Light misty rain shrouds the roadside drama in damp chill, nature’s pain made manifest. The upended circumference of the tree stump is massive, rising as tall as it is broad. Still dry clay, sucked from the earth below, colours it light brown. The roots are cut clean, sheared off across the base to poke out from that pale surround as rough discs of fractured gold. Markers of the violence visited overnight, measure of the force of the storm that assailed.
The trunk stretches monumental, even as it lies horizontal. Broken branches are scattered on each side to mark out the scene. I stand silent beside the cadaver, head bowed in scrutiny of the remains. A tangled bush of leaves and timber swells up around its crown, though crushed flat on the underside. My hand rests still and light on rough bark. A mark of solidarity, of respect, of farewell. I mourn this loss. I grieve the violence of the storm even as I inwardly rage impotent despair at the human authors of such disruption.
‘It’s a tree, it’s down. We’re late. Let’s get on for god’s sake.’
‘There’s violence done here too, you know. This tree is as much a fellow being, equally demanding of our care and concern.’
‘It’s sad, agreed. It’s bad, fully agreed. But crying over it won’t do much. Never has.’
‘It’s how I feel, more and more. Not my choice, just my reality. I’m swamped by it all.’
She is impatient at such repetitive rituals, ever anxious for action and the adrenalin charged optimism that engenders. Mourning serves no purpose she insists, and I do concede that. It drains energy and leaves me unable to do more than watch on in disenchantment. Nevertheless, I am attuned to such disposition, hope ever more spent with each new calamity. She strides on towards the town centre and I trail along behind, the reluctant but obedient mutt. Roles that have become habitual are played out one more time. We are late, as she had predicted. There’s a scrum of people already seething around the bridge, unperturbed by dreary weather.
Flags of red, black, white and green are draped over the parapet on each side. Placards bob up and down across the span of the bridge, protest scrawled bold in capitals. The river below flows past in a bubbling rush, unconcerned at the melee above. Traffic builds up from both directions, irritation breaks through initial sympathy and good humour. The breeze lifts chants of dissent to flutter off to destinations unimagined. The forces of law and order move to firmly insist on passage for frustrated motorists. Phones are out, the drama streamed across the country, around the globe, along with the demand for an end to death and destruction. The drizzle of rain slows and the clouds pull back, as if to anoint our efforts with a flush of unaccustomed sunshine.
‘You’re one mournful looking fucker. Get into it. This is what matters, resistance.’
‘There’s lots to be sad about, actually, and this is hardly a celebration.’
‘God, you’d drag us down to the depths. Feel the community in action. This is going on all around the country. All of one mind and determined, there’s a power in that.’
‘I can see it working alright. An unstoppable force, I‘ve no doubt.’
I am tired of such repetitive rituals, formulae stripped of meaning in being deployed over and over. There is the analysis, the politics, the commitment and that’s not to be dismissed, to her mind anyway. She’s an activist, a radical activist by her own account, with little patience for those who fail to follow and meet the standard. I’m an activist, a jaded activist I would admit, with little spirit left to see beyond inevitable defeat. Still we are a couple, have been and probably will be, so needs must and I turn up as required. Eventually, the time set down for the protest is done, our point deemed sufficiently made. Banners and placards are packed up for the next iteration. Thoughts turn to the pub.
Mid-afternoon of a Saturday and the place finds itself struggling to cope. Normally a time for an older generation to sip quietly and watch the game on the big screens. Teeming protestors now jostle around the bar. Others thread a wary path between them to ferry sustenance to tables stretched along the far wall. A single barman toils gamely to keep pace with the demand for pints, pausing only to stretch across the bar for the tap of a card. Excited chat, scornful clamour and intense exchange echo back and forth to saturate the narrow space. Sat at a table by the far end of the room, the drink puts us at ease, serving both the firebrand and the grief-struck.
‘Is that a smile I see breaking through the glum? Ever so shy it is, but happy out with the buzz.’
‘Any credit goes to this place, ever able to cushion and cocoon. The tentacles of crisis can’t gain a hold once you’re through the hallowed portal.’
‘The modern-day cathedral. You’re onto something there. The pint as the saviour’s blood, the packet of crisps her body, and ever more disposed to heal our woes the greater our consumption.’
‘Cult-like too in a capacity to rid one of all reason, and render us unthinking adherents. Not sure I’m enthused by who that might suit, but I’m not complaining.’
