There’s A Light, And It Flickers - Philip Watched His Wife Circle It, A Look Of Exasperation Mottling

𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧, 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐭.

He could still remember the first time he saw her, fuckin’ statue of a woman - perfect, she was. A mop of blonde ringlets atop biblical features and he knew, in the moment her eyes et his that he wanted to pick at all of her loose ends, unfurl her as if he were a kitten clawing at the soft fibres of a ball of wool, to be the making of her and her undoing. Truly, Tadgh wanted to own her, to crawl inside the soft folds of her flesh and pull her inside out. 

What Tadgh hadn’t accounted for, was the mouth on her. A crass, uncouth American girl. A diamond in the rough with none of the sensibilities he would expect of someone who looked the way she did. He found himself needing her, for a time, she made the voices in his head shut the fuck up, and the first time he’d had her he was sure he’d heard the goddamn angels sing. This creature in his bed was far beyond what the scrappy gypsy lad had thought he’d been destined for, and he’d met her before his finances were something to chase. 

She was loyal and as vicious as a fuckin’ chihuahua, and she had him wrapped around her finger, they grew in power together. For a couple that appeared to have everything, it pleased them to play silly games, each pushing the other to their limits, enjoying the chaos they left around them. Faithful, though they weren’t, it did something to him to watch her in the throes of passion with others, smashed flesh and writhing bodies - it always begun well, until the rising mould of jealousy put rancid taste on his tongue, and the events had seen him put more than one innocent head through a window, all to reclaim her and fuck on the funeral pyre. Nothing rattled them. Nothing at all, nothing until - she told him with eyes full of bewilderment, that she was pregnant. 

Those tiny fingers and toes, his Violet, it was inconceivable to a man like him that he had been blessed with something so perfect. Sure as shit convinced him love wasn’t in his vocabulary until he had held her. A creature as heavenly as her mother, and for her he swore he’d serve them on his knees until he perished. A nuclear family, they weren’t, but they were as close as he could muster to perfection.

So it was sods law after all these years of marriage she’d decided she loved pussy, too. He wouldn’t divorce her, though, no, divorce wasn’t in his vocabulary and that little mousey headed little bint would come to learn that no matter how close she’d think she was getting, Rose knew where her bread was buttered, and understood as much as he, that they were property of the other one and on more than one occasion he’d had to unfurl clenched fists when he’d seen them together; I will not hit a woman. He had some morals, after all. Rose toyed with him and he was a dog for her. To him, it was just another game, to her, it was the beginning of something new, a tingling she didn’t yet quite understand.

3:00AM. THE HOUSE.

Her eyes would never adjust to nightfall, when the world fell quieter, for Orla it was deafening; raucous and torturous - faces that loomed in the dark waiting for her. It was as though a careless seamstress had picked a hole in the fabric of the earth, letting souls spill through the tear, pushing toward her through the ink.

Though tonight was different; it started as a tension headache, a cluster and filled her with a sickness she had only ever experienced once before,just after her husbands’ death - perhaps it was the universe’s way of telling her to stop poking her nose in the afterlife. 

Starting out into the blackness, she wrings her fingers around the glass and drains the amber liquid contained within, a feeble effort perhaps to reduce the mounting pressure in her skull. Lifting her palm to her face, her cheeks hot, she covered her eyes, blocking out the air that surrounded her and she pushed dry thumbs into hollow eye sockets, the dull ache behind the bone elicits a warmth to accompany the shapes that danced in front of her irises and she retreated inside. 

In instances like this, as before, her home offered little comfort for the looming shadows, hissing out of sight like hungry serpents, teeth grazing her ankles as she sat at her desk. Pen to paper, focus on the nib that scraped the paper.

JOURNAL.

My body aches. Fingers ache. It’s coming again, my skin feels as though it’s splitting, shedding to let something else in. My mouth tastes bitter, metallic and...I know I can’t stop it. My family will think Auntie O is falling off her rocker again if it sticks like it did before. Though even this time feels different, darker. It’s suffocating. The beings are louder than usual, more brash, enjoying the haunt as though they know something else is rising too. That perhaps under tonight’s veil they may be able to take what they need from me. 

