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more 'Self-harm'


His breakfast made, Blake sat down to eat it at the rickety table—it was like something from a Van Gogh painting—and found his mind drifting back to that accursed day and the appalling event that had seen poor Paul Pubb get put away.

Blake recalled a gusty, chilly afternoon with billowing clouds, grey and massive, rolling in from the eastern horizon. He was down on Mint Street sitting with Paul on some dilapidated street furniture: a vandalized bench, as he remembered it, that gave off a horrid tramp stench. As far as leading a normal life and partaking in everyday society went, both men were feeling decidedly out of the frame as the town clock struck three and leaves and litter blew about their feet. Disaffected is probably the word that best describes their state. Also, both felt a deep urge to escape themselves through drugs and were scanning the street in the hope that a dealer would  appear to do some business. The minutes dragged on and, in a loud voice aimed directly at Blake’s left ear, Paul expounded on a subject most dear to his heart: his unrequited ardour for and mounting obsession with the promising young actress Pearl Gamble. 

Ó Brian Ahern 2011

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