Magdalene Molly (Part 1): Hunaballu

This is Part 1 of a 4-part story written for the 10th Daughter of Memory.

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Hunaballu is an old Irish term meaning "good times."

“Bridget Murphy, quit yer lollygaggin'.  The Lord didn’t put you here to daydream.” 

The stern voice jolted Bridget from her thoughts of Sean.  “Yes, ma’am.” 

***

Like everyone in the parish, Bridget’s family makes its way with farming, and like everyone, they spend long hours working the rocky soil and tending the animals.  Bridget and her sisters Mary and Colleen also have to help Ma with the household chores and caring for Daniel, the new babe.  Everyone toils from sun-up to sun-down, stopping only for the midday meal.  It’s back-breaking work, and exhaustion is a way of life.

Little did I know, Bridget thinks now as she pulls her apron up to wipe the perspiration off her reddened face.

***

The hard life on the farm was made easier by the stolen moments Bridget shared with Sean Collins, who lived on the next farm down the lane.  The friendship they'd formed as they walked to school over the years had blossomed into more.  It was difficult for them to find ways to meet, but the inky darkness of a moonless night offered an opportunity to escape watchful eyes.  Every evening, after supper was eaten, the animals fed, the prayers said, and the lanterns snuffed, their families went to bed to fall into the deep sleep of the exhausted.  While everyone slept, Bridget and Sean met in the Murphy barn, where they made plans to be together.

Huddled in the loft, the soft lowing of the cows obscuring the sound of their voices, they talked and talked, seesawing between the wild optimism of young lovers and the reality of being young and penniless.  They drew mental pictures of one scenario after another, but found every one flawed.

“But I’m 19 on me next birthday, Sean!  Sure and begorrah, t'is old enough to marry.  Me Ma was but 16 when she and Da were married.”

“Bridget, darlin’, you know they will not allow it.  They need your hands on the farm.”  Sean paused and ran his hand through his already tangled thatch of red hair.  “Besides, when they find out…”

Bridget knew time was growing short.  It wouldn’t be long before everyone knew what she had discovered a few weeks earlier.  And when they did, there would be hell to pay. 

One night, Sean presented an idea that seemed like it might work.

“My uncle Jimmy from Kilkeel, Ma’s brother, is comin’ for a visit in a fortnight.  Da calls him ‘black sheep in the flock. Don’t approve of his pub and don’t approve of him,’ says my Da.  I’ll be talkin’ to him while he’s here, Bridget.  I’m thinkin’ he might help us.”

“Oh, Sean, isn’t he the one mixed up with the…”

“Aye.  Sinn Féin. That he is, Bridget. But he’s a good one, me Uncle Jimmy.  I know if I talk to him, he’ll be understandin’.  I’m hopin’ we can hitch a ride with him up to Kilkeel. We can work in his pub until we save enough to get a boat out of Londonderry to America.”  

As much as Bridget wanted to be with her family, she wanted to be with Sean more, and so she agreed.  Finally, they had what they thought was a workable plan.

***

Ah, what was it they said about the best laid plans? 

The next day, Ma said Daniel was sickly, and asked Bridget to come along to help when she took him into see Dr. O’Toole in town.  Much to her surprise, it wasn’t Daniel who was to see the doctor, but Bridget herself.  And of course, he confirmed Ma’s suspicions that Bridget was with child.

After many tears and recriminations; after stony silences and suffocating shame draped like a mantle around Bridget’s shoulders; after a forced confession to Father Finnegan, her penance was pronounced and a new plan put in place.  Bridget would be placed in the hands of the nuns at the New Ross convent and industrial school . 

“With the grace of God, may they help you cleanse your blackened soul, Girl,” Da said.  “They’ll see that your babe is placed in good hands.”

Before she was taken away, Bridget managed to sneak out and meet Sean one last time.  “Bridget, me love,” he’d said to her, “I don’t know how, but I’ll try to see you.  And no matter what happens, know that I’ll wait, sure as I’m standin’ here. And when you come home...”  

Continued in Part 2: Not Any Spring

Poseidon Shrugged

It was just before three on Friday afternoon.

People were doing what people do.

Adults worked and children played.

Babies and old folks had a little snooze.

All living their lives in an ordinary way.

It was just another ordinary day,

Until Poseidon shrugged, deep in his watery domain.

Then nothing was ordinary ever again.

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This was written for Friday Flash 55, hosted here by G-Man.

Dangerous Curves

 

Dangerous Curves?

Despite relative obscurity in death, he lives on,

And we who play the word game collaborate.

We audition many and oft in the end choose him

For visual elaboration and emotional demonstration.

GE, Sony, Hilton, Deere: visages crafted by him.

Electric or electronic, hotel or tractor, lifelong friends

Instantly familiar.  He hides behind the curtain as

They turn a Young Face toward the marketplace,

He died last month, leaving no family. His life was spent

Behind the ivy, shaping thoughts of future wordsmiths

And in boardrooms, masking more commercial thoughts. 
Lofty ambitions.  Did they leave no time for baser goals?

Want to know more? 

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Written for One Shot Wednesday.

Just Before Dawn

Some call it “the magic hour,”

When darkness lies heavy like a blanket.

From the silence beyond the circle of lamplight

Comes no sound but whispers of the night.

The old house creaks and groans

After a day on arthritic knees and

A sympathetic hoot owl calls back softly.

A night hawk swoops past, tires humming, 

At the end of a long interstate week

Or on the drunken weave home from

The after-hours bar out on Route 10.

Every so often, at the edge of hearing,

Echoes the faint cry of the woman next door

As she answers the angry call of her mate.

