Armageddon

So, I moved to Edinburgh. I've been introduced to parsnips. I've experienced my first ever visit to KFC. My first viewing of The Little Mermaid was much vaunted, yet inspired little more than a mild craving for seafood. I have moved from feelings of profound irritation at the bizarre sounds that our kitchen tap makes to being impressed at how it operates as a dubstep DJ on the side. I even witnessed the slow death of what became affectionately known as Jack's Raging Mint Plant. And I've played a fuckload of card games ("fuckload" is an oft overlooked imperial unit of measurement, roughly equal to the size of two football pitches).

Phil and Dave cook and clean. I get the beers in. It's like Withnail & I, without the squalor....and with a less robust vocabulary.

I do often tend to equate life to plot lines or happenings in film. Which brings me to that time I experienced Armageddon.

I was sitting in a nearby Irish pub watching the auld country thrash the mighty footballing juggernaut that is Estonia in the first leg of the Euro 2012 play-offs. And I knew this bar was going to pass its own qualification test as proper Irish when they stocked Barry's Tea and Tayto Crisps. Home soil under foreign skies. It's entirely probable that Scotland's full Irish contingent had packed the place to the rafters and so real-estate was at a premium. Just after the midway point of the midway point in the contest it came to my attention that a foreign body had entered the patch of space which I had called home. This was Texas-sized, an extinction level event, and the music swelled to encompass the epic scenario in which I was now engaged. Quite extraordinarily, this asteroid was not alone.

She had a date.

I was soon caught in her gravity. My Texan asteroid was on a first date. In an astoundingly brief period I listened (against my will and sense of propriety) as she rained down a catastrophic meteor shower on the conversation. She segued, almost elegantly, from her (clearly desperate) companion's immediately awkward "small" talk of snake bites and grizzly bears to her teenage daughter, love of Doctor Who and finally, fittingly, to her not having had sex for "well....quite a while". I feared the impact. I was going to be invited to partake in a threesome. It was inevitable.

In cases of great uncertainty and necessity, a square peg may be called upon to fill a round hole. Bruce Willis and his team of deep-sea oil drillers did not, on the face of it, fit the bill of planetary saviours, but they got the job done. So happens that on this occasion, to save the world from the awkward asteroid, I was the square peg that would surely be called upon to....er....fill that hole. And by golly (not a phrase I use lightly) there would be some substantial drilling necessary here!

I know, I know. I was getting ahead of myself. The invite was inevitable. Nobody was going to dispute that. Yet before I got to the excavation, I would have had to make the journey and land on this behemoth. It was going to be arduous and fraught with peril. I would lose some of the crew along the way. Obviously one of the expedition's number would lose their mind and threaten the whole mission. Nonetheless, someone had to get in there to bring about that explosion. It wasn't going to be pretty. It was going to take great personal sacrifice. Flicking through my head were all the eventualities. Someone would draw the short straw and have to do the deed. This is where I'd shine brightly. This was my "little death" to die. I'd take one for the team, nay for humanity itself. Billy Bob Thornton would request permission to shake the hand of the never conceived daughter of the bravest man he'd never met. Mine was a sacrifice that would be selfless, noble and remembered for generations. I think it's clear to see that Ireland would have been renamed in my honour to New Deebsland.

I swallowed hard and turned to face my quarry. It took close to a minute to adjust and take in her full scope. Pretty sure she inhabited a fourth dimension. I downed my beer.

Fuck you Aerosmith! I want to miss all of these things. I want to close my eyes. You're on your own, world!

I walked away and didn't even look back as the world was presumably destroyed behind me. Cue the explosions, Michael Bay.

Sensational

In August, I embarked upon a brief, passionate liaison. Those of you who were working alongside me in that time will probably know to which I refer. It was an open secret during the month’s work, but it was presumably deemed improper or impolite to discuss in what had passed for civilised company. Thus, it wasn’t often commented upon, but the knowing looks told me that everybody was aware. I suppose that a part of the attraction was the danger, the lust and the fact it was unlikely to last beyond our time together in Scotland. It wouldn’t travel. It was too complicated and everyone knew it. It was only ever to be a festival fling.

I was kidding myself.

