a little light relief

Evening at the Chateau De Healy.
James is flumped on the couch in the front room.
Paddy Pup is lolling nearby.
MC Hamster is doing her phantom of the opera routine from the confines of her cage.
The Mammy is ensconced in an armchair.
All is at peace.
The phone rings.
It is my brother.
The tough one.
Businessman Tom.
He is laughing.
He doesn't laugh much.
My curiosity is aroused.
"What's up?" sez I.
"Switch on RTE," sez he.
"Why?" sez I.
"Just do it," sez he.
I flick the channels on the Sexevision to RTE.
There is a documentary underway about unemployment in Ireland.
I watch.
The RTE cameras are following someone called John Whelan into an unemployment office to film him signing on.
My jaw drops.
The RTE commentator tells us: "John Whelan was formerly editor of the Leinster And Offaly Express, and afterwards editor at Voice Newspapers. But last July he lost his job."
During this most compassionate eulogy, the RTE commentator neglects to mention that in between being editor of the Leinster And Offaly Express, and being editor at Voice Newspapers, John Whelan was also for a few short weeks editor of the Leinster Leader, during which time he fired me from the job I'd held for ten years.
And now John Whelan is signing on for unemployment assistance on national television.
The irony is screaming.
I have never spoken to John Whelan.
I have never seen John Whelan until this moment gentle readers.
Our scant interactions at the Leinster Leader took place by email and letter post.
Now I behold him on national television.
He is, in the best sense of an old fashioned phrase, a baldy little bollix.
"It's a strange feeling signing on," John Whelan tells the nation. "You have the feeling people are looking at you. You don't get far on a hundred and ninety seven Euro a week."
My contemplation of this heartrending evocation of human suffering is broken by the Mammy.
"Earlier today you were saying about how you wondered did God want you to forgive and forget," she points out pleasantly. "It's a funny coincidence isn't it? You know. You talking about forgiveness this morning. And then the lad who fired you appearing on the television tonight. Almost as if you were meant to know. The circle is complete. Does it mean it's over? Is it the end?"
A far awake look filled my piercing blue eyes.
I considered.
In my mind's eye I viewed the displacement of the forces of my enemies.
My sources at the Leinster Leader have told me two senior management figures who had spent years trying to run me out of the building, are on their death beds. The Chief Executive of the Johnston Press who was in charge during my firing has within a year of that decision, shuffled off into retirement. The share price of the Johnston Press within a year of the decision to fire me, has dropped to almost nothing. The editor who fired me is unemployed, and from what I've just seen on RTE, he's well nigh unemployable.
I drew a deep breath.
Beside me the ghost of Winston Churchill appeared.
"Winston," sez I, "tell the Mammy how it is."
Winston grinned.
"This is not the end," he boomed. "It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning."