The Blindboy Podcast - Maura

Episode Date: November 27, 2019

Relaxing Podcast. I read my new short story "Maura" Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I see you coveting the last Garibaldi. Hungry as a church. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. What's the crack? How are you all getting on? I hope you've all been having an eventful week, a peaceful week. I've had, as you know from last week I was severely sleep deprived I've since gotten plenty of sleep and I even managed to find some time to have some fun at the weekend

I went out to Pharmacia in Limerick which I mention many a time on this podcast it's my favourite bar in Limerick because which I mention many a time on this podcast. It's my favourite bar in Limerick. Because they had a new cocktail menu, right? And I haven't been out for cocktails in a while. So, I was mad to get into this new fucking cocktail menu. And I think I might have found a new favourite fucking cocktail, lads.

There's a cocktail called a Whiskey Sour, right? Now, I've had Whiskey S sours before but they're grand however a whiskey sour it's it's like whiskey and fresh lemon juice with a bit of sugar but it has egg white in it right raw egg white because it's kind of frothy and the whole point of a whiskey sour is that it tastes frothy right but in pharmacia they have this new drink called a vegan sour which uses not egg white but fucking chickpea juice and it is a million times nicer than a regular whiskey sour and i'm gonna learn how to fucking make them myself and not only it has i don't know what it has it has that that protein taste that you get off chickpeas and the drink itself it's like it settles like a pint of guinness so i had several

whiskey sours and then having finished that and all the boys come out and had some crack I found myself at about four in the morning fucking gallivanting in the Limerick City Centre when it was empty a grown man decided that I would try and impress some other grown men by pulling my pants around my ankles and pretending to take a shit in the middle of the road and yeah that's where I was

at and it worked it really worked it's like afterwards they said to me do you know what blind boy I've been friends with you for many years but tonight seeing you drop your pants around your ankles and pretend to take a shit in the middle of the road i gained a new respect for you no that's not that's not what happened at all i instead what happened is i came home and lost my fucking wallet with all my bank cards in it and became convinced that I had

in fact lost my wallet while pulling my pants around my ankles in the middle of the road and then but but however wasn't sure had that actually happened or merely had I come home a little bit merry and placed my wallet in an unorthodox place, so I had that, that shit fucking situation, where it's like, do you cancel your bank cards, or do you not, luckily, the wallet turned up in a fucking flower pot, I placed it in a flower pot in my own gaff, for no reason, all right, but other than that, great night, got plenty of sleep, did two magnificent gigs in Vicar Street, good crack all round, alright, I've had a good week and I'm feeling great, before I move forward, have I got any bullshit to plug, gigs, let's go through the contractually obligated gig mentions nice and quickly, alright,

UK tour, I announced it, thankfully that's now almost fucking sold out, thank you, em, London, I hope I get these right, London, Liverpool, Glasgow, ah, ah fuck there's one more, bollocks, look, I've got a, I'm not even calling it a UK tour, what the fuck am I calling it a UK tour for, it's three dates in England, and one date in Scotland, alright, and I don't even like using the word UK. Because it's not fair on my comrades in Scotland. Who don't identify as being part of the UK. So there's three gigs in England. London and Liverpool definitely. And some other place. Is it Newcastle? Jesus lads I could be talking out of my hole here.

Hold on I'll check it up on the internet. Okay I have it here. Right. Okay thank fuck I checked it up Glasgow which is in Scotland, Liverpool which is in England, Birmingham and London not Newcastle

so Glasgow, Liverpool Birmingham and London and I don't know just type blind by UK tour into the internet and that will give you the tickets for that they almost went in a fucking day there's only a few left lads so thank you

very much and I can't fucking wait to come over to you and do some interesting shit looking at each one of those cities and the potential for unreal guests that I can have I cannot fucking wait okay sugar club Dublin in January early January I announced them last week most of them are sold out too so they're small little Dublin intimate gigs I think it's only 200, 300 a night come to them.

