- Below is a link to something I very recently wrote for The Spanner e-zine, a funny internet magazine.
Priest admits to having loads of sex with children…
July 29, 2011 | Categories: Cultural, Fiction, News Story, Religion, Sex, Social | Tags: child buggery, Cloyne Report 2011, Priest fucks child, the word "satire" has lost all meaning | Leave A Comment »
“… and even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn’t really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved…”
Helplessness. You cannot find a key that you need to progress. Helplessness devours you. You wait for safety, in stasis, or struggle to go forwards. Because you cannot go backwards. Vladimir and Estragon would have. But it all ends the same and there is no way to delay it. You occupy time and space, reaching out for something, anything. A goal, a person, a phone call, a birth, a death, a dollar or a cathartic epiphany that tells you what to do or where you’re going. Time hits you as it travels by your shoulder, whispering to you that you are going to die at some point, that every second that passes no longer exists and you are unable to do anything.
Everything that has ever happened to you is irretrievable. Time does not remember. You cannot ever look into her greyish blue eyes for the first time again, nor dwell upon it. Memory is corrupted and is not a history. The seconds will run by you again. So you wait for a moment despite the fact that you can only ever exist in the present, or even try to force a moment. Nothing at all exists other than what is in the present. History, your first kiss, your last birthday, a cigarette, a chance meeting. They might be mildly relevant but who is to judge? Time itself is a chain reaction that does not even exist itself, an abstract metaphysical concept that designates moments or seconds or years as moments or seconds or years.
The sun rises and then sets. There is night and day. The cycle goes on until your second is up. You no longer exist. The phone call you were waiting fifty years or five minutes for is a trivial footnote that no longer effects anything. The letter that offered you something, or was returned to the sender with a slop of lipstick on it; it has turned to dust. And it is never alright. There is no satisfaction because you are constantly battling against the gradient of time. You do not have enough years or decades to be satisfied. She grows older too. Are you loved, do you love or is there love at all? Is that an answer? Even when you are curled up together the seconds slip away, yet you deny that you cannot hold her forever. When you look back it never happened anyway because all there is over your shoulder is time escaping with little pieces of you.
It is the only thing that you cannot do anything about. You can kick and scream and write helpless blog entries. Time will be passed. You will transition between moments still waiting. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved… But it never really comes. You may decide to be happy. You may ignore it all. Power to those who can “live,” with momentum. But trying to grab onto a buoy adrift in time is just so difficult, because you are hurtling towards an end, or another moment.
The human condition represents a perilous, ultimately fatal journey through time. All we can do is try to come to terms with the unbearable concept of existence, pretending that we are okay, just coping with the loss of self as we slowly fade away.
September 25, 2010 | Categories: Death, Observation, Questions?, Religion, Romance, Sex, Social, The Human Condition, Waiting | Tags: Death, Dying slowly, Human Condition, Struggle, Time | Leave A Comment »
Isaac.
Isaac awoke. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his face and his naked body. Tentatively opening his eyes, adjusting to the light, he looked into a huge blue sky. The heavens were almost clear, marked only by soft whispers of white cloud. Lifting his weighty head and glancing around at his present situation, he immediately became aware of the circumstances in which he existed. It had not been long since his knees had crumpled and everything had faded to black. When that original blow was inflicted, the blow that put him down, his last second of thought escaped him. His life did not flash before his eyes, nor did God speak in his heart. He reatreated to where the wild willow wands weep.
His extremities were stretched, bound to wood with knots of tattered old rope. The restrictions around his wrists and ankles tore at his flesh when he began to writhe and twist. Trapped, his heart burst into a manic frenzy as he gasped for breath. Sweat rained from him, and his head spun. He felt the heat that was beating down upon his body. Trying to manage his panic, he focused on his breathing. However, feeling his chest expand and contract, he noticed that more rope fastened his torso and waist. Beneath his arms, just across his breast, a thin, frayed rope kept his vertical aspirations grounded, while another cut just above his hip bone on either side. He could feel the splintered planks beneath him, underneath his back, the plinth that he was tied down to. Only the sheer exhaustion of bound captivity relaxed his breathing. Letting his head fall to his right, physically unable to struggle further, he could see his father.
“Please,” Isaac whispered, as if the weight of what was to come lay across his throat. “Please, you don’t have to.”
Isaac could only squint through the strength of the sun. Abraham stood tall, with his hands by his sides. Despite his old age, he still looked a strong, venerable unit, exuding a force of nobility from his soul. His broad shoulders appeared to be supporting the grey mane that crowned him as a king of men.
He stepped towards Isaac and engaged his gaze. Isaac’s eyes trembled, watering with the lubricant of his impending death. Abraham’s were almost inhuman, predator like, narrowed to horizontal slits, focused on his only son. They exuded blackness and black, love, hate, lightening and blood.
His father made one more slow, considered step forwards. In his right hand he squeezed the handle of a blade that Isaac had only then noticed, so consumed was he by his own fear. He knew he was not long for the world. Abraham’s pursed lips suddenly cracked open and he drew breath. He spoke with the deep voice that Isaac knew as his father’s and the universe moved.
“I am a knight of faith. I have to do this, Isaac.”
As he spoke these words, the sun exploded into the rest of the sky. A wave of brilliant white brightness showered everything that existed for a single moment. The sky then fell a deep red, coloured by black clouds immediately above the son and his father. A horrible, guttural noise came from the bowels of the scene, the low rumbling of the earth and the sky as they gradually grated against each other until the world halted. Then nothing. Isaac could hear himself breathe against his constraints. It seemed that the world had stopped for his father to kill him.
“I am a knight of faith. I have to do this, Isaac.”
