STILL ACHING

27/01/201616/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

A Short Scary Story.

I’d been back a month, the city of light they called it, Paris and all it’s lovers, everyone hand in hand, lips locked like they were lynching the breath from each other and there I was, alone. It had become my city of shadows; dark, devious and doomed.
Why did I come back here, of all places, the one city that had ripped us apart, literally? It had found us, cracked us open and drained the beat of life that bound us, blood seeping onto sidewalks, terrorising terraces, drowning the river in crimson currents, from your veins to its bed.
I was back in our home, on our balcony, waiting, wondering if I’d catch sight of you. I lost nights chain smoking, drinking, hurting all over again. Everything inside still aching from that night, even the dust felt your absence and clung to your chair, your brushes, your side of the bed, your box of sharp, sadistic tricks.
It was the end of October when it happened, when the shadows gradually began to find their shape in the darker tones of the season. Breath hung in the crisp air when you exhaled, like an entity all of its own. It was almost midnight on that most hallowed of all eves, I was wearing your scarf, wrapped tightly around my neck. I had the feeling it was your hands wrapped around me, almost to the point of choking me, when I saw the shadow approaching. An icy shiver cut through my veins like I’d swallowed blades, large and hole. I froze to the spot. I recognised the shadow as it came closer and, as the form found its shape, I knew it to be true. I held my breath as it came to the gate, flipped the latch and entered the garden of dying flowers beneath the spell of the moon. The door downstairs groaned opened, followed by footsteps creaking their way up along those old steps, the ones you always demanded me to fix, I wish that had been your only demand. Keys rattled next in the hallway until one twisted in the slot of my door, which used to be our door. The lock clicked just as I stepped in from the balcony. My pulse was beating so hard it felt like the veins of my body were being strangled.
The form stepped into the dimly lit room and I recognised the scent immediately as tears burnt into my face. I opened my mouth to scream but your hand caressed my cheek, wiped my tears before you put your lips against mine and I was captive once again in your dangerous embrace, after so many years of being without, being lost, being broken, regretting it all. I thought I was dead. I didn’t think I could move until you whispered to me to hold you and, without knowing it, without controlling them, my arms wrapped themselves around you and held us together so tightly that I thought we’d break.
This is death, I told myself, I exist now among the dead and yet I could smell you, feel you; your cold lips, that putrid perfume I’d always hated and your body bolt against mine.
I didn’t know how it could be, how you were standing in front of me, touching me, your tongue piercing its way into my mouth. And then the doorbell rang and shook the silence of the entire moment, the entire building and maybe even the entire world that had flipped on its axis in a matter of moments, in the encounter of a kiss, a kiss from death itself.
“Those kids,” I said, as if everything was normal, unsure of what else to say, “it’s halloween… you always hated when they found their way into the building, begging for candy.”
You turned and somehow you were instantly out of my grip, standing by the door, turning the handle, but I hadn’t seen you move. You stood in silence regarding the children outside, dressed as ghouls, monsters and one peculiar child hidden from head to toe in a princess costume, perfectly in character except for the gaping wound on her neck. She held a knife in her tiny hand, as real and as sharp as a butchers pride and joy.
“You shouldn’t be playing with this, my sweet, you’ll get blood all over your costume,” you said to her before you took the knife from her tiny fingers and instantly you were back again, standing before me, looking right inside me.
The children were still standing in the doorway as you raised the blade, cutting through the thin breath of air that separated us, as if that was all that separated us.
“I don’t understand,” I said to you, knowing time had deserted me, realising I’d wasted my freedom, watching the shadows, terrified of what would one day arise from them, “you were dead,” I said, “I saw you bleed out on front of me.”
“I know, my love and I still am. The dead don’t come back to life, not after their lover has killed them, they just come back for what they left behind,” she said as she slashed the blade across my neck, just below her scarf and the warm blood gushed from the inside out. She grabbed me and pulled me close to her as the life drained from my body, bringing her lips down on my neck and savagely sucking what was left from my veins.
“You killed me because you discovered my desire for slicing up life, so I’ve returned to show you that very desire, first hand,” she whispered to my fading life-force.
“Happy Halloween,” were the last words I heard her utter as I dropped to the floor while she took the hands of the children who watched from the shadow of the doorway and lead them off with a vengefully demonic laugh.

All Words and Drawing by Damien B. Donnelly

Originally appeared in the literary Journal http://www.thefableonline.com Issue 9; Halloween Special

THE BLIND ASSASSIN

25/01/201616/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

A Short Horror Story.

I don’t remember what happened before, no clue as to who I was, what I was, but afterwards, everything that happened afterwards is a completely different story, because when you open your eyes after death, you discover a whole other way of living.

Tick tock, tick tock.

