Angie’s in another unwilling embrace, John Joe is whispering the same shite all men do when it’s up her skirt they want. Still, he’s made more of an effort than most ever bothered with: a stroll in the Botanical Gardens and a rest on the bench to listen to the bells of Glasnevin chapel chiming in a marriage, funeral, or Christening. It’s late Spring and the almond blossoms are so bloody white and boastful in their chastity.
‘I’ll look after you,’ he says. She thinks of the last time she was still a girl, all dressed up for Easter Sunday Mass smiling and skipping, before she realised she needed a feckin’ whole legion of Crusaders to shield her from fellas who said exactly that. Mammy and Daddy turned their backs while Father Nolan dragged her backwards over the threshold, into a thundery night, into the rest of her life. What she wanted to look after was whisked away and packed off to America with no time on her chest, no mouths on her breast. Right and wrong all upside-down. Even Jesus forgave Mary Magdalene – the whore herself would have been kinder than her namesake sisters telling Angie, as she washed other folks’ dirty sheets, that nothing would ever bleach her soul clean.
Now her monthlies have withered, thanks be to God, and the state has outlawed the wimple-wearing mercenaries from running ‘Mother and Baby’ homes, Angie will let John Joe do to her what men do – as long as he does his own laundry and helps her to find her two tiny petals long scattered to the wind.
Bayveen O'Connell is an Irish writer who's inspired by history, art, myth, travel, and folklore. Her stories have been nominated for Best Microfiction and the Pushcart prize.
Great flash! So much within a few words! Well done
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