Killian
The world looks like a haze, almost as if I’m looking at it through a smoky lens.
My neck is tense and stiff. I feel like I spent the day completely cleaning and renovating Ida’s stable.
I hear a groan escape me as I sit up in my chair.
Wait a second. Why am I in a chair?
My hands move to grab my neck. I try to rub some of the soreness from it, rolling my head around.
Apparently, I fell asleep at my desk last night.
Again.
I rub the sleep from my eyes, and the world doesn’t seem so hazy anymore.
My eyes fall to the open bottle of whiskey on my desk. I grab it by its neck and turn it about to see the label.
The sight of Bushmills and not Jameson is more than a bit of a relief.
There’s nothing worse than going out and being an utter gobshite of biblical proportions only to wake up next to that damned ex that broke your heart.
In this case, Jameson is the ex.
Bushmills is more the comforting friend who makes you tea and tells you ‘There, there’ while they pat you on the back.
Then, I notice a whole new problem.
My hand falls from the bottle of whiskey and slams against my desk.
My jaw drops just a wee bit at the sight.
The typewriter—my typewriter—is completely fucked. There is half a page of gibberish written on it that looks more like a fucking hybrid of Sanskrit and Egyptian hieroglyphs than the Queen’s own fucking English.
But that isn’t the worst of it.
No, not by a long fucking shot.
All the keys are jammed up and—yes, it gets worse—several are actually broken.
So not only did I ruin a completely perfect day with Rebecca yesterday by being a piece of fucking shite at the pub, but now my typewriter is also completely fucking ruined.
Apparently, it wasn’t bad enough that I was already behind schedule as it was for this book. No, I just had to fall further the fuck behind, didn’t I?
The whole week has been this giant fucking waste ever since Rebecca hit me with that monstrosity of hers.
I won’t say that seeing Rebecca again hasn’t been amazing, because that would be a lie. Being with her has been far more than I deserve.
And then there’s this whole arrangement between us.
What a crazy fucking idea that was.
How do I come up with all of this utterly insane and foolish ideas?
What was I seriously fucking thinking when I asked Rebecca to have a child with me? As if that was going to just magically make everything better.
Leaning back in my seat, I put my hands up over my face and look toward the ceiling.
All my frustrations are just rising to the surface of their own accord, and I let out this hybrid of a growl and a groan that’s muffled by my hands.
I let my arms fall to my side like lifeless limbs.
I’m trying to center myself.
I need to get back on track. I can’t keep letting all these distractions pull me down into this abyss of doubt.
I’ve got to be better than this, but I’m not.
When I see his damn book on my desk, my pep talk goes out the fucking window.
I pick up the trade paperback of The Light at Sea by Brian Flanagan.
I have no idea why the fuck it’s on my desk, but I only surmise that in my drunken stupor last night, I pulled it from the shelf.
I turn it over in my hand and see the black-and-white photo of Brian standing outside of the Lamb & Clover with a big smile on his face.
“Fucking smug prick.”
I know that I’m projecting.
I’m self-aware enough for that much at least.
But does that make me feel any better right now?
Not in the fucking slightest.
I toss the book—as hard as I can—across the cottage. It strikes one of my lamps with this horrid fucking dull thud.
The lamp and the book hit the floor together to the sound of the light bulb breaking.
Just another thing to add to the pile.
Another mess that I’ve made that I have to clean.
I grab the bottle of Bushmills and take a long drink to drown the bitterness and frustration that’s sitting like a lump in my throat.
The problem with that is whiskey never really makes me feel better or do anything to wash away the fucking darkness.
I drink and try to tell myself that the whiskey is what helps get me through the day. I tell myself that the booze will help me forget all my troubles and pain.
But my belief in that logic is flawed.
I learned a long time ago that whiskey and beer do nothing to drown the beasts of the soul.
It feeds them.
Nurtures them.
And—though I’m loath to admit it—I know that in the end, a man doesn’t drink to forget. He drinks to remember.
My eyes fall to the bottle in my hand. My grip against the neck of it tightens.
I throw it across the room with a yell of frustration.
This was not how I expected—or wanted—my morning to turn out.
But here we are.
The bottle hits my bedroom door, but it doesn’t break. Instead, it falls to floor and empties the rest of its contents around it—not that there was much left in it anyway.
My body feels sluggish as I stand. Which—given the amount of whiskey I likely had last night—isn’t all that surprising, really.
I pull the paper from my typewriter and crumple it up in my hands.
My desk is littered with nothing but balls of paper and half-typed sheets that look more like a Martian fucking manifesto than something that looks remotely close to a coherent, human thought.
I grab my garbage bin beside my desk and begin to fill it up with the mess from my desk. Soon enough, the only thing left to deal with is my typewriter.
I lift the typewriter and carry it across the cottage to a small trunk I keep in the corner between my bedroom and the sitting room.
Next up is Brian’s damn book.
I’m careful not to step in any of the broken glass of the busted light bulb and retrieve the book from the floor.
I head to my bookshelf and give the cover one more look over.
I admit, the book really wasn’t as bad as I wanted it to be—it did have bits of truly insightful writing—but I have no plans to tell any of that to Brian. Hell, I don’t even think he knows that I’ve read his books. Or own them for that matter.
I slip the book in between his other ones on my shelf where it belongs.
A soft sigh escapes my lips.
From across the cottage, my wall-mounted phone begins to ring.
It’s one of those slender black corded phones with no display. Real old-school eighties kind of phone.
Look—I don’t need a display.
I’m sure you’ve probably guess that about me by now.
I already know who it is that’s calling anyway.
There’s only ever one person who calls here anymore—my publisher.
I grab the phone mid-ring. “Morning, Henry.”
“Good morning, Killian.”
“It’s morning, but I wouldn’t call it good.”
“Oh, so we’re in one of those moods today. I thought you sounded particularly dour when you answered.”
I can hear him smiling when he speaks.
Henry is always far too chipper in the mornings for my liking. I think he overplays it because he knows of my disdain for it.
“What can I do for you?”
I already know exactly why he’s calling. He knows that I know. But I ask because it’s the polite thing to do.
And I’m still a gentleman...mostly.
“Well, I was hoping to get an update on how the novel is coming. Any details you can spare would be appreciated.”
“Well, about that, Henry...”
I swear I can hear the smile fade from his face.
“That’s okay, Killian.” He doesn’t sound convinced. “Just tell me how bad it is. Really, just be honest for once in your life, Killian Walsh.”