Practice

He held the pillow in his right hand and opened the door with his left, straining with the latch for a bit before pulling it towards him. He threw it down on the bed and sat next to it with his elbows on his knees. One of the shelves he had made had collapsed and the books and magazines that had rested on it were jumbled on the floor mixing with his socks and the other bits of his clothes. He looked at the wall and the window and through it to the shapes of the two houses opposite. He lay down with his new pillow and breathed in the smell from it. It was a soft colour, touching on pink. He slid his right shoe off with his left one, but couldn't remove the left with his right foot because the laces were too tight and it was hurting his toes trying to remove it. He closed his eyes and opened them some hours later and wet his cheek on the drool on his pillow and he tried to wake up and stopped and closed his eyes some more.

And outside he heard it pour. He flicked from channel to channel for a bit and then muted the television to listen to see if the rain was still falling and it was so he started flicking again, but with no sound. He stopped on BBC2 on a programme about deaf people and when it got interesting he turned it up. And afterwards he muted it again and couldn't hear the rain and got up and pressed his palms on the sitting room window and saw the puddles were still and unmolested except from the wind and saw the queue for the bus stop standing out from the shelter and shaking umbrellas in preparation for the bus which sat unmoving at the end of the road. He turned and sat down and flicked around some more. And he came to 15 to 1 and Countdown and smiled and opened his eyes and ears fully and relaxed and thought fast about Europe and consonants and the speed of thought, and then muted during the slump from 5PM to 6:30PM where he strained to listen to interesting sounds outside and made cups of tea and kept his face over the steam from the kettle even when it hurt, but always pulled back before it really hurt. He opened the fridge and reached in past the smell to the butter and milk both of which rested in the thin layer of liquid coating the floor of the fridge. He poured himself two spoonfuls of Benolyn and returned inside to the couch and the Simpsons and programmes about teens.

PRACTICE?

ROUTINE?

SELF DISCIPLINE?

TERMINUS?

OUT OF MILK?

He was out of milk and weighed the arguments for and against going through all that to get some just so he could drink more tea, or simply throwing caution to the
wind and departing. He left the television on, put his empty bottle in his jacket pocket and slammed the front door behind him. He knew the bus well and timed his exit in accordance as the turnip faced queue looked at him quickly in disgust. He even got on before them. There was an advert for the Bones of Saint Therese in front of him with a list of the local churches and the dates when the holy remains would visit. Somebody behind him kept coughing and spitting and someone in front kept cursing the person spitting. The bus lurched around the grey corners and the tight greens as the rain took up again and in the distance towards the mountains the sun split the clouds and lit up the ever unceasing veil of rain on the window. And then Dorset Street and take-aways and more people and finally the bus hissed to a stop and tore its doors open and they all took one step from the bus to the foot path and headed off.

He passed the silver container with sachets of sugar to the blue rinsed woman who spilt some tea on her Irish Catholic as she took it off him.

'ah jesus!'

'is it ruined?' he pricked up his ears

she wiped it with the wet sleeve of her jacket

'no'

He went back to slumping against the wooden back rest and looking occasionally at the security guard with the headset and walkie-talkie. Crowds of people blew by Talbot Street, flooded with the rain and lit by the sun which had no warming and served only to make the weather visibly unbearable. The security guard was muffling something into his walkie-talkie and following a dishevelled man in his forties with his eyes. He eyed the blue rinsed woman who was using her finger to follow her smudged print as he opened his empty bottle under the table. He held it with his left hand as his right took the silver milk container and brought it level with the bottle. He had to take his eyes off the guard while he let the milk run into the bottle and as soon the milk was transferred he snapped his eyes back up and held back the grin. There was room for more, but experience taught him to head for the next cafe and not be greedy. It was Beshoffs and only 2 minutes down
O'Connell Street. He closed the bottle and left without saying goodbye.

His fingers held the bottle upright in his pocket as the bus wheeled left along the stretch of the Royal Canal by Mountjoy. It was lukewarm, sometimes they leave the milk lying out for half the day on the tables, and when you start mixing milk from different cafes you're sure to encounter some sort of dairy mishap. The man next to him kept leaning into him as they turned corners and he tightened his grip on the bottle which made a visible lump in his jacket that he wanted to conceal. His neighbour had been turning every so often and looking at him, straight in the face. He had a brown overcoat on with one of the collars turned up which masked part of his face.

'hard weather all the same, what?'

He stooped in front of him and gathered his shopping bags together as they had been growing unstable with the stopping and starting of the bus. As he sat upright again his collar no longer blocked his face which was lined with a rough blue stubble.

'the season's turning for sure' he exhaled through his nose and laid his hands on his knees in front of him. Bobby relaxed his grip on the bottle and looked out the window and then back at the man.

'Yeah its getting colder alright'

'Where you in town? Awful it was, I was in to get the bit of shopping, the queues were mad, and everyone ringing wet. Ah it's turning rightly. And they'd North Earl Street closed for something - I reckoned an accident, but I didn't go down and see because of the rain. Some mess they've made of the town now.'

As the bus turned onto the Finglas Road the man leaned right into Bobby pushing him right against the window and he felt the man touch against the bottle in his pocket. When the bus levelled out he edged away from Bobby who closed his eyes and thought of lying back on his bed at home. The man rubbed his stubble with his thick hand and exhaled through his nose.

'They don't make these seats big enough at all do they?'

'No they don't no.'

'Like fecking peas in a pod, or - or sardines.'

The man started stooping down and gathering his bags just before Glasanoan Park, and as the bus neared the stop he lifted himself out of the seat with his hands on his bags. The bus jolted as he was reaching to press the bell and he missed it, lurching forward towards the aisle and Bobby leaned toward him in alarm. The man managed to steady himself by grabbing the back of the seat in front and he plopped back into his seat knocking off Bobby. He made a loud sound, like a gasp mixed with a tut, then stooped over his bags once more and stood up. As he sounded the bell he turned his glassy blue eyes to Bobby and smiled

'sure practice makes perfect sonny.' and then looked away and headed towards the stairs.

He lay on the couch with his head on his new pillow and his hands warm on his cup of tea, breathing in its lovely smell through his nose, half listening to the television and half listening to the rain falling outside.

Biography

I was born and bred in and around Dublin. I went to the Christian Brothers in Cabra, then the Institute in Lesson Street for the Leaving. I did my BA in Galway (english and history). Since then I have moved from job to job and from squalid house to squalid house. My list of employment
contains: accountant, warehouse guy, fruit sales man, record shop co-founder, footloose gardener and currently a librarian in the American College Dublin. I started writing in school then at the Centre for Talented Youth Ireland, where I studied under Gerard Donovan (Salmon Publishing) for 3 years when I was 12 till I was 15. Academically I have been trying to gain admittance to Syracuse University for a year now to do my MFA in Creative Writing. I came in the top 20 last year but they only take 6. I also make music on my computer and play percussion. I really like Samuel Beckett's short fiction, John Ashbery's poetry and Flann
O' Brien as a persona.