There is darkness mostly, she left me no eyes to escape the blindness but I can see when I want, when the need fills me. I see shape in sound and smell, these are my senses now, she left me those. Guilt, regret, remorse, those weaknesses have no part in what I’ve become. I’m no longer accountable to the standards Men hold as law. I am beyond law and now, as I’m technically dead, I’m beyond Man.
Tick tock, tick tock.
“I remade you, better than before. You were a drunk, a drug addict with no direction. No one gave a shit for you. You would’ve died one day, I just gave that day a name. You should be grateful, I’ve given you something greater than life; indestructible, eternal death among the living,” she declared that day, the first day of my everlasting existence, as I realised the horror of what she‘d done. I wasn’t human anymore, this was true. I would be unbeatable, also true. But she hadn’t given me eternal death, it was eternal damnation.
I recognised her voice from somewhere before death, a sound bite on TV, a ranting about experimentation, radiation, creation; bringing heaven to earth. “I’ll build a world that will never need creation again, all will be eternal,” she’d bragged. I remember that. I’ll always remember that. She won’t, not anymore.
Tick tock, tick tock.
When I first awoke, to her recreation, I felt no pain at all, that came later, when I came to understand what she’d made of me. She was my Frankenstein, she’d remoulded me from her miscreant mind. “Without sight you’ll see much better,” she whispered to my naked form, strapped to a gurney, as forceps wrenched my eyes from their sockets. “The tongue just teases you with taste,” she insisted, “this’ll teach you to taste from within,” and she snipped the tongue from my mouth with a blade, severing it from service with a single slice. Afterwards, she stitched it to the back of my neck, to remind me of all that was now behind me.
I was not a body of blood anymore, my veins had been drained, dried out like taunt twine that tore through my flesh from the inside out. My innards had been expunged, discarded, floor fodder for vermin to devour and they did, nightly, as I lay there, a monster metamorphosing. In my chest, empty of all organs except my heart, a machine of amorality maintained me, pumping a self-sustainable liquid through the little that remained of me; limbs that had been ravaged, a hand severed and replaced with a scythe, legs hacked at the knees, mounted on metal spikes while my manhood was slit, sliced and stuffed with the slivering tongue of a serpent, still hissing. I was a despicable demon, an envoy of evil, a punishment for a world that had dismissed her dreams of total autonomy as nothing more than an inhuman, unjustifiable, godless existence. I was her retribution. She believed I’d bring them all down for her but she misjudged who was master. A monster knows no master. A monster needs no master. Monster is master.
Tick tock, tick tock.
Monster let her believe she had control while she trained me, taught me to walk, to hunt, to appreciate the divinity of my own damnation. Monster appeared grateful to his creator and her darkness, monster acted thankful to his creator and her inventiveness until one day when monster stabbed his spikes into his creator’s feet as she leaned against the wall, smiling at the completion of her own genius. Monster smiled as his scythe slit her from nipple to neck and his one remaining hand reached inside her and disgorged the heart from her blood bathed body before her face even had time to register fear. Monster left her there, in her darkness, in that heartless body, further fodder for the vermin who’d already begun to sniff her out.

That was 4 years ago. I can finally admit I’m grateful to her. I’ve lived more in death than I ever could in life. I don’t need food or drink, don’t shit or sleep. I exist as if everyday were the first, do you understand? Can you understand me now, now that I’m standing behind you, so close that your skin prickles with fear as I sliver my scythe around your neck?
You came looking for me, didn’t you? Foolishly searching the shadows for the monster you thought was myth. Well, now you’re truly the fool because this monster is no myth, nor a white knight. I am the Blind Assassin, devoid of compassion. She removed that from me when she raided my body of blood and being. Do you hear the ticking clock? Tick tock, tick tock. It’s inside me. It goes where I go. It counts down humanity while I continue on, slaying it. I feel nothing for you people anymore, nothing. And in a moment, you’ll feel nothing too.

And he was right. In an instant blood spewed from the gash in the human’s neck and splattered onto the glasses that covered Monster’s eyeless sockets and down onto his tongueless, grinning mouth as the clock continued counting…

Tick tock, tick tock.

He’d killed his creator but he couldn’t extinguish the desire for revenge that she’d transplanted into his useless, still beating, eternally damned heart.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

‘How I Write’ interview for the Series by Nicola Cassidy

17/01/2016 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

Today you can read my interview for the series ‘How I write’ by author and fellow Irish blogger Nicola Cassidy who describes herself as a writer, blogger, Mum, daughter, wife, sister, singer, marketer, pet owner and pet complainer.

Nicola’s blog features posts on marriage, motherhood, fashion, feminism, pregnancy, parenting and her series ‘How I Write’, interviewing published and unpublished writers to get an inside look at how they approach their craft.

