Chapter 1: What hell is this?

1.

“Fatherhood would be a wonderful state if only we each had a father who knew how to father us!” (J.L. Prendergast)

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“A bitter heart devours its owner”. (Herero adage).

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24th September 1964

Waking and sleeping are like parallel universes.  The function of the former is to learn about life; and the function of the latter is to collect up the broken pieces of another futile day.

Those were strange thoughts for a man who had only attended technical school, in a poor rural village, and who lived in a bookless home.

He stepped out from among the trees on to the shamrock blanket that grew profusely in the fields to the south and west, and abutted the sprawling sea of grey, corporation houses that was Wattling Town, on the outskirts of Dublin City. The shamrock was just as alive and active in the cold, pre-dawn breeze, despite being almost invisible.  But it was still the same shamrock that had inspired generations of Irishmen to strive for freedom in a world of permanent serfdom, and perpetual slavery to false ideas and false gods.

He felt the poor shamrock crushing under the weight of his big, black riding boots; the ones he used to wear many years ago, when he was a proud, young farmer, many miles from here.  He could sense the black blood flowing out of the crushed shamrock leaves, as he stepped forward.  And then he noticed a change in texture, and realized that his right foot was now completely bare, and buried up to the ankle in a warm, sticky cow pat.

Michael Curran awoke to the sound of the mechanical alarm clock ringing violently, like the bell of a local fire engine. His head was pounding.  Picking up the clock, and switching the alarm bell off, he noticed the time – 5.30 am.  The damn thing had gone off half an hour early.  But he was glad to be awake, since waking up pulled him out of the nightmare he was submerged in, up to a moment ago.

He swung his fifty-five-year-old legs out of bed, and looked up at the crucifix on the wall opposite the side of his lonely bed, above the holy water font by the light switch.  He scratched his greying head of wavy, formerly-black hair, and yawned. Over to his left he could see his son Christopher’s blankets rising and falling rhythmically, as he snored through his drunken stupor.  The little drunken bastard. ...
https://abc-counselling.org/a-psychological-thriller-about-a-disturbed-family/

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