Down, Down, Down. Floor After Floor Held It’s Secrets, Pregnant With The Promise Of A Hellscape Should

“M’ tired.”

Her voice is small, and sinks into the ripples of the surf in front of them, syllables sticking to the chill in the breeze. The sun sinking below the waves, throwing splotches of pink and orange into the tide. Saoirse and Darragh had run to the edge of Spiriod, tensions in camp Shea were bubbling over and they needed respite, or out all together, but the closer they got to the edge of town, the wearier their limbs became. Leaving them with the next best thing; the coast. 

“I know love.” He sniffed, the scent of sticky sweet doughnuts wafted over and his stomach rumbled. They had come all this way and just sat. Sat, and talked. The quiet Shea needed a break too sometimes. Peeping at him through salty tendrils of hair, plaited sloppily at her breast, she studied him, Derry was weathered as the cliffs overshadowing the bay, lines set into his face peppered with the dying embers of the auburn in his facial hair, it had all been snuffed out. It suited him, age, getting older, a mop of white hair at furrowed brow. Though she supposed neither of them could say they were wiser or better off for it. For all the troubles they were determined to turn their backs on, the need to help their family seemed to be the thing pulling them under. Part of them wanted to go back to being the kids in the caravan park, a town girl on the wrong side of the tracks. Her parents had fuckin’ despaired at the time, but they just didn’t see what she did, and he hadn’t failed her yet. They got off that site, and as the business grew, so did their fortune.

The tide was coming in, salty blue trickling closer and closer to sandy toes. Saoirse found herself making bets with the water, daring it to slip under her and soak the fabric of their clothes. Wash away a multitude of stresses, pull it from their pores and yet, as she looked back to her right, her husband had shuffled further back and was smiling at her, hand outstretched. 

Irises tracked the length of his arm and she reached for it, allowing him to pull her closer. The smell of stale beer on his breath and the aftershave she had bought him for Christmas last year; cinnamon, vanilla, bourbon sat in the crook of his neck. The warmth of his skin and the scent of it was home to her. Not where they were. He had given her everything, a home, a platform to have a career, beautiful children. His family were different, not all of them - steadfast as they were to protect their own, they had no desire to cut the cord, only to drink themselves deeper into wonderland - but it wasn’t wonderland at all, and none of them were Alice. Instead they were ensnared in a cocaine powdered trap and the more they wriggled, the deeper the teeth sank. It puzzled her, putting things on the line in the name of wealth and perpetual success. Sure, they did it as a team, won and lost together, lived and died by the Shea name, but sitting on the outside, she could see the toll it had taken over the years, the lost opportunities, the missed connections, any honest passions. Anything they had was tangled within the brambles Michael had grown around himself. 

Far be it past her to say, but it was too far gone for them to release them - best they could do she supposed was to chop them off at the ankle, bloodied and alive than risk watching them be mauled one by one by the stark reality of this life they had woven. Win or lose. 

Darragh would be the one to tell the tale at the end of it all, she had no doubt, and whilst his moral compass flickered from time to time, he had never lost sight of the simple pleasures and achievements the rest of his kin had. 

Long finger wandered into the breeze to tap the end of his nose, beet red in the fading sunlight. “Doughnut Mr. Shea?” He caught the end of her finger between his teeth and let it go to replace with a kiss. 

“Ye spoil me, Mrs Shea.” 

“Don’t forget it.”

There they sat, on a cool sand, faces smothered in powder kisses. Sticky and indulgent they pulled at a grease stained bag for beige wonderment. Enjoying sweet treats as a child would. Gulls whirring near by as if vultures looking for their carcass. Flat yellow feet pattering wanting prints in the sand, getting deeper with each pace. Everything deserved minute indulgence from time to time, and so she stood, scattering sugar crumbs among the birds, wings catching the wind to land, beady eyes not meeting hers for even a second as beaks picked at gooey dessert. 

Grinning widely, she turned to Darragh and her heart sank, his blue eyes nestled in his phone. It wasn’t like him, to be sure, but as his eyes scanned mystery text, she too felt the pull, the itch in her feet to return home to duty. To pop the bubble. 

Just then she shivered, and phone screen went dark, birds flew away. 

“We’d better go, love.” He murmured, the disappointment evident on his slumped shoulders, sticky hands thrust into the sand he shook it off as he stood as if a snake shedding skin. His features had darkened but he reached for her, as he always did and planted a kiss at her temple - cinnamon, vanilla, bourbon. He would always be hers, first and foremost, before any other familial duty. 

“Mick’s had Absinthe done over, a warnin’ m’ guessin’.”

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞.

The world under his feet was shifting at a rate that neglected to allow him to steady himself; and the air, the air was thick, hot. His Aunt Orla had always told him to take a step back.

It came with a sense of looming horror; the realisation that perhaps his world was as small and as insignificant as a snapped neck in hunters mouth - more often than not now, Tadgh Shea was drinking himself unsensible and these waves came more often than he cared to admit. Their family was slipping into something far darker, and he was powerless to stop it – and he was implicit.

Though they were brothers in arms; he and his father had always been different. Mick was graceful; would wring someones neck and somehow find a way to make it look graceful. As if perhaps the victim had slipped into peaceful asunder and he did it with a smile on his face. When Tadgh chose his side, there was still a small part of him that knew his Aunt and Blair would hurt for him if they knew, but equally, the demons in him knew she’d take him back into the fold eventually regardless. When you have everything to gain, Tadgh chose to gamble. What he neglected to realise was Mick relied on his unreliable memory, in his UNHINGED MENTALITY, on the gaps of time that turned black.