She’s standing there, I see her - and she’s haunting me. It’s no longer the playful visitation, no, tonight she waltzes to my side and breathes in my ear. I can smell her, it’s seeping into me. This house is no longer looking like my own, either. It aches, as though the walls themselves are weeping and she’s still standing there, blank, tears cutting her ivory skin and I want to reach out and touch her but I can’t. I try but the cold burns my fingers. 

It’s louder now, the walls are breathing, she’s staring through me now, at whatever lurks at my shoulder, her feet rooted to the floor, it’s a slow, soft hush as if time is realigning itself to contain us here. I’ll sit and I’ll watch until it takes over, watch her pass from room to room, waiting, on loop. 

The walls are screaming now, rattling, I’m trying not to be perturbed, I just watch, eyes glazing over as the inevitable waits at the hearthside. I crave her eyes to fall on mine, instead of it, and they do every now and again, but it’s void of anything, I’m just chasing a projection and it’s holding me, I’m as trapped as she is. 

The headache is too much to bear now, pen to paper, pen to paper - it won’t do. The figure is staring at me now, aware I can’t ignore it anymore, it comes nose to nose, opening its mouth to speak though words don’t come out. Instead, she clears her throat, and smiles, a smile that seems to stretch over her jaw, contorting her features and then it sinks like ice into her flesh. 

Orla stretches, though her skin feels stretched, as though she no longer fits in her body. A stretch, she approaches the mirror and pushes manicured fingers into the lines on her face and tuts, her voice is sinking behind the one that spills from parted lips. Orla no longer embodies herself. “Easier to get under your skin nowadays, O, losing your touch. I’m gonna get you ready doll, and we’re going out.”  

Brunette curls are pulled into a low bun, the woman who always looks so small in her own frame now dominates. Heels clack now; against the pavement, having already traded a sloppy blowjob for the taxi fare into the city centre, it was about time Orla Shea went out, the poor woman deserved it, over the years she had dipped in and out of the petite battleaxe, finding her surprisingly easy to suppress. It was still mildly amusing that even after all these years, Orla Shea still exhibited an extraordinary amount of restraint. Taking simple pleasures in ravaging the Catholic guilt that would creep back over her come morning. How could she still believe in God, when the family she was head of took joy in conducting so many ills? 

Perks of the job, perhaps as devil incarnate, forcing humankind to unwind, push and pull their bodies to a limit they had previously found impossible. With Orla, it was about chipping away at that reputation, about exploiting her long buried flaws. She had made a criminal enterprise her art, and she did it under the guise of mother dear. What Orla Shea needed to remember, more than anything, is that she was a fucking shewolf. Death, murder, bloodshed wasn’t something she needed to make her commit, no, that came with the territory. The true conquest was forcing her to unwind, to revel in delicious sin. 

It didn’t take long to find what was needed, taking particular joy in exiting to watch from a distance as colour rose in her alabaster cheeks. How beautiful she looked, fingers curled around the edges of the dresser. Orla was poetic in her climax, watching the diamonds on her fingers glitter as one wrapped into the hair atop her lovers head as it sank between her thighs, the other wound around the cigarette between her lips. 

Those chocolate hues rose to mine, as it registered she was her again, chest heaving, I wave and nod. He can’t hear me, though she can, and though I no longer inhabit her, the sway will be just enough to compel her to remain. “Burn him.” Orla’s eyes narrow, struggling with clawing back her inner sanctum as the cigarette lowered, pressing into the males shoulder, he flinched, though didn’t stop. Amusement came anew as she didn’t move him away, a cackle.

“ Better leave you to it. Till next time, Auntie O.” 

It rattled out of her, knocking on every bone as it left, leaving her with the ripple between her legs and the fingertips that curled roughly around her wrist. 

