In Turbulent Times

excerpt

The stream chattered to them like a lonely gossip glad of company. They listened to it courteously, saying nothing themselves, not from the want of things to say but from Liam’s diffidence about saying them. They walked on. They listened to the prattling of lesser streams instead. Once in Cooney’s Wood they stopped. Molly had a stone in her shoe. She supported herself on Liam’s arm and raised her foot to remove her shoe and shake out the offending stone. Liam saw her exposed calf and part of her thigh. His imagination groped higher, but his hands hung limp as rope-ends by his sides.
‘It’s so quiet here,’ Molly said, lowering her foot to the ground and straightening her skirt.
They stood still as posts, listening. But for Liam’s hammering heart the silence was unbroken. Not a sound. Not a sigh from the trees. Not a whisper from the grass. The silence almost cracked their ear-drums. Then they walked on to Molly’s house. He wished her ‘Goodnight’ and left her at the door without a goodnight kiss.
Liam often recalled that evening with Molly Noonan and every time he thought of it he squirmed with embarrassment, and cursed himself for his timidity. ‘She wanted me to kiss her,’ he would reproach himself with anguish. ‘And I was scared even to touch her. I’ve been as yellow as butter since I was a boy.’
Liam’s racking fear was that he would grow old and die without ever having seen a naked woman, a live, naked woman, without ever having caressed or explored her body with his quivering hands. Most unbearable of all was the thought that he would live out his life without ever experiencing the ecstasy, the ultimate mystery, of the sexual act. Over and over again in his mind’s craving he encountered beautiful girls, nude among the warm sand-dunes of Tranaliskeen or in farmhouse barns or bedrooms along the quiet lanes of the rolling, interior countryside. They beckoned him from shadowy, inviting doorways, they called to him to follow them along unfrequented pathways into dark and dappled woods. But never in reality. Except for that one time with Molly Noonan, and then he was afraid to do what he had done so often in his desirous daydreams.
Each year with aching heart and unquiet thoughts he watched the young girls in his small classroom arrive at adolescence. His eyes constantly strayed to their blouses or their cardigans. He could not stop his errant eyes nor put a shackle on his wayward thoughts. But only his eyes and his thoughts roamed free. He had no lewd intentions towards the girls.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

Arrows

excerpt

The rest of the prisoners were brought and their bindings cut. I
stood some distance away under a guava tree, not far from a group
of conquistadors who were standing off to one side, whispering
their discontent.
Apacuana’s eyes searched the crowd of onlookers. I fancied she
was looking for me. I dared not come forward for I had no notion of
what might be done, or even should be done.
“You go and tell your fellow caciques that I will not attack
without provocation,” Losada said, with Tamanoa translating.
At this instruction, Chacao was willing to nod. It was enough.
“Ávila, give them their weapons.”
At this remark, some of the estranged conquistadors at the outer
edges of the gathering gasped; Infante guffawed, openly derisive.
The old man was losing his mind. That was how he wanted the
other men to see it. It was obvious to me he was cultivating bad
feelings. Some of his followers agreed with him, others remained
respectfully silent.
For my part, I was torn. I was glad to see Apacuana would be
separated from us, for I feared for her safety among my fellow
Spaniards. At the same time, I was stricken with a peculiar,
heart-wrenching sorrow that I had never experienced before, as if I
would be losing part of my own chest. This sensation pierced me as
deeply as any arrow.

When Chacao turned and marched off, and the rest of the Indians
fell in behind him, I was overcome by an urge to speak with her,
even though I was not sure what I might possibly say to Apacuana
beyond the word good-bye.
I went to Tamanoa’s side and tugged on his wrist slightly,
keeping my gaze on Losada while I did so. When Tamanoa shifted
his head and we made eye contact, I motioned for him to follow me.
He had read my eyes. We did not slip away together. He waited,
then followed me discreetly.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

The Incidentals

Butcher’s knife
He sharpens his knife before
he tries it on the hind of the goat
hanging from the hook, grey-haired
neighborhood butcher who has
slaughtered many animals during
his career which has sold to meat
craving citizens. He was a very
important member of the society,
Stephen, in his white blood
stained apron, a butcher with his
washed out blue eyes, you could
say the national flag’s white and
blue colors, now that his back is
constantly aching, hunched man
who can’t sharpen his knives as easily
as he used to do, sometimes contemplates,
would they need a butcher up there
in the Heavens, do they still eat meat
in Paradise? Other than the days
of Lent when both the alive and
the dead abstain from eating flesh

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763637