Oh God, yeah, and then this fucking Friday, lads, up in Mayo. Castle Bar in Mayo, alright? Tough, tough job selling tickets up in Mayo, I tell you that, boys. Tough job. So if you're anywhere near Mayo on the 29th of November, please come along to the podcast. And I believe that's all my contractually obligated gigs out of the way

there you go Christ, Australia Australia, I added new dates for Australia, alright and one date for New Zealand look it up on the internet, there's tickets left, troubadourmusic.com look at that, professional

buy, there you go lads, nothing else really, what I'm going to do for you this week is I'm going to read you a short story from my book Boulevard Ren, and I think this story might be my, it's definitely one of my favourites from the book. It's definitely one of the ones that I'm very, very happy with. Before I do that... Where's the fucking ocarina? I'm not going to give you that Aztec death whistle again. Fucking ocarina.

I'm spilt rotten with ocarinas at this point now I've two ocarinas in each fist I'll go for the all reliable one here has a nice unthreatening bass tone and the reason I'm doing the ocarina pause now is I don't want the short story interrupted

by a fucking advert so here we go I'll do it nice and nice distance from the microphone. On April 5th. You must be very careful Margaret. It's a girl. Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen.

Evil things of evil. It's all for. Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil. It's all for you. No, no, don't. The first omen. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six.

It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. Who said that? The first omen.

Only in theaters April 5th. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone.

Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. See, when I use the other ocarina that's too high I've just I've gotten messages from me that it bothers your dogs so I don't want to be doing that to the poor old dogs that are listening you know

poor fuckers with their oversensitive ears so that's a nice bassy ocarina pause there there was an advert there for something I don't know what the fuck it was who gives a shit

em Patreon this podcast is supported by there for something I don't know what the fuck it was who gives a shit em Patreon this podcast is supported by Hugh the listener fair play to you Hugh thank you so much for joining the Patreon

em patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast you know the crack alright if you enjoy the podcast and you'd

enjoy not the price of a whiskey sour cause they're like fucking 9 euros if two of you want to get together and both of you together want to buy me one whiskey sour a month you can do that via the Patreon page or

one person can buy me a pint of san miguel or a coffee once a month all right patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast if you can't afford it that's fine you can listen for free okay it's a model based on soundness. And. Like the podcast. Share it with people. Share it with friends and families. Bother a neighbour about it. You know.

Put a note into a tennis ball. And pretend that you're a. A UDA prisoner. In the maze. In the 1980s. And that you're. Giving a message to one of your other UDA prisoner in the maze in the 1980s and that you're giving a message to one of your other UDA or UVF comrades by placing a message

in a tennis ball that says listen to the Blind Boy podcast except throw it over the wall and hope it lands in a neighbour's garden see what happens

alright so this this story is called Mara. It's from my new book of short stories Boulevard Wren. Which I am pleased to say. Is number one in the fiction charts for three weeks fucking running. Thank you so much lads for going out and getting the book. I'm very happy with it. I enjoyed writing it.

And thanks for the lovely feedback. Thanks for the feedback i'm very happy with it i enjoyed writing it and thanks for the lovely feedback thanks for the feedback saying that you're liking it you can write a review about it on amazon or whatever if you want that helps too so this story it's i not i put in a bit of effort this week because i had the fucking time and i said this to you last week i was so tired i had to pull that podcast out of my arse so this one I was able to put a bit of time into it so it's not just a short story I composed a little kind of an ambient soundscape with a slight soundtrack so that when you listen to it I don't know I want that hypnotic vibe one kind of thing to flag about this story it's written in second person singular

which the here's the fear that i have when you read it on paper in second person singular it's like it's in your own voice so you're grand but reading it out in second person singular can sound kind of accusatory. Because second person singular means that there's no I, it's you. So it's like reading it to a you. And that's second person singular. Which might sound accusatory. So just keep that in mind that I'm not accusing you of anything if you're listening to it.