The mind is stretched out in languid calm with the liquid. We reconnect in shared ritual, grateful for the disjoint of individual temperament repaired in a connection of shared release. Anxiety dissolves and an easy humour takes its place, the problems of the world reduced to background clamour. Maybe there is an alternative to that binary we function within, to march or to mourn. Disengagement doesn’t offer hope but it allows distraction, and achieves no less than all the marching and mourning. The demon drink, they cry, but there’s something to be said for it. In the times we’re in at least.
We don’t stay late, though night has fallen as we walk homeward. At an easy pace and side-by-side this time, we hold hands and dodge off the road with each new set of headlights rearing out of the dark. We’re even back in time to catch the news, each of us spread-eagled on a couch in thrall to the screen. Coverage switches from storm damage in locations around the country to a flash of far-off war and disorder, back to a car crash in the midlands with its inevitable fatalities, on to a second grisly war for some respite, then over to the latest murder trial, before an intense litany of sports completes the breathless rush. A cheerful good night tells us we’re done for the evening. A flick of the remote returns quiet to the room, as the drama of the day’s events, national and international, settles to rest.
‘Jesus, not a word about the protests. One more time. Where do they get off with their public broadcaster crap when they can ignore people up in arms around the country?’
‘Balance is all, for that crowd. They’ll say they couldn’t find anyone to stand up for the genocide.’
‘What’s the point if they can just ignore us? How are we ever going to change anything? At what point do we get heard and listened to?’
‘The only balance that newsroom ever achieves is between the gruesome global, inadequately explained, and the irrelevant national, recounted in tedious detail.’
‘We’re fucked, plain and simple. Madness prevails.’
‘You’re beginning to sound like me now and that’s not good for either of us. A couple of cans from the fridge might be called for.’
I don’t bother to turn the light on in the kitchen, feel my way over to the fridge. The open door casts a yellow light that throws my shadow up against the wall as I root out two cans. I stand back a moment in the dark, feel that customary gloom return, flow through the veins and reassert its hold. Somehow her energy and angry activism keep me afloat and alive, even if I shy away from it. The surge of discouragement I saw on her face, the look of defeat, felt like a safety line snapping. Already I sense myself adrift on roiling seas as I reach for glasses off the shelf above.
We pop the cans, pour the beer and raise our drinks to solidarity. Each lost in our own meandering thoughts, silence insists its hold as we imbibe for solace. I watch on, see that internal struggle trouble her, same as I’ve been through and lost long ago. Her marching days might be done, and we could both be confined to an enervating future of forever mourning. Not healthy in its capacity to drag us ever deeper into interdependent melancholies. We’ll not last that out, unless of course the world around decides to take a radical and unlikely turn for the better.
‘I’m gonna spray paint a shitty bank, that’s what I’ll do. They might take a bit of notice then.’
‘A bit of down time in the slammer, just what you need.’
‘You’d have us sat in front of this birdbrained screen for the rest of our days if you had your moany way.’
‘Well, if that’s how it’s going, I’ll glue myself to a Jack B. Yeats up in the city, maybe chuck some tomato soup over it. They’ll not miss out on covering that.’
‘We’ll be renting out the place for a while so.’
‘Revolution and with a profit to be made, eh? A terrible beauty is truly born.’
Laughter erupts in staccato bursts, ricochets in giddy disturbance around the room. The drink has taken hold to orient our disposition with its carefree buoyancy. We surprise ourselves with such mirth, not our habitual recourse. Maybe there is more mockery to it than mirth. Just as abruptly, silence returns to pin us down, sliding us off an exhilarating high into dank valley. We sit frozen, brooding, attention clamped to whatever trivia intrude our field of vision.
I break the spell, reach for the remote and flick the channels for relief. She grabs the iPad for diversion, scrolling furiously. Imagination flails in desperate search for a hold. The sounds of dissidence and a gleeful intensity to her demeanour suggests the protest might well be all over TikTok or other such venue. A documentary on biodiversity loss finally emerges from the flotsam I am trawling, sufficient to occupy lethargic attention. Rituals reassert and insist, minded to comfort and sustain both mourner and marcher.
About the author
Niall Crowley works on equality in Ireland and across Europe. His fiction is published by CafeLit, The Galway Review, Spillwords, and Pure Slush. He was shortlisted for the From the Well short story competition in 2021, 2022, and 2023, and Colm Toibín International short story award in 2022.
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