You can also find one of Nicola’s short stories ‘The Blood of Goats’ alongside mine in the http://www.originalwriting.ie ‘Second Chance’ short story anthology which was published in Ireland last year and available to buy online from their website.

http://ladynicci.com/how-i-write/how-i-write-damien-donnelly/

http://ladynicci.com

LIVING WITH PARIS, 1997, PART II- NO ROOM AT THE INN

06/01/201616/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

If you missed the first instalment of Living With Paris, click the link below:

https://atomic-temporary-23614992.wpcomstaging.com/2015/09/02/living-with-paris-part-1-1997-the-arrival/

December 24th, 1997, almost 2 months living with Paris and set to move into my first Parisian apartment, my own home away from the homeland. When I first arrived from Dublin on a rainy Thursday night, I’d gatecrashed into an Irish home abroad; Jeannie, a 40ish Irish woman with wild red hair, an estranged husband, a son in the shadows of another land and a beautiful daughter, looking set for a photo shoot with Vogue, perfect to fall in love with (if were I straight). I crashed on their couch for a week till I found a place at the Irish College, basically a fancy hostile the 5th arrondissement, once dedicated to the Irish fellows who aided the cause of the liberation of France and now witness to the raging hormones of a plethora of Irish boys and girls who missed the smell of the cow shite and their mother’s overcooked steaks, but I had my own room and that was all I needed. Breakfast was served every morning in the huge hall which was freezing cold so we all huddled together to stop from shivering to death before the morning ritual of rushing to see who got post from home and who got simply forgotten, the Irish can be a tough lot!
I wanted to be a fashion designer, to be discovered, to be found, but I didn’t speak a word of French (slight oversight) so ended up trolling Irish bars, American bars and English bars hoping one of them was looking for a totally inexperienced bar tender with no French or pint pulling skills! Who could pass that up? Everyone, it seemed! 1 month later, I fell upon the last Irish bar (there were over 55 Irish bars in Paris at the time, I kid you not!), tucked away in the, as yet, undiscovered 13th arrondissement, (it’s a paradise now in comparison to the dead rats and half dead dragueres who once populated it) a stop too far from the tourist trail which unfortunately had a job to offer me and I had barely a French franc to my name to refuse!
By Christmas eve, I’d been working for 1 month, had learned to pull a pint, change a keg and minimally converse in French with the local clientele. Decided it was too soon to go home for Christmas, I stayed behind to run the bar, find a flat, build a life and maybe even put up a tree. On the 22nd, I dragged Mary, a comrade in arms from the College, off with me to view an apartment. We arrived at the address with an immediate double take. The building was magnificent. On a side street, just off a bustling boulevard, sat a 6-storey mansion. The entrance had a courtyard where a mermaid perched on a fountain, behind which glass doors showcased freshly polished gold banisters and thick pile burgundy carpeted stairs. Could it be true? It was within my price range, which barely exceeded living in a bin, and yet there it was. Chuckling to myself and hugging Mary, we eagerly skipped up the 1st floor and on to the 2nd. By the 3rd floor, our skip slowed when we noticed the maid had stopped polishing the banister. On the 4th, the carpet disappeared. On the 5th, the gold banister became a wobbly unloved one. On the 6th and final floor, my hopes for a palatial dwelling dissolved as viewers came running down the hallway towards us. Behind them a narrow doorway lay in wait but what lay inside was not a lavish apartment as suggested by the building’s façade, nor did it resemble the description in the advert. The reality was a space no more than 6 x 10 feet where you could stand in the centre and touch each wall. It held a skylight partially covered by a water tank, beneath which was a sink, next to which was a fridge, on top of which was a hot plate, next to which was a closet that turned out to be a shower cabinet standing next to the front door and that was it. There wasn’t a bed. There was no room for a bed! There were 3 of us crammed into the room and you couldn’t see the floor for lack of space. The shared toilet down the hall was a little closer to hell in terms of condition. The walls were a musty shade of brown that hadn‘t come from a paint can! I took a deep breath and looked at Mary. “I could do great things with this place, don’t you think?” Her response was to fill up with tears, a reaction to my positive outlook when faced with a hellhole.
On the night of the 23rd, I thankfully found a decent, clean, safe place. A small studio, with no room for windows, but certainly a bed and I was able to move in on the 24th (just like Mary and Joseph). The Irish College closed on the morning of the 24th so my Irish inmates dumped me and my belongings into a taxi before they escaped to the airport and families and festive food while I headed to work. That afternoon, after a phone call to my landlord, I discovered that my new landlord was now my old landlord as he’d decided to give the studio, that was supposed to be my new home, to someone else; someone with a better job, more papers, more experience, more French, basically! So I was homeless on Christmas Eve, again like Mary and Joseph (no room at the inn). Laurel and Hardy, the comical and continuously drunk duo who owned the bar, found it hilarious and offered me the attic of the bar to stay in over Christmas, (I was being offered a stable on Christmas Eve by the Turkish owner, who looked like Danny de Vito but less intentionally funny). It didn’t have a floor or proper door and you had to climb a ladder outside the building to get into it!
I had a meltdown on front of them, a minor meltdown, well, not really minor but it scared the owners away and gave me time to think. By 5pm I’d phoned every hotel in town and managed to find a room in a hotel on rue des Mauvais Garçons; street of the Bad Boys, (I know!). Of course it was in Le Marais, the gay centre of Gay Paris! I slammed the doors shut at 8pm, grabbed a complimentary bottle of champagne, a bottle of whiskey, (Tullamore Dew) and all my belongings and jumped into a taxi which whisked me, once again, through the streets of Paris, not to my new apartment but to my new hotel with a tiny balcony that, if you leaned out far enough, you could see the very top tip of Notre Dame. I left the champagne to chill on the balcony, pulled on my best pair of pants and took off into Le Marais to find merry men to kiss away my disaster of a day. It turned out to be one very merry man dressed as Santa, but it was Christmas, after all!
I woke on Christmas morning with a creak in my neck from the stupid roll pillow which looked more like a draft excluder, but, determined not to be downhearted, I popped the cork on the champagne and toasted myself, Notre Dame and my little life in this foreign land! Lapsed Irish Catholic or not, there was no missing mass at the Irish College, manly for the promise of hot mince pies and mulled wine afterwards even if it meant having to mingle with my other Irish boss! After a quick escape from being invited to an awkward dinner with a possible closeted homosexual and his family, I took off for ice skating at Hotel du Ville, Christmas dinner in a Chinese restaurant (of course) and drinks at the Open Cafe where I found a very attractive man who I choose as my very own christmas gift; a blonde and buoyant architect who was only too happy to have me unwrap him under the sparkle of the city of light! And so passed my first Christmas in Paris, far from typical, barely festive, but utterly magical and completely unforgettable!