Because it's going to be me saying the word you into your ear for 40 minutes. Why did I do it in second person singular? I wanted to experiment with that form. When was... I think second person singular. It was popular in American writing late 80s early 90s em

but I think it's kind of a pure, it's like a late 80s post modern form what it takes to form I think it's parodying advertising or something I think that's why the Yanks were using it in the late 80s for me

I just wanted it to sound like a I don't know like a fucked up self-help book or something do you get me? so this short story is called Mara I'm very happy with it and it's one you can really sit back

and relax and get a nice warm kind of hug from and to get kind of meditatively hypnotised. Alright so, go fuck yourself, God bless. I'll talk to you next week. This is my short story, Mara. You need to relax. Your life is drifting sideways and you feel nothing you do

has any meaning 28 is a proper grown up age are the words on the text you send to Brenda the twitter likes don't fill the hole anymore you no longer experience affirmation from other people being jealous of you this is starting to seem silly and pointless

the music that the 20 year olds like sounds like bad music to you but you won't let anyone hear you say that not yet you've started to stay up later and later but you won't let anyone hear you say that. Not yet. You've started to stay up, later and later. Not in a planned way.

It would just happen. You'd make hot milk, with turmeric and cinnamon. You'd have your sheets clean and fresh. You'd spray them with a homemade rose-scented infusion you bought from a Korean woman on Etsy. You added her on Instagram and you call her your friend. Your room is tidy. It is clean. Egyptian sheets are so crisp. Under them them your legs release all of that achy tension your calves celebrate the sheer magnificence

of that cotton and skin you move your arms and legs outwards and stretch you are a starfish your mind calls this breathable. You sigh out loud. Enough for someone to hear if they were beside you. And you inhale the fresh linen and rose aisle. You are happy for 18 seconds. The salt lamp creates a loving red glow. And your arms are not pale.

They are golden now. You will sleep. You nestle your head. And your temples are enveloped by the goose down pillow you bought from Amazon that smells like your bubblegum shampoo. You are a you sandwich. You close your eyes and try to think only of your breathing. You do this for six minutes. You are happy for four of them.

You notice that you are peaceful. happy for four of them. You notice that you are peaceful because your teeth aren't clenched and your neck feels less sore now. This makes it okay to reach for your iPhone 7. The room becomes a sick blue and your sheets reflect this up into your face. All bright and clinical. You are quote tweeting an article from the Atlantic about Israel. Sorry, but Israel are cunts, you write. You read more articles. You like more articles. You like more threads. You see that Julie's hand-inked drawing of a forlorn elephant has 108 retweets. You remember that your last illustration has only three likes.

One from Julie and two from your fake Twitter accounts, which you made to like your own illustrations. accounts, which you made to like your own illustrations. You pull up the screen grab of Julie's tweet from 2012, where she used the N word. You let the image hover there, loaded, with your finger on the reply button, but you don't post it. You delete it and post. You are so fucking talented under Julie's illustration instead. You check your DMs and go on Instagram until it's 5.12am. You are saving pictures of interior design ideas for the house in your head and you must get up now because you'd promised yourself that you'd wash your hair. You commute on the dart and listen to a podcast about a serial

killer. You like the bits about how the bodies are stored after they are murdered and you think about being a serial killer but not in a serious way. You just wonder if you'd be good at it. Your podcast is interrupted by a targeted advert which addresses your fertility. Outside the moving dart it is all manic and sad purple with the rain droplets flashing

that intrusive puce when a railway light is passed. The windows are foggy from the insides of other people's lungs and you stop thinking about that because it's the type of thought that would make you need to get off the dart when the track enters Tara Street Station Dublin darkens the cabin on either side

with its laughing scaffold jaws. The frost wind is sideways this morning. The sky is Garda Pants Navy. You walk with your head bent and some cold wet enters your sock and your earbuds are in and you hope people won't look you in the eye. Your wet foot itches. You arrive at your job in the design company, which you are only doing because you have a degree in graphic design from NCAD, which you didn't really want to do in the first place, but it's okay. You were 17. You were so angry and sad that you'll never say that you were angry and sad. Even out loud to yourself. Because if you hear yourself say it, that will mean that it is real and you will cry. At work you design lunch menus for a carvery in Tella.