Long fingers prodded at aching joints, she just didn’t move the way she used to and yet her brain told her she could still rise to the occasion if push came to shove. West end trained, she was, and Darragh had supported her at every juncture, save how much he whinged at the London smog and the hovel of a flat they called home for a few years, a wee one bedroom crammed into a Victorian on the outskirts of Notting Hill. Men like him weren’t destined to be hemmed in, he was forever scratching at the walls and stomping the green of Hampstead Heath, but even that felt like a cattle shed compared with home and it’s vast expanses of nothing. But her, she slotted into the chaos as if it was a second skin, the volume of bodies, stacked on top of one another, the noise - it felt right. Dutifully, he was either front row, or stage door every night, and for his efforts she dug a little deeper into the little life they shared.

He tried, for her, to stay - paying more than they could afford back then to size up once Connor came along, adding a wriggling pink baby in among the sequins and sparkle worked for a time, but even she had to admit trying to raise him in the din, parcelling him up for school on the tube was not the kitsch childhood she had envisioned for her family. 

Oh, but the sickly sweet smell of sweat mixed with perfume, the bruises that mottled her skin - rehearsal after rehearsal, the life was addictive, she adored it, and it her. When they left to go back to Ireland it snuffed a light out in her, swapped spotlights and dance shoes for nappies, homework and toddler classes. 

Saoirse taught children’s ballet classes for a while, in the small town hall, peppered with flyers for mum and baby groups, the local food bank, bin collection days. It wasn’t enough. Instead she felt a rot in her gut, stirring within the hole she couldn’t fill. The only thing that compared was the scent at the crown of her children’s heads. Their innocence, the pure light they emitted felt almost as intoxicating as the warmth of the stage light. Some would say being a mother was the making of you, but for her, she had been made and moulded years ago. Married to the game, and Darragh was aware and all too happy to allow it, but he’d be remiss if he didn’t admit he cherished the time he had her all to himself.

When Blair came back with her airy fairy idea for a new club, it wasn’t crazy enough that it didn’t curl its talons into Saoirse almost immediately. Something she lost sleep over, and sometimes she’d put on the costumes just to feel the scratch of the sequins against pale flesh, relishing in the red welts it drew over her skin. She’d had two children, so the zip strained and her hips pushed at the fabric. Darragh used to watch her, and all at once he’d remember how the stage split those ruby red lips in two, and she’d beam. The notion of being able to have a hand in it all over again had ripped jagged holes in her stony façade, letting light tough parts of her that had gone dark years ago. 

Opening Absinthe re-ignited something in her, a warmth spreading through her, Darragh wasn’t ready to lose her to the city, and so he bankrolled it in Spiriod, and though he hadn’t considered it at the time, he got his wife back immediately, a flurry of red hair and sparkle and all at once they were 20 again, except this time, they were home.

He washes, but is never clean, an impenetrable layer of grime as a reminder of the life to which he is associated. It is a tick he has picked up in his time here, scrubbing whenever able, and when not holding sore fingertips under hot water he is wiping his palms on his overalls, spattering blue with spreading masses of damp. Patting himself down incessantly, as if looking for his wallet, instead it is the way his body copes with being pulled from what he finds comfortable. 

Seventeen long months he has been inside, and he is not long from release. He went down  for grand larceny, possession with intent to supply, resisting arrest…and the assault weapon he’d been supplied with, courtesy of Locke & Co to take out his role. Thankfully he had chosen the right side of the fence to fall on and the Locke’s looked after their own, and they had enough cops on the payroll to avoid bringing the wrong noses in sniffing around any of the bodies that dropped to protect the business. Turns out, the bigger you grow, the more rats want to dig through plump bellies to further their own agenda. Spiriod just wasn’t big enough to hold that amount of dick swingin’. It wasn’t the world he would’ve chosen, but it was the life he had adopted in the name of belonging somewhere. 