Everything was frozen hot. The earth cracked. Steam bellowed out from the fissures and rose up in the air. Abraham moved through the mist, nearer to the son, until he stood directly above the fear. Isaac could now only see the darkness of hanging hair and beast against the ferocious crimson tide, and two eyes darker again focusing on him. The eyes came closer.
No. Don’t. I am a knight of faith. You don’t have to do it. Father. Don’t. I have to do this, Isaac. I have to do this. No. Yes. No, don’t. Help me. Please. Don’t do this. I love you. Don’t do this. Yes.
Isaac felt the piercing and he could not scream. He felt his body convulse and the wind escape him. He pathetically choked and gasped, barely testing his restrictions. The maniacal blackness of his father’s splattered eyes was the last thing he saw as his spirit descended to the devices of Hades. Scarlet skies fell from Isaac’s twitching neck as he left.
Blood continued to seep from the now lifeless body, soaking the earth beneath. Withdrawing the blade from the depths of his son’s throat, Abraham released a heaving sigh. He leaned his head backwards and threw his arms outwards. Dropping to his knees, love gushed from his mouth into heaven.
“I have done your bidding, Father. I love you.”
Gold and silver reigned from red and rested at Abraham’s blood soaked feet.
September 22, 2010 | Categories: Cultural, Fiction, Frederick B Benway, Observation, Political, Religion, Social | Tags: Abraham, Christianity, Money, Murder, The Binding of Isaac, Wealth | Leave A Comment »
The following is a fully fictional news report. It has no basis on any reality whatsoever. Any correlation with reality or real people, past or present, is completely coincidental.
MASS RUINED, “RENEGADE” PRIEST ARRESTED, BRADY SILENT
- April 2010
It has emerged that yet another Catholic Priest had been arrested in the child abuse controversy that continues to rock the Irish Catholic Church. According to reports close to the story, Fr. Brendan Smyth of Castleblarney in Kerry is being held on suspicion of not abusing young children.
Gardaí apprehended Fr. Smyth in the middle of 10 o’clock mass at Castleblarney’s Church of the Holy Carpenter yesterday morning. They can hold him for questioning for up to 72 hours before pressing charges, in line with Section X-62π9-5D of the Criminal Justice Act.
While there has been no official confirmation as of yet from Gardaí, it has been suggested that Fr. Smyth was the subject of numerous complaints from his parishioners over the past number of years. One member of that congregation who wishes to remain anonymous told lolquietly of how Fr. Smyth had made him feel “ugly.”
“I’d go away to see my cousins in Meath or Dublin and it seemed to me that every child I spoke to was talking about their experiences at school or after mass. Fr. Smyth never showed an interest in any of us, leaving hundreds unmolested. He made us feel like ugly little children as we grew up. That’s why we informed the Gardaí. The bastard.”
If convicted, Fr. Smyth could face up to seven years in prison, the maximum punishment for not methodically beating, molesting and raping little boys and girls. That lengthy sentence would not be unprecedented but depends on the extent of Fr. Smyth’s refusal to look at the youth of his parish as sexual release from holy abstinence.
Figure 2.1 : Quite the predicament. Very crude.
This latest stain on the reputation of the Catholic Church in Ireland comes at a very difficult time as numerous priests are being revealed to have “let the side down,” in the words of Papal representative Giuseppe Leanza. The Most Reverend Leanza expressed his outrage in an unusually candid radio interview with George Hook on Hook’s syndicated Newstalk show yesterday evening.
“I really can’t believe it,” said Leanza when asked by Hook of how the continuing revelations were affecting the church. “In these times of crisis we are trying to present a united front but this kind of renegade behaviour is undermining that effort. Many have, em, indulged, and for a small minority to be publicly exposed as having never, em, indulged, really does show the whole lot of us in a poor light. I am extremely disappointed in Fr. Smyth’s behaviour.”
It is widely alleged that Cardinal Seán Brady, the Primate of All Ireland, was fully aware of Fr. Smyth’s behaviour over the course of his priesthood. Indeed, Fr. Smyth’s refusal to abuse children was, according to most media outlets, actively covered up by His Eminence as part of an internal Church legal process in 1975. The process saw victims of Fr. Smyth’s restraint implored to remain silent about their troubles and forced to sign oaths not to discuss the lack of penetrative, paedophilic sex they were subjected to.
When contacted by lolquietly, Cardinal Brady was unable to comment due to his head being firmly buried in his anal cavity. His secretary said that she was unsure when her employer planned to extricate his head from his posterior, but speculated that it wouldn’t be any time soon due to his unwillingness to face the reality of his wrong doing in aiding Fr. Smyth’s systematic refusal to destroy the lives of children.
After the publication of the Murphy Report late last year, Cardinal Brady speculated on the position of former Limerick Bishop, Donal Murray: “If I found myself in a situation where I was aware that my failure to act had allowed or meant that children were not abused, well then, I think I would resign.” The report had asserted that Bishop Murray had mishandled allegations of a lack of systematic institutional abuse of children within his diocese.
Cardinal Brady is yet to fully admit that his active participation in covering up the abstinence of Fr. Smyth led to numerous further cases of children going unmolested. To any individual with a reasonable grasp of logic, it would seem that his actions are inexcusable. He helped a priest to get away with refusing to abuse young children. These children were damaged by their not being the sexual targets of a sick and twisted man, and many of them were scarred for life. Fr. Smyth is obviously a terrible man – he is the one who consistently refused to have sex with children – but Cardinal Brady’s guilty position as an accomplice cannot be overlooked.
lolquietly
June 17, 2010 | Categories: Crime, News Story, Questions?, Religion, Social | Tags: Catholic Church, Child Sex Abuse, Guilt, News Story, Paedophile Priests, Sean Brady | Leave A Comment »