You have forgotten what it's like to enjoy drawing. When you think this to yourself, your teeth clench again, and co-workers look at you all worried, and you know that your neck will hurt later. Your rent is €750 a month, but your room is very clean and tidy, and there's a salt lamp. You'd like the bathroom to be cleaner, but one of your housemates is from Tipperary. If you move back in with

your parents in Ranelagh, you won't feel like a real person. You've started to really enjoy the taste of red wine. When it is five o'clock and nearing the end of your work, you start to think about how red wine tastes and you feel that this is okay because it just means that your palate is maturing and becoming sophisticated. In the Tara Street Centre, you buy the bottle that has the little plastic bull on it. Bills collect around your feet as you push open the door of the apartment. You add them to the pile of unopened envelopes on the kitchen table. Your dinner is a steamed chicken breast with microwaved broccoli drizzled in a dressing made from cider vinegar and melted coconut oil. You eat this very rapidly

without breathing, so you can begin the wine. You drink the wine on your bed and watch YouTube videos of Christina Aguilera singing in live situations, but it's definitely her real voice and not assisted in any way. The wine is dry on your tongue. Vinegary too, but not that vinegary, because you had the cider vinegar with din-dins. The wine is all gone. You are annoyed with the empty wine bottle,

because it got drank so quickly. You wish you could have those big boxes of wine, with taps on them, that they sell in Australia. I wish you could have those big boxes of wine with taps on them that they sell in Australia. You are staring at the calendar of pugs on your wall. You are having an imaginary conversation in your head with Julie, except she looks more puggish in this fantasy, and she is very interested in what you have to say.

You are at a party. Others are listening too. But not directly. They are listening with one ear because your words are so captivating. It is distracting them from their conversations. You are talking to Julie about why it's so unfair that we can't buy big boxes of wine in Ireland.

But then Julie says, I've seen them in Lidl, and you feel furious that she would correct you like that while others are listening. Your teeth clench. You feel embarrassed for becoming so furious at a conversation with Julie that never happened at a hypothetical party.

That hot, tearful sensation pokes behind your eyes. Sometimes the wine makes you happy other times it makes you sad and angry tonight it's making you sad and angry you check twitter julie's illustration now has 2,567 retweets because it has been featured in a buzzfield article called 30 illustrators you should be following on twitter retweets because it has been featured in a BuzzFeed article called

30 Illustrators You Should Be Following on Twitter. You open one of your other Twitter accounts, the one in a man's name, at George4321 and you post the n-word tweet from 2012 under Judy's illustration of the elephant.

Afterwards, you feel small and pathetic and wish you hadn't done that. You begin to cry and you tell yourself that you wouldn't like to be your friend if you weren't you. You catch a glimpse of yourself crying in the mirror and laugh at how red and wet your face is. The anger from the wine swirls into a type of destructive happiness when you remember that there is gin in the kitchen.

It is not your gin. It's gin that your temporary housemate was given as a Christmas gift from work. was given as a Christmas gift from work. You begin to drink the gin, mixed with your half bottle of flat seven up. You lie back on your Egyptian cotton sheets. You open your Bank of Ireland app. You have savings of €2,320, mostly emergency money that your parents have given you over the years.

You open Airbnb on your laptop. The landing page has an apartment in Barcelona with a balcony and a foreign looking tree outside. Seeing this gives you a rush of purpose, happiness and meaning. A feeling that you had forgotten. You book it for Friday. You book it for two weeks. It is only 530 euros because it's October. You feel fucking amazing.

This is the type of spontaneous decision you should have been making your whole life you say this out loud as you take a large celebratory swig of neat gin straight from the bottle you realise that you like drinking because it allows you to relive feelings from the past like happiness and freedom that you haven't really felt in several years.

This particular thought is intensely depressing, and you are not ready to think like that. So you play S Club 7 on Spotify. You fall asleep with your earbuds in. You wake up at 5am. Spotify is now playing JLS. Your ear hurts from sleeping on it with the earbud in. There are three calm seconds where your mind is blank and confused. Then you remember the tweet. Then you remember Barcelona. You leap up in bed. You are hungover and feel like one eye has gone wonky. You rip open the laptop to delete the n-word tweet under Julie's illustration. It's too late. Others have screen grabbed your screen grab. You try to cancel the Airbnb. You see that it was only €530 because it

cannot be cancelled and the money has been paid. you panic. You open Ryanair. The flights are 475 euro. You buy them. You are now 1,005 euros deep. You are in Barcelona. Your suitcase rumbles so loudly down the cobbles of La Rambla that the locals stare. So you lift the suitcase up in your arms. It's not that heavy, because you didn't really pack. The weather isn't warm, but it's warmer than Dublin, and the sandstone is glowing on the pretty buildings, and the same golden buildings are a soothing blue from the morning moisture when they are in the distance.

It reminds you of Monet's painting of Rouen Cathedral. Noticing this makes you feel hope. Everything is different here. There are bright green trees with waxy leaves that look fake with fat oranges between them. You have not returned the calls from work. If your father rings, you will tell him what is happening, but only if he calls.

You arrive at your apartment by using Google Maps. You worry about your data plan and open the last message from your host, Donald, on Airbnb. It reads, Beside the apartment there is a cafe. At the back, beside the toilet, is a cafe. At the back. Beside the toilet.

Is a little box that you must open with the app. Turn on Bluetooth. Inside this box. Is the key for the apartment. You retrieve the key. And open the building door. Up the cold stairs. Your apartment is exactly as the picture showed it. The doors are grainy mahogany. The

floors are impossibly marble. There is a kitchen and a fridge. There are little windows with wooden shutters and the balcony with the big foreign tree. Everything is perfect and neat and clean. You want to keep it this way. The air smells like those candles from summer evening barbecues that keep away the midges. Lemony, but not lemon. You taste it when you sniff. You are not thinking about your design job, or Dublin, or Julie's forlorn elephant drawing.

You are here, in Barcelona. You need this. You need to just be you, in Barcelona, with no plan. The recklessness of your decision makes you feel powerful. You find a cute bar by Plaza del Porto. It is evening now and the shadows are longer. The bar is playing Tame Impala and the waiting staff are all gorgeous and wearing black. You order the bottle of red that is 12 euros because you know that a 12 euro bottle of red wine here is really 25 back home.

You are sitting at a small metal table outside in the evening sun. The wine tastes like a very complicated Ribena. You are sitting at a small metal table outside in the evening sun. The wine tastes like a very complicated Ribena. You take a photo of the wine because you feel a placid optimism and want to preserve this feeling as a photo. You think about being very old and dying on your own and looking at the photo of the wine. This thought feels sad and frightening so you drink a big gulp of the Ribena wine.

You notice that big gulps taste less like Ribena. You are not ready to post about Barcelona to Instagram yet so you don't. A lad is looking at you. He has that look that lads have when they see women sitting on their own in bars. He says something. You think he's speaking Greek. It's definitely Greek. You smoke one of his cigarettes. He is younger than you. Drinking feels different when you do it with other people. You're shifting him now.

His tongue is slightly intrusive and enthusiastic. The only English words he says are beauty, woman and Game of Thrones. This is good enough. You both drink Jack Daniel's shots and the barmaid doesn't even care if it overflows when she pours it. She is so cool and continental. The Greek has a face a bit like Justin Bieber from the nose up, a little bit, but has a very weak chin and his breath smells like those small white things that you cough up sometimes and you don't know what they are or what they are for. You take selfies together, just in case he's going to kill you.

He is fucking you now on the bed in your apartment. He is saying words that you don't understand. You can tell by where he keeps putting his hand that the words are probably about your anus. Your eyes are closed. You feel your forehead on the pillow. And you would really just like to come and do a big scream. You think back to the green lights of the bar

where he was a bit like Justin Bieber from a certain angle. You don't really come. You do a big scream anyway. This is good enough. The Greek leaves. It do a big scream anyway. This is good enough. The Greek leaves. It is 4.23am. You go out to the balcony and smoke the fags he left and you feel empty.

But not as bad as the other empty you felt back in Dublin. This is more of a disappointed-in-yourself emptiness than a general existential emptiness. Emptiness is OK if there's a reason for it. Realising this feels kind of nice. It is the morning and Brenda texts you on WhatsApp. Um, where the fuck are you? In Barcelona, you say.

Okay, says Brenda. Questions aside for a moment. Tell me you have been watching the Julie Brosnan drama on Twitter. Oh my God. I have no internet here, sorry, you say. I'm trying to be mindful of my data too. Brenda doesn't reply. You don't follow up.

You tell yourself that Julie deserves this. Donald, your Airbnb host, lives in the apartment next door. He hasn't messaged you much, only to give directions and provide the Wi-Fi code. It is clear that the apartment was once a very large space that has now been divided in two because beyond your kitchen entrance there is a little private outdoor area that is shared between both apartments. It has a washing machine that you can hear and you listen to Donald walking around. He seems to wear flip-flops because his steps are slappy and loud. You assert that he is probably from generational money and inherited the apartment and renting out one part as an Airbnb is how he makes a living. He has three reviews. They're all positive. The door to the private area has a sign in English that says, Private area, please. Access prohibited.

This bothers you. And you have a bit of hangover fear. You don't like not knowing what is behind the door. You can't hear his feet anymore, so you very quickly unlatch the door just to take a peek the tiles are terracotta sure enough there is a washing machine

and a washing line on which two identical blue blazers hang beyond this is an open door the smell of cooking wafts from it a shallot aroma this makes you hungry you see a little pan on the hob this is the door to Donald's kitchen

you can hear his flip-flops pottering about in another part of the apartment it is kind of funny but you decide to slowly close the door so he doesn't catch you peeking. You've seen the private area now. It's okay. You can relax. As you pull away a shadow steps into view against the visible wall of the kitchen beyond the frying pan. You stare for less than a second before you quietly shut the door

you don't know how to fully describe to yourself what you just saw the shadow did not appear to be human it was short roughly five feet and rotund in a way that people are not there was a protrusion about the face like a beak or a bill. The legs were exceptionally

skinny and the feet were large. You begin to think about the two blue waistcoats on the washing line and that your host's name is Donald and that he made you collect the keys with an app instead of meeting you. You begin to entertain the idea that your temporary landlord may be Donald Duck. Not an anthropomorphic duck, existing in three dimensions, birthed fleshy into reality, like at the end of the Halloween episode of The Simpsons, where Homer walks down a real-life street,

but rather a hand-painted animated two-dimensional Donald Duck living in Barcelona, quietly renting out his apartment and tending to a pan of shallots. Dublin does not matter anymore. Julie's forlorn elephant does not matter anymore. The n-word tweet does not matter anymore. The fuck with the Greek does not matter anymore. Your internal voice, which would usually interject and tell you that it is highly unlikely that your Airbnb host is a hand-painted animated duck, does not speak up. You don't search for rational explanations. That it was maybe just the warping of a shadow and you witnessed a completely unique and anomalous optical illusion which you and you alone happened to see in one perfect moment.

And this made a human shadow appear as a famous cartoon duck. duck. You cannot tell if this should worry you or instead if this reading of reality is something you truly need at this moment and shouldn't question. It doesn't feel frightening. It feels okay. You imagine Donald next door. You place your palm on the wall to connect with him. You breathe. you place your palm on the wall to connect with him you breathe you listen to his slapping feet again and you pray for a quack in your mind you see his gigantic bulging eyes

and his comically exasperated yellow beak with the little navy sailor's cap tilted on his feathered head a reclusive monstrosity in a dark Catalan apartment. Sadly attending to his fragrant shallots or whatever it was.

You know what you saw. Poor lonely Donald. You begin to think of the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit where Bob Hoskins coexists with two-dimensional cartoons. But even that did not look as real as this. Roger Rabbit never had a shadow. He was superimposed. You worry about having seen something that you can never tell another person. You've just left your job and gone to Barcelona without alerting anyone

they're all going to have questions back home and you're going to need to have decent answers about stress or depression or something your family will be worried you've most likely lost your job your former co-workers will contact you on Facebook you explaining that your Airbnb host

is a fully animated two-dimensional cartoon duck is exactly what they'd expect to hear you imagine Julie hearing this and her feeling superior and saying things like well she probably can't even draw him, so I don't know how she saw him.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. And then she'd post a passive-aggressive hand-inked illustration of a well-drawn duck on her Behance page, which would get many shares. You refuse to let that happen. The morning is warm and smells of flowers you don't know. You walk down the wide Barcelona street,

marvelling at how each road leads to a square intersection and how every intersection has a little bodega or cafe where smiling people eat breakfasts. You don't want to meet any other Irish people here. This is yours. You play the song Fantasy by Mariah Carey on your Spotify and you really feel it. Every crescendo of her voice,

the effortless blend of hip-hop and R&B, your walk becomes a little dance. You're happy. You notice that you are happy and this makes you even more happy and then that makes you feel a sense of meaning. Fuck purple Dublin. You sit down at a table and drink a coffee and instead of milk there's a sweet magnolia syrup that tastes like toffee and the coffee is in a glass like an upside down Guinness with the creamy white syrup at the bottom and the thick black coffee on top. They are two lovers refusing to talk.

You mix them with a little cheerful spoon and the syrup and coffee dance together. They swirl their black and yellow argument into a beige infusion, like clouds in a tempest. This reminds you of the paintings of William Turner. You feel creative when you notice that you notice this. And you crunch slices of just-baked, hot-toasted bread between your teeth, with a spread made from fresh tomatoes and butter. It is delicious. And you have a sherry for breakfast.

Fuck it. You walk into an art shop. And you buy those large tubes of acrylic paint, the really big ones. And you buy brushes and pens. And you go to a printing shop. And you point at A0 size sheets of see-through plastic. They are almost as big as you when you hold them up. You buy 15 of them. This costs 300 euro. You don't care. They roll them up in two poster tubes, and you carry them under each arm.

Back at the apartment, you imagine that Donald Duck is lonely, on his own own eating shallots locked in a prison never able to meet a human having his items delivered terrified of the brutal violence that would be done to him

if an animated cartoon duck were to venture out into the real world you want to make a wife for him you think back to your animation module in college, how animations are made of cells, see-through plastic sheets with little movements of a character placed on them. And when these sheets are placed on each other fast enough, the human eye sees this as movement,

and this is what a cartoon is. In your sketch pad, you try to design a female duck, but drawing ducks is so much harder than you thought, so instead it is a platypus, which also has a beak, but is essentially just a big circle with a flat tail. Her name is Mara. She has long eyelashes, her beak ends in voluptuous red lips she wears bicycle shorts because dresses are all so difficult to draw and she has one of those long cigarettes

to make her classy Mara the platypus she is bright pink it is night now you have been drawing Mara all day the Greek is shouting Westeros outside your window It is night now. You have been drawing Mara all day. The Greek is shouting, Westeros, outside your window. You go to the balcony and he is wearing a 1975 T-shirt and is looking up at you like an elbow-chinned Romeo.

You bring the Greek into your apartment. He pints and says things about all the paint and paper. You take him away from them and bring him into the bedroom there is multicoloured dry acrylic paint all over your legs you take your t-shirt and shorts off and get up on the bed with your head in the pillow so that you don't smell his breath

he begins fucking and saying things that you don't understand probably about your anus. It is good enough. You realise that he can't understand you either, so you say, my landlord is Donald Duck. The Greek says things in response and keeps looking at your anus. So then you shout it. My fucking landlord is Donald Duck. He's a big white cartoon duck and he's next door now. When you say this, the sex feels a lot better.

So you keep shouting. Fuck me, you weak-chinned Greek dark. Fuck into me really hard. My landlord is a giant famous animated duck and he'd probably kill you if you had a fight. The Greek shouts things too, probably about your anus because he's trying to edge his thumb towards there. You don't like this and bat his hand away. He feels embarrassed by this so pumps harder as a form of compromise. You think of the split second when he looked like Justin Bieber under the green light. You come and

he leaves. The bit at the end felt really great. At night, you paint Mara on the giant A0 see-through plastic sheets that you bought from the painting shop. You have drawn and painted only her body on one main cell. On the other cells you paint an arm and a tail. In each cell her arm slowly rises with her long cigarette while her pink platypus tail flaps down. Each night you let the Greek in and then he leaves. He is not permitted to see Mara. He's being weird about this. You close the living room door and he is only allowed into the bedroom. Sometimes he wants to stay but you don't let him. He washes acrylic paint out of his balls in the kitchen sink. Eight nights have passed now. You only care about Donald and Mara. You work at night, silently, because you can access the private area with the washing machine

and the clothesline while Donald is asleep. You will not message him, even though the shower has gone cold. You don't need showers. There is paint on the floors, the doors, the microwave, the bed. He will understand. Every morning you smell his cooking shallots and hear his giant duck feet slap around his kitchen. When this happens, you touch the wall and your heart feels full and you think of love and not being afraid. You have a purpose now. On the tenth night you

hang Mara's cells on the washing line in the private area. You have threaded the cells through the line so they pass over each other. The paintwork is solid and opaque. No brush strokes. Mara the platypus hangs pink. When you pull the twine of the washing line,

the cells pass over each other quick enough to create a three-second animation. They make whirring noises. You light it with your phone torch. Her hand rises to her mouth with her long cigarette and then her tail flaps. She exists with the washing machine behind her. Her hand rises to her mouth with her long cigarette and then her tail flaps. She exists, with the washing machine behind her. She is almost real. It needs something more. You paint additional cells so that her eye winks and seductive smoke trails from the red lips on her beak.

You sit back on the ground with the washing line twine in each hand, pulling and tugging, watching her over and over, and you're drinking great red wine. Mara is the perfect wife. You realise that you have created a piece of art, better than fucking Julie with her online illustrations. You have made an installation. A two-dimensional hand-painted platypus hanging on a washing line that is fully animated when you pull the strings and each cell overlaps. She moves in reality. It is the eleventh night. You have Mara and all her cells set up on the washing line.

It is four a.m. Donald will awake in a few hours and cook his shallots. He will look out into the private area and no longer feel alone. His pink cartoon wife will flap her tail and wink at him and blow her smoke. He will see her. His shallot monotony will end. He will have a two-dimensional animated companion. He will be happy.

At 6.39am, you get two whatsapps from Brenda. What the actual fuck are you doing over in Barcelona? what the actual fuck are you doing over in Barcelona why are people sharing videos on Pornhub of you riding some Greek lad and roaring about Donald Duck what are you doing over there there is a link to the video in the text you watch the video

it is you you feel your heart in your throat you rush into the bedroom and frantically look around. And then you see it. Under the ceiling fan. The little reflective glimmer of a lens. Your Airbnb host has been recording you with a hidden camera.

Donald and Mala no longer matter Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game, and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.