after I got out of the car. I rolled it like an ancient scroll. I began towards Dublin. I thought of when I used to have a job. It seemed like a million years ago. When I used to be good. The last job I held was on a bee farm. It wasn't what you think. You become part of their daily drill. You see it's all part of a harmony. Like this story my mind was turning a maddening loop. Through the relentless shower I could just about see the Wicklow Mountains above me. I closed my eyes and went to where the drifts run deeper. "There's nothing wrong with me" - I'm surprised I let those words out. But it's always been my tendency to lie to doctors, as if good health consisted only of the ability to lie to them. "Calm down Daniel. What have you taken?" "Nothing... No North... Im Fine" "Are you hearing unusual sounds or voices?" the doctor asked. "Help us, oh God it hurts," the boxes of syringes, screamed. "Not exactly" I said "Not exactly," he said. "Now, what does that mean?" The wheels of my trolley were laughing at me again. "I'm not ready to go into all that," I said. The yellow bird fluttered close to my face, and my muscles grabbed. Now I was flopping like a fish. When I squeezed shut my eyes, hot tears exploded from the sockets. When I opened them, I was on my stomach. "How did the room get so white?" I asked. A beautiful nurse was touching my skin. "These are vitamins," she said and drove the needle in. If the reading is from Luke: 24. The one when Christ returned to his loved ones, then it was raining. Gigantic ferns leaned over us. A forest drifted down a hill. I could hear a clear creek rushing down amongst rocks. And you, you ridiculous people, you expect me to help you.