Blackness —- Thursday, Rapacity.

Cool palms grasp clammy cheeks, the scent of tobacco and whiskey seeps into his sinuses and the fuzz around him seems to settle. A steady tone cuts through the din and Tadgh begins to refocus; foggy irises seek to piece the splintering around him together and he chokes in air though it feels thick, like tar and coats the inside of his lungs until he splutters, sputum coating chapped lips, he tasted the iron of the blood on his tongue and his pupils dilate. 

Mick stood over him, grasping his face; and he blinked, his father's lips were pressed into a thin line, it had happened again, family meetings gone awry. Part of him knew his father had needed this, the animal within his son.

It happened every now and again; for years now - gaps of time he couldn’t explain, fits of panic that took over like fog rolling over the moorside. A last sharp pat to his face and his dear old twat of a father slid down at his side and patted his knee, his body heat serving to show him how he quivered despite how stifling the bar had become. He liked to think all sides of his family protected him, but they all knew he teetered as ever on the edge of a cliff, and falling off would only spell true madness. It was only Mick that underneath he knew would be the one to give him the final shove.

Little by little the room around him came into focus, and his ears rang. They sat on the dusty wooden floor of an old bar in Rapacity; owned and ran by a fella whom he only knew was in the way of something the elder Shea wanted. His volatility was an asset, he’d tell him. Recounting the way he handled other human beings as if they were made of rags - and yet, it wasn’t in his nature, he didn’t mean to though it was clear something in him needed to. 

Eyes flicker to the man beside him; and he feels his stomach drop as he looks at the damage around him; his conscience kicking in. They were brothers in arms; bound by a collective cause (or so Mickey thought) and slave to their secrets. Broken glass and moaning bodies; a scramble of furniture.

Another empty shell to add to the list of victories - the very kind of victories Orla would berate him for mind. Most of the time he still felt like a little boy; he had no control of himself, of his head. As though his foundations were collapsing in on himself. He was HEAVY. Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t - he had tried to opt for the quiet life, but there was a greed in him that playing the legitimate businessman wouldn’t sate. Tadgh Shea would never be one for a noble cause; he wasn’t as strong as Blair to be able to walk away entirely, his sister had an ethereal nature, much like his aunt, and he knew they would always be better than him. Despite all, he still moved with the ebb and flow of violent delights and added them to his mental anguish afterward. 

𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐧𝐨𝐰; 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐲𝐩𝐬𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧.

bear with me, I’m returning from a year off and feel like Bambi learning to stand again.

+ #BLEAKSUMMER …  a collection of ill-fated misfits crammed in a little Irish town crushed into the cliffs by the sea since the 14th century; narrow passageways carry irish folk-horror, insipid melody and debauchery. A place where nothing is what it seems, and the unexplainable claw through the veil at its mortal inhabitants. SPIRIOD, IRELAND is just outside Donegal, and underneath it’s picture perfect postcard exterior, is a hairy underbelly of family warfare, 𝖆𝖓𝖈𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝖌𝖞𝖕𝖘𝖞 𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖎𝖈𝖐𝖘 and where bloated aristocracy leaks out over the cobbles.

𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬: the roster, guidelines

+ an exploration of : earthbound gothic horror, parapsychology and clairvoyancy, the victorian approach to death, familial dread and yearning, severe feelings of loss and betrayal, dream weaving, the effect of money and power on a psyche, the rot and crumbling at the centre of british aristocracy, Irish Catholicism and catholic guilt, creatures of the night in all of their forms, damp earth and mossy knolls and perhaps the odd seance.

These characters are original and are often involved in themes including but not limited to:  𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐑, 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇, 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐔𝐌𝐀, 𝐃𝐑𝐔𝐆 𝐀𝐁𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐋. If this will be triggering for you, please proceed with caution and ask all the questions you may need to feel comfy if you wish to interact with my muses.

This tale follows three families.

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔖𝔥𝔢𝔞𝔰: bound to the earth the town was built on, the Shea family have occupied land in Spiriod since the beginning. Ancestry derived from fortune tellers, mediums, witchcraft and gypsies. Travellers who ground to a halt at the moor side and have settled here ever since, their modern day descendants are rotting from the inside out. They are everything their forefathers would have despised, new money, drug running and cheap tactics. That is, except for Orla, who tries her best to remain faithful to their roots; she, her son and her niece are the three threads holding it together.

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔏𝔬𝔠𝔨𝔢𝔰: sin takes it’s form in the Locke family, old money and more of it than god. So why here? At first it was a quiet playground, a holiday home - walls left to creak in the cold winter months. They are everything the british aristocracy breeds at Eton and spits out to torture those less fortunate. The untimely, and suspicious deaths (depending on which side you stand on of course) deaths of their mother and father meant the Locke triplets could have a go at playing empire themselves, with Philip at the helm (he used to laugh more, life now is less funny) and Spiriod seemed the most unassuming place to start, with it’s close links to Belfast, Dublin and it’s British cousins, they are spreading their poison anywhere that will listen. 

𝔗𝔥𝔢 ℌ𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔦𝔢𝔯𝔰: common as all muck, and have island hopped from Merseyside, UK to try their luck at a new life over the puddle. Law and order, working class woes and family values hold them together. They haven’t had the best luck, but it’s starting to look up, and they’re shaking hands and working with the most influential people in town. Will it last, or will their efforts make hairline cracks into chasms?

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.

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.