Ken Bruen
A Galway Epiphany
For
Paul and Martell Kennedy
and their family
Laura, John, Amy
All very special Kennedys
According to An Leabhar Beannacht (The Blessed Book), found in an old church in the 1950s and attributed to a monk in the mid-eighteenth century, there are
Seven
Epiphanies.
The monk, supposedly one Canace (old form of Kenneth), believed these epiphanies were blends of blessed curses and cursed blessings.
Kenny, as he is irreverently known by skeptics, demonstrated he was definitely Irish; he’d have to be with the skewed logic of the above statement.
For the form presented in the new edition published in 2000 by Academic Press, the epiphanies are modernized to a certain extent, and it is claimed the original was written in Latin.
The Catholic Church has banned them as being, and I quote,
“The writings of a satanic mind posing as ecclesial.”
This could apply to a lot of the papal bulletins of late.
Whatever the case and, indeed, whatever the truth of the affair, they can, in a certain light (drunk as a skunk), seem to be instructional if not downright fucking depressing.
The first one I ever read was thus:
Revenge
Is
the
Only
Justice.
By a series of wild coincidences, an English friend, here on a rare visit, saw this on the wall of my apartment and said dryly,
“Francis Bacon said almost the same thing.”
Which goes to show there is precious little original under the Latin sun. Or Bacon read the Epiphanies.
I kind of like the notion of Bacon poring over the Epiphanies.
Explains a lot about his wild frenzied portrait.
What the Irish in December 2018
Might consider miracles:
1. Three days without rain.
2. Trump to resign.
3. A hospital bed.
The
eighth
of
December.
It was a cold bright evening.
The Irish Famine Memorial to the children who died on the famine boats stood starkly against the backdrop of the ocean.
Two young people approached, aged sixteen and nine.
They’d been living, or rather barely existing, in the refugee center hastily erected on the outskirts of the Claddagh.
They’d heard bits and scraps of the young girl Celia Griffin, who died of starvation during the Irish famine.
They could understand the hunger and had seen enough of death in their travails.
The girl, a serious child, had liberated a small candle from the center’s supplies and now they knelt and lit the candle for the famine child.
She whispered to the boy,
“Here’s a trick I learned in Guatemala.”
She drew a small metal object from beneath her thin shirt, said,
“El espejismo azul” (in Guatemala it was known as the blue manifestation/illusion).
As they looked up, an intense blue light shimmered above the monument, seemed to expand with lightning white streaks interwoven.
A passing American woman in her late fifties saw the moment, gasped, grabbed her iPhone, began to film.
She clearly heard the children exclaim,
“La Madonna.”
The woman, though not herself Catholic, involuntarily muttered,
“Holy Mother of God!”
The clip was posted to YouTube and within twenty-four hours had gone viral.
The eighth of December, coincidentally, is the feast day of the Immaculate Conception and is fondly referred to as “Our Lady’s birthday.”
An epiphany of belief
Requires only
That every other area of assistance
Has been exhausted.
The Epiphany of Fire
The security guard was old.
He’d applied for the job after he’d retired from the post office.
He never expected to actually get the job but... the wages!
The wages were shit to shinola, so he got the job.
His job was to guard an abandoned warehouse on the Newcastle Road.
His brief?
“Keep the homeless out.”
He did have a conscience, but, hey, if the government didn’t give a fuck, why should he? He had a chair, a radio, and a one-bar heater, plus a walkie-talkie without batteries. He’d asked the office for them and was told,
“Who are you expecting to call?”
So, no batteries.
His shift was from eight to eight, and he found those evenings were long.
To break up the monotony he’d walk the building, all two stories of it, twice; he walked it slowly, sweeping his torch across the bare floors, humming quietly to himself.
He saw some rats but rats didn’t spook him. You live as long as he had, vermin were a fact of life and simply avoided.
He got into a routine.
Tea and a sandwich at ten.
Listen to the news at twelve.
Walk the building at three and five.
Snooze freely.
He’d brought some books with him but found he couldn’t concentrate.
After a week of this, he filled his flask with Jameson, told himself,
1. Keeps me warm.
2. Gives me a little lift.
The second week was a lot more fun, wandering the floors, a little pissed; he felt good.
Thursday night, he was startled to hear movement on the floor above.
Muttered,
“Mighty big rat.”
(He wasn’t completely wrong.)
He’d just got comfortable, the heater on, thermal blanket wrapped snugly round him, the Jameson whispering happy thoughts.
“Fuck,”
He said.
He shucked the blanket off, got his torch, headed up.
On the second floor he saw the floor was wet.
“A leak?”
Then he was shocked by a wave of cold liquid thrown over him, turned, muttering,
“What the hell?”
He was soaked, saw a man in a dark track suit holding liter water bottles.
Then the smell. He lifted his arm, smelled the liquid, his heart pounding, and said,
“Petrol.”
The man, in shadow, let the bottles drop, took out a single long match, said,
“This is not a safety match.”
The old guard, frightened beyond belief, tried,
“What?”
The man, in a quiet reasonable tone, explained,
“It means you can strike it off a piece of wood.”
Paused.
Flicked the match against a beam,
Continued (with a hint of amusement),
“It should light instantly.”
But it didn’t.
The man shrugged, said,
“Nothing’s reliable, eh?”
Then asked,
“What’s your name?”
The man, scared shitless, managed,
“Sean.”
The man nodded as if this was of some import, asked,
“Would you describe yourself as lucky?”
Sean, despite his fear, snarled,
“Yeah, right, lucky, that’s me, my fucking cup overflowed.”
The man actually tut-tutted, reprimanded,
“Now no need for that language. Let’s keep a civil tone.”
He raised the match, asked,
“What do you say, Sean, want to go again?”
Where questions of
Religion
Are concerned,