SECOND CHANCE, A SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGY

04/11/201525/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

It’s here. Over the summer months, http://www.originalwriting.ie launched three short story competitions and chose 10 winners from each to create its short story anthology 2015.

On Friday 6th November 2015, in Dublin’s Central Hotel, ‘Second Chance’ gets its rousing Irish launch.

Paris take a breather, Dublin here I come…

Original Writing are an Irish self publishing company, founded in 2006 and based in Dublin. They also run regular competitions to encourage and promote upcoming writers. Check out their website for details on their self publishing packages, resources and an unmissable blog with help, hints and everything a writer needs to know.

This is the book, in a box, printed, published and waiting to be read. Roll on Friday…

#GetWriting #GetReading

Firefly Magazine and The Fable Online

31/10/201525/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

Today, two online journals are featuring my work and I am so proud to be a part of both of these amazing literary collections.

Today was the launch of the first issue of Firefly Magazine, a journal of luminous writing, showcasing poetry, flash fiction, short stories and art. Check out issue one through the link below. You can find my work in the poetry section. There are some amazing talents to be found in this brilliant new journal and check out their submission page as they are always looking out for new voices and artists. Congratulations to the Firefly team and all their garden elves for producing such a beautiful and impressive first edition. I wish them continued success.

Website: http://fireflymagazine.weebly.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/magazinefirefly

The Fable Online today published its 9th Issue, perfectly in time for Halloween and I am thrilled to be among the Flash fiction features with a suitably ghoulish little story of love, longing and the sweet taste of revenge in the shadows of Paris. There are 13 new pieces of work in total with a mixture of spookily flavoured Flash Fiction and Short Stories.

Website: http://www.thefableonline.com/2015/10/issue-9-halloween-special/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FableOnline

#Getting Creative

Happy Halloween, Happy Writing, Happy Submitting, Happy Autumn

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

(this photo was last week during a stroll through autumn in the Jardin du Luxembourg)

LIVING WITH PARIS, PART 1, 1997, THE ARRIVAL

02/09/201516/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 10 Comments

18 years ago I first moved to Paris, 22 years of age and the first time away from home, security and everything familiar. Two months ago I arrived back in what has become my home away from home. This is the story of how it all started…