I had to come clean about my activities to some people who were unavoidably going to be affected by my trysts. I admitted to them and, maybe more so, to myself that I had developed deeper feelings than I had anticipated. I got in over my head. It was no “festival fling”! As my time in Edinburgh drew to a close, I found myself feeling increasingly distraught and desperate to spend as much time with my desire as I could, before things got inevitably messy back home in Dublin. I found myself wishing there was more time, if even just to sit in The Meadows, holding them and getting lost in our affair. We said our goodbyes and I’m not ashamed to admit that I found myself fighting back a tear or three, aware of the likelihood that it would end there, no matter how hard we tried to make it work. Nothing is the same outside of the month of Fringe. At least we’d always have Paris….(not legitimately, but in a Casablanca referencing kind of way).

Back home, I tried to pretend I wasn’t still in the thrall, but I was taken with the thrill. I wanted Paris back and, like the crazy fool I was, I wouldn’t accept that things couldn’t be the same. I wanted more. My appetite was insatiable.

And now here I am, returned to this bonnie wee country. I’ve been living here for just over a week now and I see that it can’t be the same. You can’t capture that lightning in a bottle, as the cliché goes. The fire hasn’t burned entirely out, but it’s not got the same heat to it. To be honest, even though it has only been two months since I found it hard to say goodbye, it feels a little bit as though I’m trapped in a loveless marriage. Sure, we still get together, but it seems to be mostly out of habit at this stage. Whereas before we were thrown together by an undeniable allure, now we draw close more out of routine and familiarity. I guess it happens, but I wished I had longer before the complications set in. Maybe then it would have been easier to maintain that spark. Maybe it’s time we took a break from each other.

Truth is, I’d been secretly looking elsewhere for the giddy little highs for some time before you caught us the other night. I’m sorry you had to see that, but I know you can’t have been all that surprised.

You’ll always have a place in my heart, Walkers Sensations. Your Caramelised Onion and Balsamic Vinegar flavour crisps will linger long within my soul, but it doesn’t seem right to continue living this lie. We deserve better than this arrangement. We both need to look elsewhere for happiness. The mini chocolate doughnuts and I hope you can forgive us.

Our children would have been hideous, half-man, half-potato mutants anyway.

Eye Contact

“Well, have you ever had any curiosity or inclination to be with a guy?” continued the conversation with a notoriously heterosexual friend over half-emptied drinks in a dark and dingy Dublin bar. Obviously, when I type “notoriously”, I don’t really mean that he has attained sufficient infamy in certain circles as to be spoken of in hushed whispers, his menacing visage staring down on the streets from posters proclaiming him “Wanted: For reasons of sexual preference”. He’s just verging on flamboyant in his lust for and pursuit of the lady folk. Also, it reads better than to deem him “militantly heterosexual” (the only other phrasing my mind was offering up to me at the time), as that leads to a whole different thought of a man at war, toting the implements of his hostile invasion….I’m going to leave that strand there and get to the point, kind of.

His question fell in the course of a discussion that sprang from his having been propositioned (quite rapishly) by a rather aggressive German with a side hair parting (no, not that one). Playing devil’s advocate in the field of human sexuality, I attempted to garner and present any manner of insight into the mind-set of experimentation-minded souls. Now, in spite of previously outlined instances (wherein I have done such deeds as leading a French heartbreaker astray and even out-gay chickening an undeniably homosexual dude), I am in fact set in my straightitude and have never contemplated testing other waters, Thus, I opted to present the (to my mind laughable) views of a former acquaintance, as follows:

“Well, I once had this guy try to convince me that you can never be 100% certain in your sexual conviction until you have fucked another creature of the same sex. And even though he himself was some manner of slimy rodent, he did relate tales of having undertaken just such a test of his being through intercoursing a human of the less fair sex. In fact, he’d even gone back for seconds, just to be sure that the first results hadn’t been corrupted by poor quality, and assess the LAY of the land as it were. Eventually he determined that he was not attracted to men. And he set about trying to fuck every woman that would cross his path from that day forth”.

Unfortunately, I took an ill-timed sip of my beer right at the start of that story. The result was my pausing and helplessly locking eyes with mi amigo as he broke down giggling (manfully) at the gap below:

“Well, I once had this guy….”

I could have timed that particular pause better, in light of the topic at hand.

The uncomfortable beat that comes when eyes meet at a moment of ill-timing is one that I have come to know, even abuse for my own sordid entertainment. Making a first-time acquaintance fear you may have killed before? Done. Muttering the name of a girl’s ex-boyfriend when you kiss her? Done and done! Those I enjoy, as the conductor of such curious concerts in conversational catastrophe. It’s those occasions outside of my control that I am given to loathing. Helplessly trapped in another’s gaze, incapable of breaking free, and with a body unwilling to respond to my entirely reasonable demands. Lost in despair. Fucked.

