The Blindboy Podcast - The Pistils of the Dandelions

Episode Date: November 8, 2023

I read a new short story from my book Topographia Hibernica  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bull a bus you custard husbands. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. Limerick is jittery with the cold. It's pints in a dark smoking area weather. Shivering, huddling in a dark smoking area and your fingers gone numb from wrapping around a cold pint. Smoking a cigarette because you think it'll warm you up. It sounds really depressing but it's not. It's beautiful. And once I have my fucking book out and my book tour done and I get back to Limerick in two weeks, I'm going to have a shitty pint of Moretti in the dark with an extreme chill in the night air and have the type of chats you have when you're just talking to distract yourself from the cold. But it's publishing week for me.

My book Topografia Hibernica. It's coming out this Thursday the 9th. It's coming out the 9th of November in Ireland. And then next week the 19th over in the UK. Also yes there is an audio book. The audio book is coming out too. I made a very special audio book. Where I composed an ambient soundtrack for each story and read the stories as a kind of performance, a rhythmic performance. Because an audiobook is a slightly different

medium and you're consuming the work in a different way than when you read it. Because sometimes, sometimes audiobooks really miss an opportunity to do something engaging and new with the work and sometimes you've got audio books where it's just a person reading it out just a person reading out what the book is because they have to instead of really taking into account people are consuming this in a different way now what what little bits can I change to make that experience more impactful. So I'm very excited for you to read the book. I'm incredibly proud of the book. I love it, I love every story. It's a piece of work that I can stand over

that I'm very proud of. So what I just have to watch over the next few weeks because I'm going to be doing loads of fucking press and the book is going to be getting reviewed I'm going to have to be mindful of my self-esteem and my identity. To not allow a bad review hurt me on a personal level. To not allow a good review inflate my ego and make me think that I'm special in some way and to focus instead on gratitude. To focus on how meaningful it was

to spend two years writing this collection of short stories. And I say meaningful there because some of it was very, very painful. I had a lot of writer's block. For the first year of it, I couldn't write anything at all. And that was agonising because it got to my identity. It got to my sense of self. It brought up all my insecurities from childhood. Any time as a child that I didn't think I was good enough or if I felt stupid in school. When I was struggling and I couldn't write

and I couldn't get ideas I was happy with. Those were the insecure feelings that were coming up in me and then the worst toxic thoughts come up and anyone who's ever tried to create anything would be familiar with these thoughts and the thoughts are anything you've ever done before that was good was a fluke. You're utterly talentless. Everything before was an accident. And now you've finally found out you've got no talent and you've no ideas left. And you just need to give up. Which is one of the most painful, lonely thoughts that you can experience.

is one of the most painful, lonely thoughts that you can experience when you're an artist and all your meaning and happiness and joy comes from making art. And I had a lot of those moments because my mental health was in shit and getting diagnosed with autism was a real challenge to my identity because I had to go back over my whole life. I had to go back over my whole life. I had to go back over my whole life. And revisit very painful memories. From the new lens of. Ah that happened because you were autistic. But I leaned into a lot of that pain.

And extracted it therapeutically to inform creativity. Like there's one story. In the book. Called the cat piss astronaut. which is a fictional story, but it draws heavily from events in my life. In particular, when I was six years of age and I was on a playground and there was a grown woman in her forties there with her daughter. And I just went up to the woman and I started explaining to her how the sun would one day expand. That the sun was a star and it would one day expand and the world would end.

Because that's a fact. That's what's going to happen. Like the sun is a star. And it could be a billion years in the future. But it will expand and consume the solar system. That that's a thing that's going to happen. All life in our solar system will definitely end at some point. And this woman was in her forties and it upset her so much that she beat the living fuck out of me.

She beat me. I was six. Like she beat me the way that you'd beat an adult in front of her daughter, like a full strength, physical beating, hitting me into the face and hitting me into the head when I was six and of course when that happens when you're six when when you're physically abused like that I didn't have the criticality at the time to be like oh that woman was wrong she shouldn't have done that I completely internalized it as something that I deserved and the dysfunctional information I learned from that beating was whatever it is you're deeply passionate about, the thing that you're really, really interested in,

that you can't stop thinking about, that you want to research all the time, that you love so much, which back then, at that time when I was six, was the solar system. I was just reading encyclopedias about the solar system. But I learned in that moment, I internalized, to share this information

is worthy of a beating from an adult. So I stopped and became withdrawn. And my passion for knowledge and learning became something I had to hide away, something I had to keep secret. And I learned to keep my fucking mouth shut and stay to myself. And that was one of those incidents that I had to go back and reappraise when I got my autism diagnosis, because that type of experience is actually quite common to children who grew up somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Two things there, having like an advanced vocabulary and knowledge of the star system as a six-year-old, and how this can be viewed as disrespectful or even offensive to an adult, how you can intimidate an adult's intelligence as a six-year-old and how this can be viewed as disrespectful or even offensive to an adult. How you can intimidate an adult's intelligence as a child if you have knowledge that surpasses

theirs, we'll say. And if you're a child and every waking moment of your life is an obsession with learning everything about the solar system, you're just shouting facts at adults all the time. You're just shouting facts at adults all the time. Because some adults do get a little power trip from kids being beneath them and from kids having to be polite. And if you're a child and you meet the wrong stranger and you make them feel insecure about their intelligence, the consequences can be pretty bad. And then just not understanding boundaries of propriety or hierarchy or the way that you're supposed to speak to adults. And not understanding that some fucking grown adults are absolute bullies and will beat the fuck out of a small child if they think they can get away with it.

So I brought that experience into a short story to deal with those emotions through the therapy of art. And then once you do that, what do you get? Fucking flow. Flow. Because there's honesty. There's honesty and integrity in the words. There's catharsis.

So even getting to experience that, I'm very grateful that that was part of my process while writing the book. Because there's a lot of meaning in there and I get to grow from that as a human but I prefer to focus on that rather than focusing on the book being published or reviewed or released or book sales or anything like that I think it's much healthier to focus on the process and I'll begin the adventure of moving on to the next piece of work but I am pure excited to share the book with you. And what I'm actually going to do this week, I'm going to read a story from the book. I'm going to read a brand new short story from my new book, Topography of Hibernica.

And that's how this podcast started out. I sometimes forget it, but the first episodes of this podcast were me reading out my short stories for ye because I started this podcast six years ago as a way to introduce people to my short stories because I didn't think anyone was going to be fucking interested back in 2017. I want to speak briefly about the Irish Podcast Awards. And I don't want to bore you because I don't think you give a shit about this stuff. But I'm nominated for three awards at the Irish Podcast Awards. Now I entered these awards myself. I did it voluntarily. I paid to enter these awards. But I'm now withdrawing from these awards.

I'm not in the Irish Podcast Awards anymore. So I want to explain why. In case anyone was wondering. Oh Blind Boy was nominated for three awards. Where the fuck is he? I wonder was he kicked out? No. I don't agree with the judgement criteria. Of the Irish podcast awards.