1997, Paris, France, The Arrival, The First Time

It was raining and I couldn’t see the Tower. I’d just arrived to this strange intoxicating land, packed to bursting with abounding excitement and endless naivety, and yet it was grey, raining, and the Eiffel Tower was nowhere in sight! I knew it was in the area somewhere and remembered seeing it from all over Paris that last time, but right there, in that first, big, life changing, suddenly-becoming-a-grown-up moment, in those first few hours of being totally alone, completely a foreigner and possibly way out of my depth, it wasn’t here to greet me and I actually felt that I needed to see it in order to convince myself that I’d really and truly arrived. It had been less than a month since I’d decided to leave my home town of Dublin for the mystery of Paris and those few weeks had passed by in a blur of toasts, tears, goodbye drinks and very little preparation and I’d just spent almost an hour on a small coach coming from the gobsmacking cow shed that was Beauvais Airport with a gang of middle-aged, Irish housewives, nattering on about everything they wanted to do and see, all giggly at leaving their husbands behind to cook the dinner for the kids and their duty free bottles were already opened.
I kept thinking of Mum’s face during our farewell at Dublin airport, smiling bravely while her heart was breaking and staring at me with watery eyes that did their best not to cry, but failing instantly when she saw the tears forming in mine. My final memories of Ireland, clouded in tears, and almost missing the plane due to constant announcements for Damien Donnelly (that’s me) to pick up the nearest courtesy phone, various friends phoning in their goodbyes, along with one too many manic phone calls from a deranged doctor that I’d dated for all of 5 minutes before I felt the cold brush of his scalpel that I’d just managed to escape.
If, that night, 18 years ago, my only problem had been that I couldn’t see the Eiffel Tower, then it would’ve been a stroll in the park. However, this wasn’t really the main concern. Let’s see, I had three huge and heavy suitcases, two back-packs, a bum bag, four portfolios of varying sizes (I was going to be the new Jean Paul Gaultier, seriously! The Irish version, of course, possible in Arran sweatshirts and tweed pants!), I had no job, nowhere to live, knew absolutely nobody, had no idea which direction to start walking in and, to top it all off, I’d never studied french, if you ignored the little grammar book I’d been trying to understand on the plane. Nevertheless, for some insane reason, instead of worrying about this or even seeing any of it as a problem, I felt blissfully happy, incredibly free, and wonderfully unknown. I just couldn’t see the Tower. I think missing the reality of the situation was actually a blessing for me!
The coach, that had brought me from the aforementioned cow shed, left me and everyone else at The James Joyce (an Irish bar, can you believe it? When I’m trying to get away from the place) in Porte Maillot, which is like dropping someone off in the middle of the M1, in a rainstorm. This meant that I found myself standing on a foreign street, getting soaked to the bone in foreign rain, wary about what and where the foreign bed would be that I’d be sleeping in and wondering how long the foreign money in my pocket was going to last. It had been in my pocket for over two weeks already and had begun to diminish before I’d even left Ireland. As a true Irishman, it was into the pub and out of the rain, but unlike the true Irishman, it was a whiskey and coke instead of a pint of the hard stuff.
By the second drink I’d developed enough courage to phone up a complete stranger. A friend of a friend had given me the number of a friend of hers who’d been living in Paris for the past twenty years and, if I’d nowhere to stay, I should phone her up. Well, nowhere to stay was defiantly the case and, as it was closing in on 7pm, I wasn’t too keen beginning the search for a hotel on a dark and wintry night, especially when I hadn’t a clue as to where I was. (I told you- no preparation!). Thankfully, the friend of the friend of the friend in question hadn’t forgotten her own language and we were straight into conversation, although it wasn’t quite going in the direction I’d hoped. I hung up the phone and stared at the piece of paper, a phone number for an Irish college that acted as a hostel for students and young Gaelic travellers. ‘Give them a call and they’re bound to have a room, ask for Rosen, mention my name.’ The friend of the friend of the friend didn’t seem too keen on having a stranger over and I suddenly felt afraid and asked myself, for the first time, what the hell had I done?
I downed another whiskey, pushed the fears aside, and called the number. The first girl didn’t know Rosen, the second said the office was closed, the third asked if I knew what room Rosen stayed in and did I have a description, and then the second girl, returning to the phone, cleared everything up by telling me that Rosen ran the place but didn’t live there. Apparently, this wasn’t the office number but the student pay phone and, as the students had nothing to do with the allocation of rooms, they couldn’t help me out. Instead, they offered me their best wishes, urged me to call the office in the morning and quickly hung up the phone, leaving me with a dead line and a dead end! I was gutted and felt let down by my first encounter with the Irish community in Paris. I was already becoming a french snob!
So it was back to the friend of the friend of the friend. She had, reluctantly, said to phone her back if all else failed. When I phoned her up, I was almost at the point of tears and when I hung up, I think I actually shed one or two. My first impressions of her had been completely wrong. ‘Here’s my address, come on over and have you eaten anything?‘ were her exact words. Thanks be to God! I had somewhere to stay and I hadn’t wasted my money on the bottle of Brandy I’d already bought her in the duty-free. It was all wonderful again so I had another drink before deciding to splash out and pop into the restaurant upstairs to have my first French feast. I forgot that being an Irish bar, it was also an Irish restaurant.
After my first dinner in Paris, my new home town, I used the courage from the alcohol warming my insides to hail a taxi, speak my first bit of French and meet a stranger and her daughter, who she mentioned would stay in to meet me. Paris, here I come.
It was still raining outside as I left the bar and I still couldn’t see the Tower as a taxi manically whisked me through the foreign streets with more foreign rain on the windows, distorting the shapes and colours of this beautiful place. If it were a movie, the camera would have filmed me struggling down the Boulevard Gouvion St-Cyr, hailing and loading myself into a taxi that would drive off into the distance before the camera would pan back, zoom up over Paris’ famed Palais des Congrès before turning left to the Arc de Triomphe with the Champs-Éysées stretching out behind it and, of course, standing tall and proud down from the Arc, just across the river, would be the vision of La Tour Eiffel. It had been behind me the entire time, just beyond an arc and a rain drop, watching its newest citizen set out to discover the adventures that lay in wait for him behind the passionate puddles of Paris.

Winning Days

06/08/201504/11/2015 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

A move from Amsterdam to Paris, 3 days of unpacking, painting, decorating, a trip home to family for nearly 3 weeks and then the news that I am a winner in the http://www.originalwriting.ie Short Story competition and will be part of their autumn anthology of short stories book!Feeling grateful to the Universe and all its magic and wonder.

The August short story competition is still open for submissions- check out their website from the web address above.

A rainbow on Bettystown beach, County Dublin, Ireland

SCENE IN EUROPE, SCENE 10, PORTUGAL, PEACE AND…

08/07/201525/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

Scene in Europe, Scene 10, Portugal, Peace and…

Henry spent the first two days of the Portugal leg of his trip in Lisbon, amid a wave of modern architecture in stark contrast with its older, neighbouring terracotta rooftops of charm and a sea of towering cranes best seen from the sleek cable-stayed Vasco da Gama Bridge while he satisfied his appetite with an array of fish dishes and an impressive selection of wines from the region but, after two days of hectic life in another city, he craved something a little more remote, so he hired a car and took to the hills and valleys and happily lost himself along country roads twirling through the landscape of forest covered mountains, tiny, almost deserted towns and sprawling vineyards that crept their way over the scenery as he coasted past it all.

He stopped, finally, at the Pousada Convento Vila Pouca da Beira, a place that had quite literally been chosen for him when he fell upon it during a spectacular rainstorm; a white beacon of hope in the early evening’s sudden downpour, with it’s huge cross and flickering lanterns on either side of its front door, a vision of sanctuary that came out of nowhere as his wipers frantically swept across the windscreen of the car just as he’d started to worry that finding a decent place to stay, in the middle of nowhere, in this erratic weather, might prove positively impossible.

As he slowed the car down and turned into the cobbled courtyard, the building and its adjoining church loomed over him in the darkness, looking haunted, naturally, but somehow cosy too, austere, yet comforting at the same time.

It turned out to be one of a chain of hotels all established in former convents or historical buildings throughout the country, hence its name. But it’s timing and arrival along Henry’s route was nothing less than a miracle. The large entrance door had just clanged shut behind him when the heavens finally crashed with thunder and, as he was lead to his room, past an inner courtyard and up a huge marble staircase with enormous tapestries and a thousand shadows that loomed ominously, the lightening clashed with the blackness of the night sky and echoed through the hallows of the building itself, giving an eerie uncertainty to the shapes, columns, corners and stone eyed angels that decorated the walls, lingering in shadows, waiting for the next bolt of lighting to announce their spooky presence.

The room itself was basic but spacious and, when morning woke him, he opened the doors, stepped onto his balcony and took in the breathtaking view that spread itself out before him. The rain had washed away the shadows and the landscape now sparkled in a million shades of vibrant, life affirming greens as a scent swept through the air of the bounty of nature’s freshness, crispness and energy while below him, fresh coffee was brewing which enticed him back through the same corridors, inner courtyard and down the same glorious staircase which had been home only to ghosts and shadows the night before, but which was now bathed in its own glow of morning light as antique treasures glistened in their own grandeur before he took a seat on the empty terrance overlooking the lushness and life of the whole valley.

