My curtains are open and I'm looking out tonight. I've had two good hours to myself. I've never felt less lonely. It has rained and the raindrops on the outside of the window panes glitter like cheap beads. We're talking about spilt beer, we're talking about the end of the world.
I light a cigarette. I'll give up some time soon. The window starts to shed light, a dubious rumour of dawn. I look out as the thing speeds up. It's getting glossy out there. Buildings and roads begin to look pale and flat, hung over in the ebbing strength of the street-lamp shine.
She stirs in the bed. The dark smudge of her face settles against my pillows. I'm tired but [ think I'll watch her sleep some more. I think I'll wait for her to wake.
Chuckie called me a while ago and ranted about all kinds of stuff. He told me he'd seen the OTG man and that he was setting up a political party. I'm worried, frankly. Chuckle win probably succeed. When Chuckle's around, comedy isn't funny. Comedy is serious.
And that was what the OTG man didn't even know he was for.You want to know what OTG means?
Almost everything.
That was the point. All the other letters written on our walls were dark minority stuff. The world's grand, lazy majority will never be arsed writing anything anywhere and, anyway, they wouldn't know what to write. They would change their permissive, clement, heterogeneous minds half-way through.
That's why OTG was written for them. It could mean anything they wanted. It did mean anything they wanted. Order The Gammon. Octogenarians Tote Guns. Openly Titular Gesture. One True God.
I make coffee. The percolator gurgles and clicks. Dazed, my head is filled with the lush music of euphoria. I don't know. Maybe she won't make me feel like this in a year. Maybe six months. Maybe some day I won't even remember the velocity in my veins tonight. Maybe some day some other woman, some other sleeping presence will make me feel like this again and I'll think I've never felt it before. I don't know and I don't care. Maybe we'll all be dead six months hence. It's a big world and there's room for all kinds of endings and any number of commencements.
I don't care because this is enough.
I pour some coffee and put the cups on a tray. The birds gossip loudly outside my kitchen window. I look out into that murk and see my cat swipe inexpertly at a swooping sparrow. He misses and then starts licking his fur, pretending he wasn't really trying. I knock on the window and he looks up. I just wanted him to know that I saw. I think I'll get a new cat.
I go back into the bedroom and leave the tray on the bedside table. Gently, I brush her hair from her brow and she stirs slightly. She'll be awake in a minute. I have only a few moments left on my own.
The mountain looks flat and grand. In the greyness, it is stupidly green. It looks like all cities this morning, Belfast. It's a tender frail thing, composite of houses, roads and car parks. Where are the people? They are waking or failing to wake. Tender is a small word for what I feel for this town. I think of my city's conglomerate of bodies. A Belfastful of spines, kidneys, hearts, livers and lungs. Sometimes, this frail cityful of organs makes me seethe and boil with tenderness. They seem so unmurderable and, because I think of them, they belong to me.
a jumble of streets and a few big bumps in the ground, only a whisper of God.
Oh, world, I think, aren't you pretty?
Aren't you big?
I hear a noise and I turn towards the bed. She has woken. She stirs slowly. She sits up and runs her hand through her disordered hair. She turns in my direction.
She smiles and she looks at me with clear eyes.
Robert Mclaim Wilson, Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland Like No Other
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