For the moment, he belonged in maximum security, he had taken a plea deal as discussed with Lip, and had managed to reduce his sentence on good behaviour. Ruben had become a lot of things, but he wasn’t a rat, and even squirrelled away behind slate grey nothingness, he had a job to do - Douglas Morris was someone he needed to either; befriend and get information out of surreptitiously for his bosses to sort out. Or - remove him as an issue altogether. Douglas Morris was, to put it politely, a peculiar fellow, who worked for Mr. Shea himself. There was something about recruiting insanity that bred chaos, and Mick had made it a fine art. No matter what he did, Douglas Morris was a serial convict - and he supposed he too was a result of blind loyalty in a way, a man without a soul. Although he didn’t really understand his charges, or why he was inside and so oftentimes they didn’t stick. Blissful ignorance, he supposed. 

Ruben truly believed he had the constitution of an ox to cope with most things, but his track record in denial trailed behind him in a wake of horrors that would make most hard faced men blush. He did what he had to, and truly what he thought was right for the people he loved, sometimes blindly and very much to a fault. 

The front he had put on before he came in had faltered, and quickly. Instead, what was left behind was the little boy his sister had scooped out of the UK when he was 14. Unsure of his place here or otherwise and now he sat across from a man that seemed to putrefy as the seconds went by. A bulbous nose that had somehow grown a face around it, as though someone had pulled at the edges and made him from plasticine. Cartoonish in his appearance, hair stuck out as if damp fingers had prodded at a plug socket. There was a chirp in his voice that unsettled him, and unfortunately, now he discovered, befriending this man for information was far worse than removing him altogether. 

He told tales with such honesty, it made him sick. Some of them involved people he knew, people that wore the scars of being involved with him. He understood with perfect clarity why Philip had chosen this man to pull to bits. There is, indeed, a place in hell for men that allow animals like this one to lay their hands on their daughter, but it was what had happened. To Mick, Blair was both collateral and an obstacle and bless her, she paid the price. Ruben also knew, as stoic and stony faced as Philip was, he wouldn’t have managed a conversation with him without ripping his chest open and taking a mouthful of his heart whilst it still beat in his palm. Blair was his wife - and true, enough was enough now. 

Cold eyes stopped quivering just long enough to make him set his jaw, and rub his palms over his knees until they felt hot. Douglas cocked his head, in the same innocent way a dog would should he have heard his name. Ruben’s body ached, he fought at every turn the fight or flight in his gut and somehow managed to paint a plastic smile on thinned lips and irises flickered to the fork Douglas turned in his fingers, before replacing it next to his knife to painstakingly deconstruct his pie, lining the components up one by one. 

“Time for another story?”

Ruben’s brow lofted, as saliva slid like rocks down his gullet. “Better than the last?” 

Douglas shrugged, glowing vermillion in the pride he felt for his conquests. “Mick asked me once - “ Ruben frowned, feigning confusion at the name. “Oh, Mick Shea, he’s my best friend.” Ruben nodded, perturbed by his childlike passion for his little bubble.

“Do you miss him?” Ruben found himself asking, and a large snaggle tooth smile spread over his counterpart’s face. “Every day.” He paused. “Why do you ask?” He licks his thumb and squashes pastry into the hole in his face. Ruben watches the sugar coat his lips, and the pastry sink into his beard. 

Ruben shrugged this time. “Just talkin’ Doug.” 

He nodded, dusting off his hands and Ruben shifted in his seat, thinking of the bacteria landing onto Douglas’s food, and so he clung to his knees. 

“There was a girl, blonde, let's call her Heather, so bubbly. Mick thought she spoke too much, ya know? Told me that secrets kept families close, and that she was going to tell the bad people things and it would upset Mrs. Shea.” 

“Wouldn’t want that, Mr and Mrs Shea sound like good folks,” He agreed, barely masking the disdain in his voice. 

Ruben fixed his gaze, as the creature sat opposite him unfurled his sorry tale with immense joy. He felt as if he had spent all of this time working the relationship to get a kick in the teeth at the end of it. He recognised it was evidence Lip needed to use against Mick, and yet, the doubt in his gut as to what the greater good was where these two men were concerned had spread like a cancer and he questioned often between the clanks of cell doors, and the cries of trapped men, whether it was all worth it. 

Then he thought of his sister, and it gave him more gousto to continue. 