It was silent, he was silent, the whole world was silent as he sat himself down. It was exactly what he had needed after almost a month of being constantly on-the-go; looking, searching, rushing, seducing, being seduced, being let down. A time of huge highs and a few comical lows. A time to become a man, he though as he figuratively tapped himself on the back. He had secretly feared the trip to Europe, all by himself. He hadn’t even travelled in the States without the boozed-up comfort of his often out-of-it mother, the occasionally present father or just on the road with his own friends, at the very least. But this trip had been his test, his personal journey, his own awakening. And boy, oh boy, was he beginning to feel awake.

He sipped his coffee, looking down over the vineyard that grew out from the end of the gardens by swimming pool of the former convent before it disappeared into the forest below it, just as the land rose up to greet the sky, sighing in the welcome return of the sun after a night of unimaginable rain which seemed like a dream now on front of this view; this mirage of tranquil wilderness. The car had been pounded so heavily with rain that he’d feared for his own safely along the tiny, mud soaked road the night before, so when he’d seen the light, literally, at the end of the road, he’d stopped the car and knocked on the door without a single care as to who or what answered. He’d already seen the ghosts of Europe, bold and brazen and tempting him on streets in broad daylight. What was wrong with another one or two to add to his list?

But surprisingly, in a place that looked more welcoming to the afterlife, even with its own gated old chapel in the basement, a crucifix on every available wall, and saints, carefully carved in stone, perched in every nook and cranny, the only souls that lingered about were living, breathing ones; smiling, nodding and giving off not a single scent of the scary.

The only Portuguese visions he saw came from nature itself as he wandered down the hills, amid the vines, and over fences to open pastures with grazing sheep and sleeping cows. The only smells he noticed sprang up from either the dew in the morning or out of every oven; simple roadside restaurants with the best roast chicken he’d ever tasted, deliciously fragrant cheeses from goats and sheep that came in clumps and spread itself over bread like butter or the traditional mini custard tarts, pasteis de nata, which was the one thing that haunted him as their delicate taste lingered on the tongue long after he’d finished them.

It was life and it was his for the tasting, his for the taking, his for the smelling, he said to himself as he swaggered nakedly over to his bed as the open window let a gentle, warm breeze blow in past the curtains and he turned off the light and slipped his youthful, unlined body beneath the folds of the perfectly crisp hotel sheets. He closed his eyes and let his head nestle into the soft pillow, sensing sleep lean in to take him just as a hand reached over behind him, beneath the constriction of the blankets, and ran its icy cold, fine, foreign fingers up along his spine while his entire body froze in fear and the window slammed shut as the scent of death crept along his flared and frightened nostrils…

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

SCENE IN EUROPE, SCENE 9, ABERDEENSHIRE

01/07/201525/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

Scene in Europe, Scene 9, Aberdeenshire, Roses and Thorns

Sophie and Marty were sitting across from an ancient dovecot, amid the topiary gardens of Craigievar Castle, on a hill in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, not far from the Queen’s summer retreat in Balmoral which they’d driven through earlier in the hope of a royal glimpse but settled for buying a packet of custard creams in the local convenience store. It was an unexpectedly sunny day having arrived 4 days earlier to their two story Nordic styled lodge in the Hilton’s Craigendarroch resort, tucked into the woods of Royal Deeside, under a heavy blanket of clouds and rain. They’d detoured from their mainland European vacation for a family wedding, a distant relation of Sophie’s whose name she kept forgetting, but the festivities had distracted them from the downpour of the previous days. But now the party was over and it was their second day of Scottish exploration, at a slow pace, of course, considering the bunions, new hips, angina and all round ageing. Thankfully all bowel blockages were now a thing of the past, helped hugely by the sausage, bacon, eggs and haggis breakfasts.

“It’s a castle,” Marty said disappointedly to his wife.

“I can see that, Marty, you think I bring you with me to point out the obvious? You think I thought it was mall?” his wife joked in her usual sarcastic tone, “this is what happens when you don’t want a shoe larger than your foot!” she whispered to herself. Even as a young girl, she knew she would never be able to cope with marrying someone bigger or better than herself, so you get what you’re given instead.

“But another castle, Sophie, really?” her husband questioned.

“Yes, another castle. Oy, if only I coulda got me another husband. Listen Marty, we don’t have these back home. It’s a once in a lifetime trip and at least it ain’t a cathedral,” she reminded him.

“But it ain’t all that different either,” he tried to point out.

“Oy Marty, you old putz, it’s a whole other story to a cathedral. People lived here; lords, earls, barons; the elite, gentry. Didn’t you watch Downton Abbey, it’s all the rage these days, all that old fashioned stuff; maids and servants, upstairs, downstairs; the traditions. We don’t have that sorta thing back home, all that land and not a bit of room for tradition. We pretend we do… but it’s all fake. We prefer a good condo to an old castle, even though we build our condo’s to look like castles.”

“Sophie, may I remind you that we’re Jewish, we have nothing but tradition.”

