Twilight of the Sods

 

Standing on the riverbank near the Dominican Church in Newbridge.

It is a wintery dusk.

A little downstream from me, a woman sitting on the bank shoots me a delicious sidelong glance and rubs her pet thighs.

Like the character Mr Burns in the interminable Simpsons televisual cartoon, I will rue the day when such a piece of classic theatre is not worth at least an internal hubba hubba.

From behind me, like the knocking in Macbeth, a voice rings out.

"James, hey James, James Healy."

I am not best pleased at this interruption to my sensual superludities.

Turning I behold a slim, nondescript enough looking man, with a congenial middle aged visage.

He puts me in mind of a famous book title, to wit, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist.

He draws level, breathless, and speaks, proffering a hand: "It's years since I've seen you."

"Who are you?" quoth me a tad cautious.

"Donal Deeney," says he, "I was at school with you."

"Good heavens Donal," I exclaim, "you haven't seen me since June 1983 and you still recognise me,"

"You haven't changed all that much," sez he.

I scratch my bald patch dubiously.

There is an awkward silence.

"I wanted to ask you to join the Legion of Mary?" says he.

"Are you a Christian?" sez me.

"I am."

"But Donal, when did this happen?"

"I, er, I always believed."

Another awkward silence.

I was kind of hoping he was going to talk about some marvellous miracle or an encounter with the Lord.

Instead the conversation took a more prosaic turn.

"We were a talented generation," reminisces Donal Deeney in an apparent fit of sudden delirium.

"Who?" quoth me.

"Our generation at school," says he.

"I thought we were a mediocre shower of fuckers who never amounted to anything," says I. "And I'd be watching out for anything you might mistake for an achievement on a dark night."

"Well Tommy Ryan became a highly respected professor in Academe," sniffs the old alum.

"Gaaak," says I.

"You've got to admit that's something of an achievement," he adds. "And he's also now studying law."

"Tommy Ryan is at nothing studying law," snorts I.

"Why's that James?"

"Because the IRA don't need lawyers now that they've bought up all the Judges."

He digests this for a moment.

"David O'Connor is a top physicist," says he.

"Ah Donal what's a physicist? Someone who can learn off fifty thousand makey uppy words for imaginary particles. It's like learning to recite Lord Of The Rings. Impressive in a certain light but not really an achievement."

"James," says he, "David's daughter is also a scientist. And he tells me she's dealing with theories that even he can't understand."

"But don't you see Donal, if the scientists have divorced themselves from the basic requirement of coherency or comprehensibility, if David can't understand his daughter and vice versa, and nobody else can understand either of them, maybe none of their theories mean anything."

"Their theories created the modern world," pronounced he grandly.

I shook my bald pate.

"Not a bit of it," I said. "The modern world was created by Thomas Alva Edison observing cause and effect, using the methods pioneered over a thousand years by the Catholic Church in its university system. Edison simply observed that when you heat a copper wire it glows. That's it. That's where the great scientific achievements of modernity come from. That's where we got the harnassing of electricity to make light bulbs, phones, batteries, computers, everything. And Thomas Edison had never even heard of those superstitious fables we call Relativity and Quantum Theory. Nor had George Stephenson by the way whose cause and effect observations led to the internal combustion engine. Nor had the Wright Brothers who made the first aeroplane."

"But science predicts all those things," says my old acquaintance.

"The advocates of Quantum and Relativity cannot even comprehensibly state their theories to each other," I argue. " "I don't see how we can say they predict anything. I'll hazard that if they do predict anything it's only that reality will be what it will be. That's not rocket science. But it is Quantum and Relativity Theory. The salesmen for these superstitions, by which I mean theoretical scientists, are trying to reverse engineer their foobooneries into the great accomplishments of the modern world."

"But James haven't you seen the photos from the Hubble telescope? Do you not agree they're simply astonishing?"

"They are works of art Donal. They are not photographs. No chemical emulsion on a plate has reacted to light to create those images, Those images from the Hubble telescope are based on supposed electronic measurements beamed back to earth from space. The measurements are fed into a computer. And the software on the computer creates those images. The guy who designed the software, who programmed in "if the measurement is point five then print a purple splotch, if it's one point seven, print an irridescent yellow oval burst," that's the man who created those images. He's your Leonardo. Those works of creativity are paintings. They are not photos. And they're not even as good as some of the images of birthing universes made with spray cans and sold by vendors on Grafton Street."

There was another awkward silence.

Then Doctor Deeney brightened.

"Richard O'Sullivan is a success," he said. "You have to admit that."

The name jarred with me.

Richard O'Sullivan hadn't been the worst bully at Newbridge College but he had been the worst toady, cheering the others on.

I think he was the only kid I ever thought of trying to do violence to.

I tried to stifle any resentment or jealousy at the possible forthcoming revelation of his accomplishments.

Best not to add sins against charity to all my other sins.

"What did he achieve?" I enquired delicately.

"A personal fortune of forty four million Euro," proclaimed Doctor Deeney with a note of triumph.

"Ah Donal. Come on. You just told me you're a Christian. Why would you be impressed by forty four million?"

"Well you've got to admit... forty four million... it's not bad."

"Tell me what's he doing with it and I'll tell you if I'm impressed. Tell me he's helping little old ladies across the road or something. Tell me he's feeding the starving millions or something."

"He's not doing anything with it," says Doctor Deeney.

"Why not?"

"He's dead."

And I laughed and laughed and laughed.

I suppose I can't really complain to the Deity gentle readers, if Richard O'Sullivan made forty four million quid and then keeled over dead. I mean it's kind of a good one.

"Hoo baby," I said wiping my eyes, "that was worth waiting for."

But my companion was gone.

I could see him hurrying away into the gathering dusk.

Glancing back to the river bank I was presented with the scientifically incontestable fact that Sexy Miss Sex the Sexor had departed also, taking her magnificent silken clad thighs with her.

"Ah bawls," I exclaimed bitterly.