I said this to him in an email. I don't agree with the critical rigour. Of the judgement criteria. Basically. To enter the podcast awards, you have to give them a 15 minute clip. And in this 15 minutes, you can have three five minute clips of your podcast or five three minute clips of your podcast. I do slow monologue essays and I use the mechanics of fiction. Like you gotta listen to an entire episode of my podcast.

To be able to judge what it is I'm doing. And what I'm trying to communicate. So I gave him one 15 minute clip. I said here's a 15 minute clip. And that got me shortlisted. And when I submitted to. Even in the clip I said at the start. I'm giving you 15 minutes.

Because this is the minimum amount of time that I can give you to try and portray what it is I'm actually doing. I can't do this three minute, five minute clip stuff. Then they contacted me and said, we're moving to the final stage of judgment now. Can you resubmit a clip 15 minutes long that contains like three, five minute clips of your podcast or five five three minute clips. And I just said no. No. I can't possibly represent. What the fuck I'm doing with this podcast.

In tiny clips. And then it dawned on me. I don't think. The judges at the Irish Podcast Awards. Listen to entire episodes of podcasts. Like judges who. Have never heard my podcast. Or might never have heard it or someone else's podcast, they're judging the awards based on a 15 minute clip with a bunch of smaller clips of podcasts. So that to me suggests a complete lack of critical rigor. It suggests that no one is thinking about podcasts

as an actual separate medium, as a new medium, as an emerging medium. Podcasts are long form. Like you could judge radio on three minute clips, not a bother, because radio is made, radio is all about retaining attention, preventing people from turning the dial,

switching to a new station. Radio is all about an attention preventing people from turning the dial switching to a new station radio is all about an anxiety about dead air radio is in your face loud real quick you could judge radio on small clips easily because it's designed for that you can't judge a podcast on a five minute fucking clip

because it's a different audience it's a different way of listening it's a different theatre of attention if a different way of listening. It's a different theater of attention. If someone's listening to a podcast, they're there, they're already there and they've already committed some time to listen. Podcasts, people listen to podcasts now in a space that was previously occupied by books on the way to work on the fucking bus. You might go to a park and listen to a podcast

for an hour and sit by a bench some people go to a cafe and that's their podcast time people are engaging with podcasts not so much the way they engage with radio but the way they engage with previously used to engage with books i worked in tv for fucking years. I have awards for TV. Everything I could never ever do in television because of all the restrictions, I can do in podcasting. Podcasting has opened and unleashed limitless possibilities for storytelling and communicating what I need to communicate in the most effective way purely because of the medium because it's a long-form medium if I need to take an hour two hours three hours to do that podcast then that's okay and the people who are listening understand that it's a whole different medium so if you're going to judge podcasts you have to judge entire

episodes maybe a couple of episodes you need to experience as a judge what the listeners are experiencing when they go to their favorite fucking podcast and and that may include a little bit of a parasocial relationship like just just speaking for myself, I know that my podcast is successful purely because of word of mouth. People say, I listen to this blind buy podcast. I can't really explain to you what it is he's doing or what it's like. You just have to listen. Just give it one episode, give it two episodes. That's what people say when they suggest my podcast because that's how it has to be listened to because that's how I write it no one sends people three minutes of my podcast and says here listen to that you

love this they used to do it with my tv though because when I was writing for television and rubber bandit stuff I was writing half hour episodes of tv but going how can any two minutes of this be clipped and shared to be a viral video because it was written to be that. Podcasts are completely different so if you're going to have a podcast awards you need to have critical rigor you need to have critical rigor and a judgment criteria that actually thinks about podcasting as a medium. You're not going to have a film festival and the judges are watching the films on TVs because the films are intended to be seen on big screens. You're not going to have a literary

festival and you're just reading paragraphs of a book rather than the entire book. You're not going to have painting awards, awards for paintings and what the judges are looking at are photographs of the paintings. They're going to be beside the physical actual paintings looking at the language of the paint on the canvas to critically engage with a piece of work no matter what it is like i'm not i'm not going to eat a ball of cornflakes with my arse at the cornflakes judging competition i'm going to eat it with my mouth you gotta at the very least judge judge a medium by the way it's intended to be consumed I care about podcasting too much I love podcasts too much to be entering an award ceremony if I can't see

critical rigor in the judgment criteria and I'm not going to be stubborn and be like no you have to judge my podcast now on a full episode the smartest move is for me to just get the fuck out of the award ceremony. It's not fair to, it's not fair to the creators of podcasts. It's not fair to people who are trying to explore the medium and push its limits. Because if you have judgment criteria that judges podcasts on small clips, then that means that the podcasts that are most likely to win are the ones that perform well as short clips. And to me, that's not the language of podcasting, that's the language of radio. And the day podcasting will fucking die

is the day when it starts to sound like radio. So no disrespect to the judges, or no disrespect to the fucking, the Irish podcast Awards either. But I said this to the fucking I said this to them. If you want the support of podcasters who take the medium seriously

as a serious creative medium of which there's loads of creators who take it seriously as a medium. If you want their support then demonstrate critical engagement. And that benefits you then as well, because then the awards become coveted. It becomes something you want to work hard towards to get. And I don't want to go into this in detail because like every, every two months, I always go on a rant about what podcasts are as a medium and how they differ from traditional media will say

I have done a podcast on what I think podcasts are about three years ago called Crap Slash Jape so I'd really like to read this new short story for you but I want it to be completely uninterrupted so let's do the ocarina pause now I don't have the ocarina because I'm in my office but what I

do have is a small packet of disinfectant wipes. Well it's not a small packet it's a large packet of disinfectant wipes. Lime flavour. I accidentally blew my nose with one last week and that was deeply unpleasant. So I'm going to crinkle the disinfectant wipes and you're going to hear an advert for something. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Of evil. It's all for you. No, no, don't. The first omen. I believe 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. What'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, April 5th. 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. I don't have any books to hit myself into the head with this week because I cleaned my office. But that's why it's Disinfectant Wipe Day. in my office. That's why it's disinfectant wipe day. That was the disinfectant wipe pause.

Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast. If you enjoy this podcast, if it brings you solace, distraction, fun, enjoyment, whatever has you listening to this podcast if it brings you solace, distraction, fun, enjoyment, whatever has you listening to this podcast. Please consider paying me for the work that I'm doing. This is my full-time job and it's how I earn a living. It's how I rent this office and pay all my bills. So if you are a regular listener and you're enjoying it, just please consider paying me for the work. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month that's it but if you can't afford that don't worry about it because you can listen for free listen for free because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free so everybody gets a podcast and

I get to earn a living it's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness and most importantly it keeps us independent no advertiser can come in here and tell me what to speak about, change the tone of the podcast in any way. They can fuck off. Next week is my UK tour. I have got some incredible fucking guests on the UK tour. I'm not going to spoil it for you. I've got unreal guests on the UK tour. And I can't wait to do it. Coventry and Liverpool are the only places left with tickets now. And then when I come back from the UK tour to Ireland.

I'm in Belfast on the 18th of November. In the waterfront. Which is very nearly sold out. And then Sunday the 19th. I'm in Vicar Street in Dublin, I have an incredible guest it's going to be a wonderful Sunday night gig, very few tickets left for that and that's going to be my official

Irish book launch, even though it's a week after when my book comes out come along to that Vicar Street gig on the 19th in Dublin, that's going to be really special so I'm going to read you a brand new short story now. And this short story is called. The Pistols of the Dandelions.

And I want to show you this one. Because. You know that my cat Silken Thomas. Died this year. And I loved him dearly. And I wrote this story after he died. I connected with the feeling of loss and guilt. And that.

Helped me to achieve flow and to write and as a writer I read a hell of a lot the past two years a fella called Liam O'Flaherty an Irish writer from the Iron Islands and he used to write beautiful stories about nature he'd write stories about animals

in this wonderful third person which is like the uncaring voice of nature and something that saddens me about Liam O'Flaherty's stories is here's this man who was writing in the 1930s about the west of Ireland and the Aran Islands and he's describing how many animals he's seen he's describing lakes that are silver because there's so many fish in the lake and when I read his stories it feels like he's lying it feels like he's bullshitting and he's not it's just there were a lot more animals and a lot more

insects and a lot more fish in Ireland a hundred years ago and he's literally just writing about what he sees and me in 2023 I'm living through biodiversity collapse. I don't see animals anymore, I don't see insects, I don't see fish even when I go to the river and it's just so sad that I'm here in 2023 reading short stories from 100 years ago about nature and I think that the author is lying. He's not. There really weren't that many rabbits, there really weren't that many fish in the lake. And with this short story I'm about to read you, I was very much influenced by Liam O'Flaherty. The story is about stray cats. Stray cats who live in Limerick City in an industrial estate it's more of a novella than a short story

it's a long story this is an hour long if you don't want to listen to an hour long story about stray cats in Limerick you don't have to you can go and listen to a different podcast that's fine but I'm very proud of this story

because I got to portray elements of my dead cat Silken Thomas's relationship with his sister Napper Tandy. I got to try and explore what it was like to be a pair of stray cats and these are fictional cats that are based on cats I've known and loved over the years but really a lot of it is my two cats who were strays who just arrived as adults one day just asking myself where did you come from what was it like how were you born what were your lives like because when they came to me they were in bits they were battered worn sickly cats who had really been through a lot but what I enjoyed most about this process was when you try and write like Liam O'Flaherty does about stray cats in an industrial estate

in Limerick without trying it becomes William Gibson that was the thread of curiosity that I most enjoyed exploring when I was living with this story for a month or whatever it took me to write. It becomes cyberpunk, it becomes Mad Max, it becomes Blade Runner, it becomes post-apocalyptic because these cats are living in a world of biodiversity collapse and those are the themes of my new collection of short stories the themes are biodiversity collapse colonization folklore and folklore's relationship with biodiversity and animals and humans and what it means to be an animal and what it means to be a human and our relationship so this short story is called The Pistols of the Dandelions and just to give you

a content warning there are elements of animal cruelty in the story but there's also moments of love and tenderness and beauty. So this is from my new book which is out this Thursday the 9th of November. The tomcat's penis was barbed with backwards keratinized spines. This made the coitus incredibly painful for their mother. She had been in heat and mated with two other toms that day. This one had long white fur and different colored eyes. His two front canines lodged into the marmalade tabby hair at the back of her skull. She howled an agonising wail. He withdrew and attempted to scrape out the semen

of the previous male using his barbs. His efforts were not successful. They were born under a purple morning sun in a nest of styrofoam and rags, assembled by their mother in a tarmac wasteland, against the back wall of a corrugated hardware store. The type of yellow land you see with the side of your eye, between the retail parks, where cars dump washing machines. Brother and sister, conceived by two different fathers. brother and sister conceived by two different fathers a rare thing

but still natural within the super fecund reproductive system of cats the female kitten came out a brilliant black almost blue with the tiger patterns of an orange tabby revealing itself across her belly her brother was born piss yellow whiteellow-white, with a pink nose

and pink little paws like his father. Their mother stretched her long orange torso in among the rags and licked her two new kittens clean. She gently nudged their faces towards her nipples to take her milk. They both fed voraciously. She mewed and rattled a gentle sound that was just for the comfort of her two small babies. Her paws flexed out and revealed ten sharp talons. She pared with great awe and pride at the two balls of fluff that she had just given birth to, hidden among the nettles and dandelions in the styrofoam and polyester rags, a family. The kittens let out their tiny meows into the night against the whoosh of nearby cars. On the first morning after their birth, a collection of crows were gathering near the wasteland,

peppering the horizon. They followed the rubbish trucks that serviced the hardware store. A raggedy black crow heard the mews of the two kittens and soon alerted the rest, hungry for the sweet new organs and innards of day-old babies. Two flew down to where the kittens lay blind and helpless with their mother. The crows worked in pairs. One would hobble close to her, cawing, teasing, outstretching his black wings, drawing her out and distracting her,

while his accomplice stalked her two kittens behind her back. She fought them off with a guttural ferocity. She swiped, hissed and spat, directing attention at one crow and then flipping back to attack the other. A frenzy overtook her. She arched her spine and her tail was electric with spiky fur. She found a roar in her belly that rumbled like a petrol lawnmower. The rest of the crows watched from atop a grey steel fence, some perched on the security cameras that were fixed to the green corrugate of the hardware store. All cawing, cheering, fanatic, hoping for a fresh meal. This was sport.

The two crows gave up and the entire flock disappeared with slapping noises, flying off in search of the rubbish bins. The mother cat was too ferocious for them, too protective of her beloved new kittens. Her heart beat fast and her energy was low from labour and producing milk. She returned to the nest to find that the little male had a scarlet stain on his white face. He was screeching out with his tiny toothless pink mouth open. One of the crows had tried to peck his eye when her back was turned, his eyes which had not even opened to the world. The mother licked his face in a panic. She cleaned away the blood with her tongue. She did this every single day to keep the wound clean. The kitten and his sister fed at her teeth. Their mother licked his eye at every opportunity,

caring for the bloodied area, helping it to heal. She had saved him from death, but after a week, as they opened, the injured eye scabbed and the eyeball was rejected by his skull. It hung brown and dry from his face, and so his mother licked it off and cleaned the socket. He had one blue eye, the other might have been green like his father's. She continued to care for her kittens. Aub was watching them, vocalising, dedicating her every decision and movement to their survival. Now a few weeks old, with a spring in their jump, the girl, fluffy and black with two green eyes, the boy with one eye was an ochre white, playful and mewing. They nipped at their mother's heels. They followed her through the tarmac and the briars,

over the broken glass, under the abandoned car at the far end. They pounced on rusted coke cans and dived at dandelion clocks, sending the fluff of the flower floating over the wasteland. Having only one eye, the male kitten would always miss his target when he tried to pounce on a wasp or a butterfly. The female kitten would nip at her mother's dangling teats while she walked and the mother would swipe and pin the kitten to the tarmac with a firm but gentle bite on her little throat to let the kitten and her brother know that they were getting too old for her milk now. The family cut a trail through nettles and would use it to travel to the perimeter of the wasteland to feed beside the iron fence.

It was very common for hungry cats to die from eating poisoned rats. They were slow and easy to catch, so people would visit in the evenings to push paper bags through the fence and scatter dry cat food in huge piles on the ground. Hordes of feral cats depended on this. These feedings drew out all of the stray cats in the nearby area. Different colonies and groupings of cats, with their own hierarchies. The sun through the railings cast lanky blue shadows,

and it cut across them all. Solitary cats who didn't belong to a group always ate the food last. To break this rule meant ferocious fighting. She and her two kittens were solitary. She had never settled with a colony, so the family would rummage around the tarmac for itinerant brown nuggets with the other lone cats. This took a lot longer than feeding directly from the piles, but their mother didn't feel as nervous around humans as the other cats in the wasteland. She had the way of a cat that might have been close to a human at one point in her kittenhood. She

was abandoned maybe, let out of a car, it was too long ago. Occasionally, during the feedings she would rub against the perimeter fence to the delight of the humans. She would meow like a kitten would, using an interspecies body language that she must have learned somewhere. It wasn't natural, a way of behaving that the other feral cats didn't possess. Those cats always kept a cautious distance from the humans on the other side of the fence, even when they held out food in their palms. A strict separation that wild animals understood as instinct. But when the orange tabby mother would rub against the fence and mew like a kitten, a human would lay down food for her and her kittens only.

She would allow a hand to stroke her back through the metal. Her kittens learned to emulate this by watching their mother. This is when they got the best feeds and it stood to them. It gave them a slight advantage during the evening feedings by the perimeter fence. There wasn't much to be hunted in the wasteland. It was overgrown tarmac and concrete. Bushels of grass broke through in little islands. A few hawthorn shrubs sprang up here and there. It was mostly nettle, dandelion, thistle and dockleaf. Anything but a shadow root that could survive on moss or muck over stone.

Spider webs would glisten between the grass at sunset. Hedgehogs or hares never got that far with all the cars. The lack of soil kept insect life to a minimum. The council sprayed weed killer through the fence once a year, so everything was bleached yellow around the edges. Nothing had a chance. A mouse or a shrew hadn't much business in there. Nowhere to borrow, no invertebrates to eat. The retail part beside

the wasteland was no place for rats either. The hardware store kept rent-a-kill on hire 24-7, laying out poison and traps. A rat hadn't been seen there in years. A fox might pass through the fence, sniff the air and leave. Other than that, just the odd pigeon or crow, staying safe high on the fences, electrical wires and corrugated roofs overhead. But there were plenty of cats in the wasteland. Hundreds of cats a day, mostly belonging to the colonies, skulking across, marking territory,

toms fighting, the ammonia spice of their piss, hovering low, basking if there was a bit of sun, but no hunting to speak of. This was dead ground in the wasteland. The small kittens still pounced on anything that moved, living or dead, an ant, a crisp packet bothered by a breeze. Their mother's eyes were sharpening to this. Even with the full belly from the feedings by the perimeter fence, the hairs on her ears would prick

up at the sound of a smaller animal. It was this instinct that brought her to the hawthorn bush, the one that grew out from disturbed tarmac beside the abandoned car. The rust fed it iron in the soil, so its bark was blood-red. It was larger than the others, about seven foot tall, with dense spiny branches and thick olive leaves. The melody of a blackbird had been filling the wasteland in the mornings. It was a male who sang, slick black feathers on a chest that gloated when he whistled. And there was a quieter female, who had built a small nest at the top of the hawthorn bush,

nuzzling and proud, continental quilting her chicks, with a bright citrus beak and eyes like drops of ink. He sang every morning and evening, to announce his territory, to protect his mate and their like drops of ink. He sang every morning and evening to announce his territory, to protect his mate and their babies in their nest. He sang about taking care of his family. The mother cat and her kittens

had been sniffing and searching around the hawthorn. She could hear the blackbird above her, but the hawthorn was too treacherous to climb, with sharp spines on the branches. A native bird in a native tree, this was a natural defensive structure for a blackbird's nest. She attempted it, but decided not to climb any farther in case she became injured or trapped. For three days she stalked the hawthorn bush. Whenever she heard the chirpy song, laying low with her belly stuck to the tarmac,

wiggling her backside, her kittens did the same, watching their mother hunt. When the blackbird would sing, her eyes would fix upwards with a mania in them, pupils blossoming into black circles, and her mouth became possessed. Her gums would rattle and clack, making a rapid eck-eck-eck noise, as if she was impersonating the bird to call it down. On the fourth day, demented from his song, she heard a tiny chirp under the hawthorn, among the thickets of coarse grass and nettles adjacent the rusted car. It was a baby blackbird who had fallen from the nest, flicking its neck and jittering the green blades of grass. Its large grey head and strange skin-covered eyes, jerking like a leather puppet, screaming for its mammy with a yellow mouth. The cat dived on the tiny

bird and held it between her lips. It wriggled excitedly under her chin. She walked high on the pads of her paws, with her head up, as she delivered the hatchling to her kittens. The black kitten pounced on the bird first, leaping playfully, pounding and mashing her paws on the little body, gumming her teeth around its face, standing on her hind legs with her tail stabilising her torso. Cheep, cheep, cheep, coming down, swiping with her paw and the bird's featherless wings stuck in her small claws, her claws like needles. She tried shaking the bird off her paw as if her paw was wet, driven by a curiosity about killing but not understanding how to do it. The two blackbirds watched silently from atop the hawthorn while the kittens used their

baby for practice, a cruel, slow and drawn-out procedure. The animal didn't die from any one wound or piercing, it died from the shock of it all. The cats didn't eat the bird. The orange tabby then directed her attention to her male kitten, who had yet to tie with the bird. His white shoulders were turned towards his mother and sister. The mother mewed to get his attention. He didn't move. His pink ears didn't cock,

so she slowly walked over to him. He was staring off in a different direction. His one blue eye focused on a bumblebee around a thistle. He was becoming deaf, the same as his father, an affliction common to cats with white coats. Once his mother nudged him, he turned his head and saw his sister with the dead hatchling. His pupils dilated. He lay low, wiggled his bum and floated up into the air to pin the bird. He crashed down on his sister instead and tumbled against an old glass Lucozade bottle. It rattled and the blackbird screeched. When he tried to play with the dead bird, it was awkward. He didn't possess depth perception and his swipes missed. The corpse kept tormenting him while his mother and sister stood back and watched.

Shadows lengthened and the air got colder. One by one, flies began to buzz around the little bird's wounds and crows perched on the electrical lines overhead. The black bird sang a new song. The mother moved her two kittens on. The white one followed behind his sister. Two months passed and the kittens were meowing less. They had less need to call for their mother to transport them in her mouth by their necks. They were maturing. Teenagers. A wild adult cat does not meow. Wild adult cats are silent. Meowing is dangerous. The wasteland wouldn't allow them to adapt to the state of perpetual kittenhood that an adult domestic cat enjoys when it mimics the cries of a human baby.

The mother and her kittens continued their regular routine of visiting the wasteland perimeter fence to feed in the red evenings. The colonies of other cats would arrive too. The whoosh of kibble flowing from a paper sack, mews and cacks, fast paws, shuffling dirt, silence, the wet of mouths crunching on cat food, occasional scuffles and roars, the laughs and chatting of the people who brought the food. The kittens were older, larger, with proper sized heads, looking a bit like all the other cats, but delicately thin and still manoeuvring their limbs with the rubbery chaos of baby cats. Their mother's trick of charming her fur against the fence wasn't as effective now. The humans were much more receptive to her when she had two small kittens. Now they ignored her meows and they didn't like the scrawny white cat with one eye. He looked like he had

something contagious they all agreed. They were repelled by the fear of growing fond of something that might die soon. So the orange tabby and her family would wait for the colony cats to finish and feed them what was left with the other lawners. Back around the styrofoam nest they would fight with each other more frequently. Daughter and mother would arch their backs, drool, lick their lips, hiss, lash out claws, cling together in a violent ball and send fur in the air. Thudding against the corrugated metal wall of the hardware store, all three of them were hungry all of the time because there was less food to go around.

The brother and sister had developed larger appetites. They would search around the Hawthorne Three, but the blackbirds had gone. The white cat was visibly thinner than his sister. His eyesight made him far less adept at spotting a nugget of kibble in the tarmac. They didn't venture beyond the wasteland. The strong scents of different colonies laid out a confusing and dangerous map. Too much data to navigate, too many rivalries in too small an area. It was safest to stick to their area, stay within the perimeter fence.

It was the heat of summer with no rain having fallen in two weeks. This made the asphalt bubble and the whole place stank of tar. One day, two boys of about ten or twelve passed through the wasteland. They had climbed over the perimeter fence. They searched around the tarmac for glass bottles, which they then smashed against the abandoned car near the hawthorn tree. The noise alerted the mother, who pricked her ears up and skulked by a patch of grass to watch the boys from a safe distance. Her two shadows followed behind, sniffing the air. Their bellies met their spines. They were thirsty. They ate butterflies when they

caught them. The mother paused her step and threw a firm look behind her shoulder. Her kitten stayed back and hid in the grass. She decided to get closer to the two boys. Psst, psst, psst, said the toddler of the two boys. She rubbed against his leg, purring, moving around in circles with her tail up high and shaking the tip like a snake, nudging her wet muzzle into his empty palm for food. The boy stroked her neck gently. She raised her chin and he ran his hand down her back. She purred more for him and then salivated.

She was initially reluctant but something about a human stroke felt familiar and safe to her. It had worked before. He then grabbed her by the scruff and held her out with his arms stretched, pointing her at the other boy. This is how they carry their kittens, man. Like this. Watch. When you grab them like this behind the neck, they got paralysed. It's a trick that their mothers have to move the kittens around, he said. He held her up towards the high midday sun.

Her body was stiff, eyes in a squint and her face was taut, with his fist gripping firmly at the marmalade fur on the back of her head. You could hear her breathing loud from her nose, as her torso dangled and cast a small round shadow over the rust. The boy then swung her body down on the bonnet of the abandoned car. This let out a dead thud. She bounced to the ground, frozen by the daze in her brain. Before she could feel the adrenaline to escape, the other boy raised a large rock over his head and with both hands brought it down on her back, just above her

orange tail, breaking her hind leg and shattering ribs. There was no screech because it down on her back, just above her orange tail, breaking her hind leg and shattering ribs. There was no screech because it winded her. She lay beside the car, unable to move, making a strange licking movement with her tongue between low howls. The asphalt wobbled metallic under the hot sun. The usual city hum was quietened by the daytime heat. The boys paced around the wasteland nervous and excited

spitting, kicking things not letting the others see any fear or shock at what they'd just done the taller boy then left the wasteland by squeezing through the fence near the back of the hardware store the other sat on the bonnet of the abandoned car

and took out a cigarette. He tried puffing smoke into rings. He wasn't very good at it, so he made a fish-mouth shape with his lips and tapped the side of his cheek. Smoke chugged out in intervals and expanded into white circles against the squinty sky. While focusing up through a ring, he fixed his eyes on the overhead electrical wires. He returned to the mother cat who had managed to hide some of her body under the car. She was wheezing with foamy sputum dripping from her nose to the tarmac. Black ants drank from its edges. She produced a husky howl that rattled a bubbling sound in her lungs when she inhaled the howl was for her kittens

her cry reverberated up through the metal of the car which made it louder and more hollow sounding the boy paused to listen to this with curiosity he then pulled her out from under the car by her back legs and remembering something he'd seen an older boy do with a cat before, he swung her body up towards the power lines, hoping that he would see sparks or an explosion, but he wasn't strong enough.

Each time he failed and missed the power line by a few feet, her body would spin down horizontally like a heavy sycamore seed and land with a thud on the tarmac below. He tried this four times then gave up. The taller of the two boys returned. He had been in the hardware store and had stored in a bottle of fluid with a red cap. They emptied the bottle onto the mother cat who was still alive and then set her on fire. She died screaming. The boys tried to kick her body under the alive and then set her on fire. She died screaming.

The boys tried to kick her body under the heart horn to set it on fire but it didn't work. Too much sap in the bark to catch a blaze. The black kitten could hear the howls. Even though she was maturing she still possessed the instincts of a baby. She felt

danger and remained perfectly still in the grass, undetectable, waiting for her mother to collect her, silent. Her brother could not hear anything and had wandered off in the opposite direction on the trail of a cooling breeze. The sky had darkened with the promise of rain, turning the air navy blue. Summer clouds that make green things seem greener. There's its kitten, said the taller of the boys, seeing the little white dot on the other side of the wasteland. The male kitten was in an open area of tarmac, and his bright fur made him stand out from the green and the grey. He was curled up and resting. The tall boy moved towards him. The shorter boy, in a pang of guilt, threw a stone at the kitten

to frighten it away. It landed, but he didn't hear it. As the tall boy got closer and could make out the size and shape of the cat, he rose up on his toes and crept, careful not to disturb the broken glass under his feet. But there was too much glass in the wasteland, and it crunched and cracked. The noise made the sister very uneasy. The instincts of an adult cat surfaced up in her, the hunger to escape in a flurry. She burst out from the grass she'd hidden and ran past the boy, She burst out from the grass she'd hidden and ran past the boy darting away like a tadpole in a sudden shadow a dark blur

She swept past her brother's nose and he felt the wind of her tail He followed her because following her was all he had known They both scarpered under the perimeter fence beyond the wasteland and past the hardware store across the motorway two black and white smudges, through wooden fences, under the barks of dogs, him following her every gallop, and fat drops of

cooling rain pounded the earth and asphalt and drummed on the corrugated roofs of the retail park, serious puddles, tarmac shunned like leather, weeds stiffened, gutters slushed and gargled with violent brown water, and everything, everywhere, smelled like hidden oil. The rain stopped and steam wisped up from the footpaths. They settled on a mowed lawn, where the air carried the freshness of trees, but still had the hum of cars and people. They kept silent and rigid with the confusion. Separated from their mother for the first time, the sun cracked out a cloud and lay a warming marmalade beam across their faces, then went away. Under a sycamore, the white cat curled his tail around his paws and lifted up his neck,

his one blue eye in a squint and his nostrils inflating and contracting. He bobbed his head and studied the air. His sister purred and rubbed against him from behind. He flinched. They pressed their foreheads together and rubbed noses. There was nothing familiar on the gust. The torrents of rain had washed away any smell of the wasteland. No marking or trail from a tom survived. Their maps were wiped. Nothing could lead them back. They lived among the houses now.

It came into autumn. The suburbs were quiet. Semi-detached houses with terracotta roofs over ample back gardens. Winding roads and grassy parks with trees. Alleys for creeping behind the houses. Gentle breezes that told stories about cats, dogs, bins, foxes, bats. The comforting perfume of flowerbeds over freshly cut lawns. Dark pools of ponds with fat golden carp swimming in a hypnotic circle that kept their necks manic. The song of the swallow and robin.

There was a new map of smells to crack. The markings of house cats were less definite than in the wasteland. These odours didn't speak about murder. They would follow their noses along the trails and find the feeding dishes of these domestic cats. There was no shortage of cat food in the suburbs either. Spilling out of ceramic bowls at back porches, inside cat houses, wet food, cans of oily mackerel. She would even steal food from the bowls of dogs and she would always go first. Hopping up on a back wall and surveying the garden, making sure it was clear they had their favourite spots. He would follow her. It always took him longer. Everything took him longer. To jump up on a wall, he had to stare up and study the ledge,

wiggling his white arse, focusing the pupil of his eye, dilating it, trying his absolute best to correctly gauge the distance before springing forth with the muscles of his back legs. gauged a distance before springing forth with the muscles of his back legs. A fierce long leap. It didn't always work and he'd miss the tops of walls, bouncing his chest off the edge and winding himself. Or he'd tear his claws into breeze-block concrete, dangling, dragging himself up. He would howl while doing this. He hadn't much self-awareness when it came to Nyes due to his deafness. The cats were maturing into adulthood now, ready for the next spring. She had become strong and healthy. Her thick black beautiful fur bunched around her neck and the tabby

pattern of her mother came through her belly in orange bands under sunlight. Her oval eyes were bright lime green, her coats slick and teeth healthy from the endless supply of fish and whiskers that she stole from the balls of house cats who didn't really care. No end to the licking and grooming, and she was always completely silent, clean with no smell, always skulking low,

avoiding humans, and moving invisibly against the night time, soft pads under the paws, not a chirp out of her. But her poor old brother's coat was unkempt and raggedy, yellowed white like a sheep, limp pink ears that didn't cock, the continual stress and confusion of being deaf and one-eyed had written itself into the expression on his face. His mouth was frightened and full of caution. His single, beautiful, azure eye consistently widened in alertness. His chin stained brown. He was clumsy.

He followed his sister for food, but ate last and often alerted a human or a dog who would chase him away before he finished. He developed two awkward white testicles that dangled between his back legs and jutted out so you'd see them from the side. He began to mark the walls and gardens of the suburbs with the shake of his tail and backside, a noxious blinding ammonia tang which then attached to his fur. His forever state of stress had him grooming less and less. You could smell him before you saw him. He yawed and mawed in the alleyways between the houses and the dead of night, dying for a mate. Feral tomcats would wander into the suburb by the strength of his markings and the smell of his sister in heat. They would search for him and attack. He would try to fight back

but was outmatched by the stronger, faster males. His ferocious sister would fight his corner instead, swiping, hissing, arching her spine and latching in a ball on any cat who came for her brother. arching her spine and latching in a ball on any cat who came for her brother then he would try to mate with his sister. It was this antisocial behaviour that had them trapped by the rescue people. There was a chimney smoke moon above an alley in the winter

when they both caught wind of cooked chicken that was wafting in the air. The chicken was bait and they found themselves locked in a plastic cage together torches blinding their faces, gloved fingers pressing around their gums. He howled and she kept as quiet as she could while thumping in the box to escape,

tearing the heads off each other. Trapped with blankets and pinned to a stainless steel vet's table, the terrifying milky stink of humans all over their bodies. Because they were feral, no attempt was made to find them a home. They had gone beyond the point of domestication. They were both neutered and released back into the suburb. When they spayed her, the vet removed the foetuses of three kittens. They were a year and a half old now. They both had little fat pockets that dangled under their bellies. They spent more time lounging and stretching. You'd think they were domestic by

the shape of them. The white cat had become incredibly docile. He didn't mark anymore. He didn't howl and was happy to trail behind his sister. There was no more fighting other than the occasional swipe and hiss between siblings. They had found a home in one of the houses in the suburb that was unoccupied by people. A garden in the rear that was overgrown and full of nettles like the wasteland. It was protected by high walls.

No person or animal ever ventured in and they slept in an old tool shed that was falling apart. It was shelter nonetheless. It kept them dry from rain and away from winds. Everything felt safe. The air had no warnings in it, and they had no reason to leave the garden. On one of those mornings, where the grass was crystal white and crunched with frost, she was jarred from sleep by the sound of movement in the garden. Her brother did not hear. She poked an inquisitive black face out through a wooden slat in the busted shed. Ice powdered on her brow and she flicked her two ears. A young woman was slowly inspecting every

corner and crevice of the garden. The woman's arms were folded high on her chest and her breath was cornflower blue against the dead winter. The black cat nudged her brother and they both quietly exited the back of the shed. The two cats observed the woman from the safety of the breeze block wall while she gently moved all flower pots over with her wellies and tugged at the loose slats of the shed. She hummed a Mariah Carey song. She had long brown hair and a softness to her voice. She arched her neck up and spotted the black cat and white cat who were surveying her. She gasped like a child, paused a bit and blinked her eyes slowly in a secret cat-human language. Psst, psst, psst, she said to them with her hand out, rubbing her fingers together.

The cats kept a cautious distance and watched with no discernible emotion from atop the wall. The sister sat tall and proud with the tail wrapped around her two feet and the tip wagging slowly and himself behind her looking on with one eye and his sad mouth, peering down on the woman nonchalantly as if they were to be worshipped. The woman walked off with brisk excitement and soon came back, trying to woo them both with a slice of ham in her palm, lifting it up above her head towards the top of the wall. They could smell the delicious meat, but still refused to let her get close,

consistently backing away as soon as she got near to them. She gave up. Later that evening the woman returned and placed an entire can of tuna by the back door. Pss, pss, pss, she said towards the tool shed. The two cats waited with caution until she had gone back inside, herself silent, himself smelling the air and mawing, and then they had a fine feed a frenzy of licking and smacking afterwards the pink of his mouth on display

and the little hairy tongue searching every millimetre of his muzzle for a bit of missed tuna the black cat held up her paw and using her head rubbed vigorously all around her ears and scalp giving herself the perfume of fish oil as if to let any other cat know and using her head, rubbed vigorously all around her ears and scalp,

giving herself the perfume of fish oil, as if to let any other cat know how well she was doing for herself. The woman watched all of this from the kitchen window with a proud smile on her face, thrilled that she had brought happiness to the two far babies out in her new back garden. They'll keep coming back if you do that, the man said. This is their house, she said. They live in that shed out there. We've moved into their house. It's us who are their guests. He wrapped his arms around her waist and they both stared at the animals, awestruck and free from worry, hypnotised by their behaviour.

That poor little white one with the eye is cute, he said. The tuna turned into whiskers and bowls of milk. The food became regular, once in the morning and once in the evening, a predictable routine, just like the wasteland of their youth. But there was no competition now, this was all for them. They were safe, they were warm, they were fed. Their days were spent rolling around in the grass and letting the sun hit their bellies. Their biggest concern was finding the most comfortable position to rest in. The shed had been knocked down and a small wooden cat house was built for them with a soft foam bed inside. They slept together for warmth.

She licked her brother's fur and kept his neck clean. They purred and kissed with noses, growing older together. His eyesight and his deafness were less of an issue in the garden. He'd occasionally pounce on a bee and crash into a flower pot, leading to howls of laughter from the kitchen. The couple grew fond of the cats, watching their antics from the window, slow blinking and getting slow blinks back, but the cats in their wildness would still flinch and move away if the couple tried to pet them. flinch and move away if the couple tried to pet them. Two years passed and the suburbs were changing. The older residents were gradually being replaced by younger people. Ponds were filled in.

Some gardens were raised and carpeted with sterile bales of plastic grass. Decking was built. In the garden the grass stood tall and the shrubs gave shelter. The couple were cautious not to interfere with the little habitat that the cats had discovered. We'd be like colonizers, she'd say. But no matter how much food they provided or how many slow blinks they could deliver, they couldn't establish a bond with the animals. For the cats, it was a relationship of tolerance, and for the couple, it was one of longing.

I wish they'd let me pet them, she'd say to him. Look at our beautiful coat. If only they didn't have to sleep outside either. They could sleep on the couch in here, if they weren't so frightened all the time. I'd love that too, it can get freezing out there, he said back, but they're terrified of us. One evening, the woman squeezed gelatinised cat food from a metal packet into a bowl.

She had been busy that morning and missed a feed. She used both hands to make sure all the jelly made it to the dish. The aroma of chicken and beef wafted through the air. As her fingers pressed on the foil, she noticed the photograph of the cheerful domestic cat on the design. The black cat was particularly hungry and began to feed immediately without keeping her usual distance. The woman spotted an opportunity and reached her hand forward. She gently rubbed her finger on the black cat's forehead between her eyes. The cat hissed immediately. She didn't understand this physicality. She had no frame of reference for this touch. It was an attack. She jumped and waited for the woman to go back inside.

Her brother stood behind her. But as her brother grew stronger with the regular food and the stress of his life eased, he developed an independence. He followed his sister less and found a personality for himself. His face softened. He lost the look of fear and the sad mouth. When the man sat out to enjoy the garden with his coffee the white cat would slowly walk closer and lie down beside him. The man began to carefully unfurl his arm and rub the cat's soft white paws eventually moving his fingers towards the plush fur of his neck.

The white cat purred for him and closed his one eye, stretching his chest out and relishing the scratches and affection. The woman would do the same, stroking her hand down his fluffy white belly that he pointed at the sky. The black cat would stand back at a safe distance at all times, watching, confused, forever on alert, always silent. Her brother began to meow when he saw the couple in the mornings, rubbing off their legs, pouncing up with enthusiasm, purring like an engine and demanding his breakfast, to the delight

of the couple, behaving like his mother in the wasteland when she begged for food from the people at the fence. Soon the male cat would walk in the back door through the kitchen and explore all over the house whenever he pleased. Upstairs into empty beds, lying on windowsills, purring and meowing. He would sleep between the couple on the couch on chilly nights. The TV turned up full blast, making no difference to him, curled up in a white ball, stretching the talons, yawning and getting little treats and rubs, snoring in his sleep, dreaming cat dreams that made his muzzle cack and his paws flick while the couple marvelled over him. His one eye and his snowy face, glowing different colours from the light of the TV screen,

delighted with himself. His sister stayed outside in the cold, watching it all in the window. They had given up on coaxing her into the warmth that her brother enjoyed, and both cats were well looked after in the garden. But the white cat became the favourite. The couple took pity on him. They called him Sullivan because of the one eye. She didn't get a name. He was receptive to affection and rubs. He gave love back. He ate first now, in a separate

dish that was in the kitchen near the bins. She ate outside. Still, he was never fully domesticated. The wildness was there, spending some nights in the wooden cat house with his sister and others inside on the warmth of the couch. He had found a compromise that met his needs, taught by his mother who knew the touch of people. His sister stayed feral and cautious. After years of comfort, the brother and sister found themselves in old age. Her muscle tone softened among the black fur, and her spine, which was once a proud arch,

slumped down and ended in a bent tail. Silver hairs grew above her eyes, and grooming became more difficult. He was slow and round with problems in his bones. His walk was a style of hobble that he puffed out between sleeps and a single blue eye faded into a cloudy grey that might bring a cataract. But they were both adored and fed and sheltered. It was a warm summer evening, with long shadows,

when the couple brought the baby home. Butterflies and dandelion fluff floated through the blood-eyed sun, and the cats stuck their sweaty bellies to the sky to catch the last of it. The newborn was a soft pink lump of skin and cotton like a wobbling rose, nestled in a pram in the kitchen. The couple stared into the cot, with mad smiles on their faces, intoxicated with disbelief at the confusing wonder of life. No external sensation could distract them.

They lifted the baby up and took turns rocking it, laughing. They squealed and mewed at their baby and the baby squealed back. The cats would stare in the kitchen window at it all, ignored. The white cat would meow and purr. The couple didn't come to his calls anymore. A day or two might pass and their dishes went empty. No more slow blinks every morning or bits of ham. The woman would rush to the bins in the back garden with bags and nappies and step over the two cats. They'd scarper out of the way. The grass was replaced with plastic grass for when the baby could crawl. The uniform green spikes jutted into their skin and didn't cool them during that hot

summer. They slept less. They began to bicker and hiss at each other again. Conditions worsened over the months. The baby cried out at night time and the noise kept the black cat on edge. All routine had changed in the garden. Hungry and annoyed, the white cat strolled into the kitchen. He'd had no breakfast that morning,

his tail in the air, cocky, the blue eyes squinting and the pink mouth open, meowing loudly, calling for his humans. He carefully climbed up onto the kitchen counter by putting himself up on a stool, expending much more energy than he was used to. He licked crumbs of cheese from the surface. The baby was sleeping in the pram adjacent the counter, wrapped up and warm. The baby lay level to him and he spotted her hands reaching up from her blankets. His meows had stirred her. The cat sniffed the air and was inspired by a curiosity for this little creature and its new smell. He arched himself at the edge of the counter to inspect closer. Four cotton ball paws stuck together, poised on the ledge, stabilising his tail and wiggling his bum,

squinting his eye at the pram, his pupil like a full moon, cocking his chin, slow, considered, trying to gauge the distance. He leapt forward with his fat white torso stretched out, suspended for a moment in mid-air before missing the pram spectacularly. To save his fall, one of his paws latched onto the side of the pram, talons out. The other found its way onto the baby's soft peach arm, leaving a long scratch. Young scarlet blood bubbled from each claw track on her skin. pain. The white cat dangled, his spiky tail thrashing pointlessly like an extra limb. The weight of his body pulled the pram to the ground and the helpless infant rolled onto her front. She couldn't lift her head up. Her nose pressed against the tile floor, crying, gasping, wailing with tiny pearls of red dripping from her skin. Her arms wiped out with each scream and stained the tiles in an arc. A little blood angel with one wing.

Her pink knitted blanket falling off her. Her impossibly small body exposed. The white cat sniffed her cuts and licked the blood. The couple burst into the kitchen. The man shouted, He's fucking attacked her, Jesus Christ. The white cat could not hear this. The man kicked the cat as hard as he could in the stomach, sending him flying across the kitchen. He escaped out the back door to the safety of

the garden, mine falling over his feet, not understanding what had just happened. The couple hugged and held their howling baby between them, rocking together like trees in a breeze. The woman and the man both cried in terror and relief. Later that evening, there was a cat carrier in the back garden, where the black cat's food dish usually lay. Inside were two bowls of fresh tuna and milk, a rare feast. Even though she was hungry, the black cat kept her distance, refusing to enter the carrier. Her brother saw no issue and hobbled into the box. He devoured the tuna for them both. When he turned to leave, the grate of the carrier had closed. She remained beside the carrier all night,

grate of the carrier had closed. She remained beside the carrier all night, with her brother mawed inside, his one eye squinting. He did a pee and his feet slipped in the wet plastic as he tried to escape. She paced. She rubbed against the carrier, trying to kiss noses through the wire. In the morning, the man appeared. He hissed at her loudly and kicked the ground, sending a flowerpot in her direction. It crashed violently. She clambered up the back wall and sat there in silence at a safe distance. She watched as the man walked off into the kitchen with the handle of the carrier in his fist. This was the last time she saw her brother. This was the last time she saw her brother. She returned to the garden after a few hours and pressed her nose in the empty space near the kitchen door. Her cat house and her bed were no longer there, sitting in the wet dark rectangle where she and her brother had slept for many years. Hundreds of woodlice crawled around her paws.

Her food dish was gone. She sniffed at nothing and remained silent and still, sleeping with her black tail around her nose on the concrete by the door, the cold penetrating up through her withered limbs, the wind ruffling her neck and waking her up. Occasionally the woman would open the window and hiss at her while holding her baby. The man threw a mug of water at the black cat while she slept in a ball by the door. This was very frightening and unexpected. After some weeks, she left the garden, hungry, delirious and unsure she would raise her head and study the air in search of trails

but her senses had dulled in later years the smells confused her she travelled from house to house but there were fewer cats in the suburbs with food dishes to steal from she no longer had the stamina to scale walls and avoid dogs. Through the alleyways, she walked along on sore pads. Slower now, pausing every so often. The muscles of her shoulders had memorised the movement of looking back to check on her brother.

This was the first time in her life that she had been alone. The black cat found herself in an electrical substation beside an industrial estate. It was a maze of large grey metal boxes with pathetic green sproutings of life, occasionally breaking through mulch. Huge steel pylons towered above. This wasn't new to her. There were fewer smells than in the wasteland where she was born, but the dandelions and broken glass felt familiar and safe.

She stuck to walls and fences and picked up the trail of an animal. Through nettles a scent of urine revealed itself. She clung to it like a ball of string, urine revealed itself. She clung to it like a ball of string, brushing against the grey metal box of an electrical substation. The cat stopped. It was a rat, huddled in a ball like it was trying to stay warm. A light drizzle made everything electric hum and fizzle. She lay low and approached the rat from the side. The ground was a grey pebble mulch that had been laid to keep weeds from growing. No matter how much she softened her pads, the stones clacked loudly against the electrical buzzing. Slow movements, her focus sharpened around the rodent so that nothing else existed in that moment. With each crunch under her paw, she stopped, her body frozen, expecting

the rat to hear her and dart off. But the rat was in a daze, huddled and dumb. It didn't sniff the air or rub its face or hear her pounce. She dispatched the animal quickly with her teeth and devoured its guts. Satiated, she took shelter in a thicket of shrubs that jutted out from the substation wall. Strong smells of foreign toms wafted in. She curled up with her nose over her paws. The marmalade glow of a streetlight slithered through the leaves and speckled her black fur. Convulsions and pains dragged her from her sleep.

Her torso curled and unfolded with the tension of a stubborn spring. She struggled to breathe. A red foam dripped from her nose and stained the pebbles in her paws. She huddled in a ball like the rat she had eaten. When she felt the final painful breaths of death death she began to meow like a tiny kitten the o-shaped cries of a newborn filtered through adult lungs she cried for her mammy to come and collect her

and all of them mother, brother and sister melt into sludge and rise again in the pistols of the dandelions. so I hope you enjoyed that short story more of a novella that was the pistols of the dandelions and that's in my my new collection of short stories

Topografia Hibernica there's other stories in the book that are more humorous and funny I'll be back next week next week I have I'm on tour next week I'm over in the UK next week on tour week I have, I'm on tour next week. I'm over in the UK next week on tour.

So I have a wonderful guest lined up who's a professor and expert in biodiversity because next week is Science Week and I'm doing my annual Science Week podcast. Science Week takes place on the 12th to the 19th of November and go to sfi.ie if you want to find out about wonderful science week events that might be happening all over Ireland so now I'm off to Tenland

I'm off to Tenland on an airplane dog bless 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 center in hamilton at 7 30 p.m 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.