“Well, mazel tov to you then. We have our path, I know that, our Halakhah. I walk it daily and with you, believe me, Marty, it all takes on a whole other meaning,” she said with an exhaustive shrug, “we have Shabbat, Hanukkah, Yom Kappur, the mitzvah’s, the brit’s, the kipa, yada, yada, yada… they’re all a part of me, I ain’t denying that. But this, this is a whole other something, this is tradition on a whole other level. This is grandeur, this is excess, ain’t no one chopping anything off in these traditions, Marty.”

“Soph, you can’t say that,” her husband replied in an attempt to reprimand his wife’s words of disrespect for their faith.

“Really Marty,” she slapped back at him with that look he knew so well, reminding him instantly that he had forgotten that nothing was ever forbidden from falling from her lips, aside from a few words of affection that wouldn’t go amiss occasionally and a few other unmentionable words that he used to miss in the bedroom department, although that was now a department they no longer visited together. Someone had to love her, he told himself, maybe this was his Halakhah; his path in life.

The baronial 17th century Craigievar Castle with it’s practically pink turret towers and glaring gargoyles loomed over them like a fairytale come to life as they shaded themselves beneath a giant topiary bush which Marty suggested was shaped like a UFO, a comment he’d earlier regretted sharing with Sophie.

“This one has a ghost too, you know, another story of love and loss,” his wife mentioned with a certain lightness to her gravel based voice while she scanned over the guide book, “seemingly, the father of a beautiful damsel tried to kill one of her suiters while he was climbing in the window one night, but before he was pierced in the heart, he fell from the window itself and plummeted to his death. Right here. Now they say he roams the hallways, in the eternal search for his love,” Sophie told him, “now ain’t that just darling. See Marty, men knew what love was back then, would do anything they could for it, dead or alive.”

“You know, Soph, they told us all this while on the tour, is your hearing all right? You think it’s time for a hearing aid? We could be hearing aid buddies,” he joked but as usual, she didn’t smile.

“The only aid I need is carrying around your lard ass, Marty. That pizza overload from Italy’s still pushing your tush southwards. And I can hear damn fine, thank you. Just can’t understand a thing anyone round here is saying. You sure it’s really English they speak in Scotland? I have my doubts. I can tell you. But it sure does sound good and boy oh boy, the men round here are real men, Marty,” she said, reminding him once again, in her own not-so-subtle way, of all his inadequacies.

Yesterday, before their walk around the Spittal of Glenmuick at the end of Loch Muick, protected by the luscious heather covered hills dancing over glorious green mosses all rejoicing from the recent rainfall, they’d driven to Braemar Castle, built as a 17th century hunting lodge. It was there that Sophie had first been driven wild with excitement by the history of it’s reported ghost; a young woman who’d killed herself on her wedding night after awaking alone and believing her husband had deserted her. Sophie was almost teary eyed at the thought of the poor ghost, newly married and newly dead. And yet Marty’s wife managed to spent most of her time critiquing him, chastising him, chopping him. Today Marty realised he would never fully understand this woman on front of him, even if he managed to survive as long as this castle on front of him.

He looked over at her; her dyed blonde hair, the skin a little softer now on the face as she’d missed her last two Botox sessions since they’d been away, her once buoyant chest now almost leaning on her fanny pack as she bent over to adjust the side seam of her turquoise leggings. Romance, he said to himself, half the time her heart’s as stone cold as these bloody castles and cathedrals, impervious to time and man himself. And other times, well, sometimes the drawbridge lowers itself to allow entrance but nowadays, with body getting older, that drawbridge seemed to be having trouble opening up as much as it used to.

“You’re a real oxymoron,” he told her with a smile on his face.

“And you’re a real son of one, but so what? We make do with what we have, Marty,” she said as she took his hand to heave herself up out of the seat, “all these tales of youth and romance, they bring a flicker of something to me, what can I say?” she said with another shrug, an annoying habit she’d picked up in France.

“And what about us, what about our romance?” he asked, hands back to hiding in his tracksuit pockets, fearing the reply.

“Oy Marty, come on now, love in youth is a crown of roses, love in old age… it’s a crown of willows,” she told her husband as he made a small yelp, having leaned back too far against the shrubbery and pricked himself on a thorn from one of the low lying rose bushes.

“All righty then,” she continued, ignoring his pain, “how about we see about getting you a kilt to show off those legs of yours? You know how much I like your legs.”

“Well Sophie, that’s real nice of you to say,” he said, instantly forgetting the prick and suddenly beaming with an underused sense of pride and a rise in affection for his fortified wife. Perhaps the drawbridge just needed a little oil, after all, he thought to himself.

“Yeah well, Marty, anything to distract me from that saggy ass of yours.”