A routine doctor’s visit, for an embarrassing impact injury sustained in the course of some indoor football, was all going better than expected. A bit of bruising to a *ahem* sensitive area but no longer term discomfort forecast. At such times (not that I have been in a position such as this on any more than one occasion) I suppose it’s natural to let your glance drift around the room, rather than cultivating some manner of illicit eye-contact. Then it hit. I was stuck in an unwinnable staring contest with the doc’s wife and two young children. Why in the Christ had he set his family portrait to face outwardly towards me? I couldn’t break off. I was lost in my own world of horror.

“Er….you can put it away now”.

“Oh….shit….I….I mean yeah, of course” and back went it to where it belonged, free from the gloved hands of medical professionals and the static eyes of their families.

I’ve not been sick enough in the last few years since that one to really warrant convincing myself to return to that doctor. I could lose an arm and still justify some form of home remedy, just to avoid catching the glare of his poor, traumatised family picture. To be frank, I’m quite confident I have fought off a few fatal illnesses out of embarrassment alone.

Yet that ranks as a mere trifling footnote in the grand scheme next to my dealings with a particularly outstanding memory buoy of a fella with whom I shared patronage of a public house some years back. T’was a bar of not entirely reputable nature, to put it mildly, but he seemed like a decent sort. We shared a laugh or two as our paths would, on occasion, cross in front of the bar. The course of one conversation slanted my views somewhat though.

Regular guy at the bar: *long sigh*
Blissfully ignorant Deebs: “You alright, man? Looking a bit shattered there.”
Regular guy at the bar: “Ah, bit stressed. Have to find a new place to stay.”
Blissfully ignorant Deebs: “Everything alright?”
Regular guy at the bar: “Ah they kicked me outta the hostel round the corner. Found the samurai sword under my bed….”
Moderately alarmed Deebs: * widened eyes catch his casual stare*
Samurai sword owning guy at the bar: “….well, my parole officer did….”
Alarmed Deebs: *splutter*
“Your….parole officer?”
*uncomfortable eye contact maintained*
Parolee, samurai sword owner at the bar: “Only out a few months. Shot a guy in the head for what he did to my sister.”
Panicked Deebs:*eyes searing*
*attempting to hide panic while choking on beer*

Amazingly, conversation did continue and, to be truthful, he was a friendly guy nonetheless and I never felt he’d be likely to endanger me any time soon. Still, I was happy for the handful of potential eye-witnesses in the vicinity.

Regular convict at the bar: “Fancy a game?”
Just a small town Deebs: “Alright, whaddya have in mind?”
Regular convict at the bar: *places knife on the counter*
Inner monologue of a near-death Deebs: “Holy cocking mother of fuck!”
Eyes of a Deebs: “Holy cocking mother of fuck! Target acquired. Blinking abandoned for foreseeable future.”
Knife-wielding convict at the bar: “You put your hand flat on the bar, like this, and I go through your fingers with the knife. Every time I hit you, I give you a fiver. Then you have a go. Every time you hit me, you give me a fiver. Yeah?”
Squeaky voiced Deebs: “Er….you’re alright.”
Knife-wielding convict at the bar: “OK, you hit me, you give me a euro. I catch you, I pay a fiver. Deal?”
Over-compensating deep voiced Deebs: “Maybe another time. For now, I still have high hopes to find a use for these hands of mine.”
Rueful, knife-wielding convict at the bar: “Fine, another time. Speaking of things for hands to do though….”
*nods head at the girl behind the bar approaching with our drinks*
“The things I’d do to her if I were a few years younger. I tell ya, if I was her boyfriend, I’d jump over the bar, cover her in whipped cream and….”

I choose to trail off at this point out of a hitherto unknown sense of moral decency. Things got weird and funky at that point. I began to squirm, while still unable to speak in a coherent tone or break free from the spiralling stare of doom.

Sex monger at the bar: “What has you in here so often anyway?”
Regular Deebs at the bar: *nods head at that same approaching girl behind the bar*
“I come to see my girlfriend.”

Finally I expect that mortification will cause his eyes to widen beyond their regular parameters. There’s a brief pause….

Regular, samurai sword owning, knife wielding, sex mongering convict at the bar: “Well….? What are you waiting for then? I’ll get you the whipped cream….”

And that, children, is the story of how I lost my eyesight, when my eyeballs spontaneously combusted.