Just before dawn, sirens scream and

The world sighs in its sleep.

Some call it “the magic hour.”

I call it insomnia.

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Written for One Shot Wednesday.

Checkmate

"You really are a self-centered prick."  Though she says it to see a reaction on his eternally passive face, even as the words leave her mouth, she knows they are true.

He lifts his eyes from the board in front of him, and looks at her over the top of his glasses.  “And you, my dear, are a coward.”  The words are coated in sarcasm.

As she watches him make a small adjustment to his formation, she thinks that she should have known better than to expect any other reaction.

He evaluates the adjustment he’s just made, nods slightly, then leans back in his chair and takes a sip of his Merlot.  A small satisfied smile hovers around his mouth.  

“Your move.”

She considers the board.  Nothing is ever as it seems when playing with him.  She suspects he has laid a trap for her, one of his favorite gambits, and that little smile reinforces the suspicion.  He is a master at building a false sense of security in his opponents, allowing them the illusion of success.  He dangles victory before their eyes, almost close enough to grasp.  Like a hungry animal lured by the scent of nourishment, many times she has reached for it, only to tumble into one of his traps and lose the game in a heartbeat.

The game is treacherous.  When she first discovered it, she lurked, watching others play and admiring their skill.  It most reminded her of sitting in the game park at Washington Square, watching the players who congregated there, hunched over their boards.  As she had in the park, she finally mustered up the courage to get in the game, only to be trounced royally and in short order.   

In subsequent battles, her game improved, but a win always stayed just out of reach.  And she has developed her skills over time; she knows that.  Since she entered the game, she has won some of her rounds with the other players.  But he is a master strategist, and she has never managed to outwit him.   As much as it irks her to admit it, she knows that the challenge she faces in her sorties against him must be given credit for honing her game play.  

Now, as she studies the field, she sees no obvious trap.  In fact, she sees little she can do to move her position forward.  With his last move, he moved one of his lieutenants a few paces to the left, tightening a gap in the security of his line.  Of course.  She’d been planning to slip a scout through that unprotected opening and ambush him from the rear.  Time to devise an alternative strategy.

“Sometime today would be nice, sweetheart,” he says, strumming his fingers lightly on the tabletop.  

She knows he is trying to distract her and she ignores him, keeping her focus on the board. That’s been her problem all along.  His diversions are often successful with her.  She notes that the other players seldom fall for his ploys, and though it doesn’t happen often, every one of them can claim a victory.  

Of course, the other players, save one, didn’t fall into bed with him either. Big mistake.  B.I.G. mistake.  She feels the fool every time she thinks of how easily she was seduced.  When he shone his considerable charm -- which he could turn on and off as easily as flicking a switch, damn him – in her direction, she was toast.  She fell, as surely as her troops eventually fall in the game.  

She shakes off the thought.  Holding her breath slightly, she positions her squad in the burned out village just south of his line, and then moves one of her courtesans out of the building where she’s been concealed, and into the open.  It’s risky to step into the open so early in the game, but she’s hoping it catches him by surprise.  After all, risky moves have not been her forte.  It’s not for no reason that she has earned the epithet of “coward” from him.  Since the beginning, he’s been encouraging her to get outside her comfort zone.  All her life, she has operated on the belief that until one is sure of a safe landing, jumping off a cliff is best avoided.  But she’s finally coming to realize that he may be right: timidity wins no wars.

“Your move.”

She lifts her glass to her lips and takes a sip of her wine, willing her heart to settle down.  And this is the problem. She has never been able to handle risk well.  Her palms moisten, her breath becomes short, and her heart pounds as though trying to escape her body.  Her “tells,” which she knows he is able to read.  Heaven knows, he has called her on them often enough.  She fights to hide her nervousness as watches him study the board.  She prays the risk will pay off, rather than bringing the swift defeat she has become so familiar with.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

She watches the smug look creep across his face.  He’s going to take the bait.  She knows he sees her move as foolish, placing a member of her team out in the open and exposing her position.  And she knows he smells victory in her apparent vulnerability.  She represses her own smug smile as she thinks, That’s not victory you smell, pal. That’s a whore’s perfume, which I knew you couldn’t resist.

He turns his squad and moves them to surround the village, deploying a pentagram gambit.

He raises his glass to her in mock salute.

“Check.”  

His eyes gleam with their own message.  “Was there ever any doubt?”  She knows that there was never any doubt that his intent was to crush her, to “take her out,” as he always has.  

She allows him a few moments to gloat, then she moves each member of her team from concealment.  The move puts every one of his squad into a direct line of fire.  Even the whores have a weapon trained on them.

She lifts her eyes to look into his astonished face as she drains her glass.  The wine has never tasted sweeter.

 “Checkmate.” 

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Written for the Tenth Daughter of Memory.

Nightfall

 awareness flickers

in the shadows angels call

end of day answers

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Written for Haiku Friday, hosted by LouCeeL

The Theatre of You

Pretending in performance

wrapped in rhyme, each word

draped in red and gold threads,

you believe yourself invisible

behind the brocade of your poetry.  

False lines scripted onto the page,

weaving patterns of 

life and longing,

love and loss,

peace and pain,

hope and horror:

all fabricated from whole cloth. 

No director in the dark behind the scenes

nor puppeteer beyond the curtain

pulling heartstrings, you. 

With every rhyme, every weave

of word threaded with the color of life,  

the curtain of your theatre parts a bit more

and the spotlight shines brighter on your stage,

revealing the actor who has not lived at all.

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Written for One Shot Wednesday.