Douglas finished his story, panting like a hound in glee - it was evident he found joy in the horrors of snuffing out life. Or perhaps it was more pleasing his master so he could get a treat that did it. Either way, it took a few for Ruben to come back down to earth. 

“Sounds to me pal, like ya did the right thing.” He responded meekly. “We gotta do our best for our family, huh?”

He prayed between guttural sobs that evening, if there was a God, he had never begged him before, but he needed out and set his mind to it that he would no longer follow blindly. That these people weren’t family, not really, he had one sister and that was it. He belonged there now, and he would still go to the ends of the earth for them…but he would use the tongue in his head to voice his doubts. 

FOUR WEEKS LATER. 

Daylight spread over his skin like melted butter, sunshine hit differently when accompanied with freedom he supposed. His sister had barrelled into him, reminding him she was surprisingly spry for a tiny woman. Lip stood silently, drawing on a cigarette - no change there. 

“Y’alright der brother?”

Ruben craned his neck to look back at where he had been the small dots behind the windows and wondered for a moment what Douglas would think happened to the only friend he’d ever made in there. 

Meeting Philip’s gaze, hidden behind dark framed sunglasses, he nodded. Meeting him toe to toe for a lax hug. “Let’s get ye home, eh? Pour a lager down your neck and put together what you got from inside.” Lips palm felt hot on his spine, almost alien and if it weren’t for the sweat that beaded at his hairline, he wouldn’t think his skin was his own at all. He didn’t have sleeves on to wipe his hands now, and so instead he awkwardly scratched his forearms. 

The reunion did not go as Lip had envisaged, he may have felt guilty, but he wouldn’t show it. Blair had left early, dismayed by the bits her husband had left out of Ruben’s stay in the big house and all at once he noticed she had the same issue, her skin didn’t fit quite right and it pulled her, she had given him a knowing look. There were two of them in that room that had seen the same look in Douglas Morris’ eyes and it had changed them forever.

It had aged him, and the ticks remained. The lager his boss had promised had instead opened the proverbial floodgates to a shower of shit he hadn’t counted on. The joy and the partying had given to drunken disorder and leant against Lip at the bar, a rare smile coating his visage, Ruben sniffed. 

“Dunno whut you’re so ‘appy about.”

Brows furrowed. “What? Yer home, s’all I’m bothered about. Proud of yer, Ru.”

He turned. “Fuckin’ proud of me? I did the dirty work, that fella is a fuckin’ monster and you left me in there.”

Lip stayed quiet, which only made him angrier. “Owt to say? No - sorry I put you in that position Ru. Just get me to do the shit jobs ain’t ya? Ruben’ll do it. Do this Ru, do that Ru, jump of a bridge and break ya fuckin’ neck for us, Ru.”

No response, just a heavy hand at his shoulder, which he knocked off with all the surly attitude of a teenage boy. 

“Feck off, Lip. Only reason I did that and not you is cause youze a fuckin’ coward.” He drew the word out like it was poison and Philip lapped it up, grasping his face and pulling it toward him. 

“Listen ere’, we all do our fair share of shite, believe you me. It’s dirty work, ain’t all coke and whores and fuckin’ sunshine. This is ours, and I’ll do owt to protect what’s ours.” He let go, jabbing an outstretched finger into his chest. “M’ fuckin sorry.” Ruben swallowed, not expecting the apology, as flimsy as it was, he recognised it came from his gut to deliver and so this time, Ruben stayed quiet. 

“That vile pig of a man, will stop at nothing to ruin our lives and he uses psychopaths like that freak to do it. He did this to his daughter, my-” He drew in breath as the air between them changed and the hand fell on his shoulder again, instead, this time Ruben put his over top. “She’s my fuckin’ wife, Ruben. My second chance. M’family’s all I got, n’ if we take our foot off their necks for one second they could take that from us. You hear?”

Ruben nodded, choosing to let Lip have his soapbox. “You was put in there cuz I trust ya’, and you’ve never let me down.” His hand dropped and reached for the crumpled cigarette packet on the bar. “Plus I thought you might’ve found a little boyfriend in there, lord knows you need one.”

