Ian McDonald by After Kerry

Author:After Kerry
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-02-21T11:45:45+00:00

The electric cab left us at the tenement in Mountjoy Square. The driver charged us wrong-end-of-town prices. Long long since I was north of the river. Tribal banners bearing a dozen different crests swung from broken street lights or flapped against the fronts of the old townhouses. Traveler campervans and trailers were nose-to-tail around the central grassed square: clusters of tents, bashes and refuse sack yurts had been erected on the small green. Goats grazed, skinny dogs scavenged, heedless of traffic. Campfires sent wreaths of sparks into the cold, clear night. There was music; many musics; overlapping tribes of sound.

It had begun with these traveling people, when Britain decided it could no longer tolerate a nomadic population. They came to Ireland, they found peace, they stayed, they spread the word. For most of its history, Ireland has exported its young, scattering its brightest and boldest and best like seed across the planet. Now the brightest and boldest and best were being gathered in from across the planet, and Ireland was a country of the young again.

The steps to the tenement stank of urine. I think it’s compulsory.

As we climbed the spiral of worn stone stairs, Feargal explained that his project owned the whole apartment block. They’d needed somewhere big and cheap. The equipment. He paused on the first landing to call five names. Kerry’s was not one of them. His voice echoed in the big, cold stairwell. Tracks of condensation ran down the glossy, institutional paint. A door opened on the next floor, a head appeared over the bannisters: a girl, shaggy blonde hair, age indeterminate, terrifyingly thin.

“Feargal! Feargal! I remembered! Bray beach! And they were there! All of them! But they never existed!” She giggled and disappeared. The door closed loudly.

“Trina’s a transient.” The name was not one of those Feargal had shouted out. “We’re mostly transients. Nature of the community; you pass through on your way from somewhere to someplace better.”

“And you?” I asked.

“Permanent. Eternal. Day-oner. Invented this place. Least, that’s what I remember.” I didn’t understand why he smiled.

“And Kerry?” I asked.

He nodded up the stairs.

Feargal took us to the door at the top of the stairs, under the glass cupola. We entered the room beyond. It was dark but the acoustic and the chill of the air suggested immense size. The lights clanked on, battery by battery; heavy duty industrial floods. White light, white room: the old tenement attic, the length of the whole building.

The thing in the middle of the floor was white too. Feargal’s footsteps echoed in the big white space as he crossed the floor to the machine. A faint pulse beat of street rhythm transmitted through the row of skylights. Feargal’s expression as he stood before the device was a combination of pride and awe; Clionadh’s, as she ran her hand over the white scanning ring, bewilderment and disgust.

The sheet on the padded vinyl surface was white, and neatly folded down at the top.

“Most of the work was already done by the end of the century.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.