Ruben took a cigarette from the packet as it was offered and a huff of laughter departed open maw. “You’re a wanker.”

“P’haps.” Lighter met the filter and Lip reached to light Ruben’s for him. “Look, you need a thick skin for this shite, it doesn’t go away, just gets gnarlier until you don’t know what’s a nightmare and what’s your wakin’ reality. Swallow what shit he told you, and use it, do not let it break you.” 

Gold. Who was that guy that touched everything and, ‘ting!’ pure gold? All that money thrown at education and I don’t have the foggiest. I suppose mommy wanted me to have the best, and possibly meet some kids my own age, but honestly I’d have been better being thrown into the local high school, at least then I’d have had a chance at talking to people who are more likely to have a soul. 

I am well aware of my place, and truly, I know I could fall in shit and come out smelling of roses. Most of the time I don’t have to think at all, days upon days of blissful nothing and fuck me, I have no idea why the rest of my family make it look so fucking difficult. Forever jamming their fists into where they can make more of it; green. The thing that makes the world turn on its axis, so they say. Don’t make us any happier though, does it? I’m sure the foundations of this place are built on valium and loud sighs. 

We are, mostly, very stupid, and very far removed. It is wealth you simply cannot dream of, the gap between us and your average joe, middle class with a 401k, 2.5 kids and wife with a Louis Vuitton handbag is actually a fucking chasm. So deep and so wide it could unhinge it’s jaws, and snaffle the Grand Canyon. IT'S NOT REAL. A world of no consequence, no one need grow up, endless fucking frolicking at the bottom of Mary Poppins’ carpet bag with Peter bastard Pan and all of his merry men, or whoever the fuck Disney said. 

We just are. 

True enough, we could do more to help the needy, or…those that are on the breadline, whatever the PC term is now. But our ignorance means our own problems, usually of our own doing are usually far more important. Frivolous, but far more important than the fact you’ve shoved another kid out and can’t afford a grocery shop. The fact that those little colourful tickets designed to look like you aren't completely fucked, the ones you cash in at the foodbank, the proverbial begging bowl, is your life line. Who the fuck do we think we are?

Uncle Philip does an especially good job of knotting himself up to be the King on the funeral pyre of his making. Good businessman, fairly bad human, but so are we all I’d wager. Silly little footnotes stomping around unending halls crying at our fistfuls of cash. He hates it. Recently, he spends most of his time lurking and chain smoking, it almost appears it physically pains him to smile, which is a shame because I remember a time his lips would crack and his laughter would make his whole frame shake. He was, is…warm, he’s just forgotten in all the din of being one of the luckiest motherfuckers on planet earth. 

Our family is odd, though. I see that now, The Sheas are very much new money, it's a dirty term around people like us. This miserable nature hasn’t become engrained in them yet, they are still worker ants, bringing their wares back to the nest, stockpiling wealth for a rainy day. But fuck me, they are like sunshine, and they are just so…well, REAL Their emotions aren’t regulated by having a stick up ones ass, they've just fuckin’ grafted for the world they inhabit. There is a certain levity, to having them around, and they have so much familial turmoil and yet they are simply magic. It’s fascinating. 

I realise sometimes how tone deaf I am when I try to have conversations with them, or, well anyone outside of the Locke family prison. I am coveted, surrounded, and yet none of them fucking listen. I am nobody, not a victim, but a nobody. Just the prize pig, and I must say some of the most heinous shit, because our life is just playtime, and theirs actually means something. 

I am aware how trite I sound, rich kid wants to mean something. What’s wrong with that though? Well, I suppose the sun shines out of my ass, and therefore, I have to work harder to prove not everything of value I am capable of producing was funded entirely by the obscenity of the wealth in my estate. All at once I want to hide and I want to be seen, instead I am balls deep in a stereotype I am incapable of shaking off. How tragic.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HONEY!!!! 💖🥳

Thank you sm my BABY ♥️♥️♥️