The Heelers Diaries

the fantasy world of ireland's greatest living poet

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Location: Kilcullen (Phone 087 7790766), County Kildare, Ireland

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

heeler the peelers supernatural tales of yoikes and honey if the house tells us to get out i really think we should go

When my father was 17 and newly enrolled at university, he was returning home on foot from a student dance one dark night.
He was walking up Blessington Main Street.
The street was unlit in the 1940's.
It was so dark he could not see his hand in front of his face.
He shuddered in the midnight cold.
He had an eerie feeling he wasn't alone.
Blessington people often told stories about ghosts accosting lone travellers late at night.
The ghosts were said to be the spirits of drunken revellers who had wandered in front of trams.
My father was half way along the street when he felt a presence materialise in front of him.
There was a rancid smell.
A boney cloth wrapped figure enfolded my father in a claustrophobic embrace.
It made an unearthly sound.
The sound was: "Urggggghhh."
The young man was almost paralysed with raw fear.
Then he heard another sound.
A clinking.
As though a bottle had just fallen over.
My father realised he had stumbled into a local character who occasionally got drunk and slept off his liquor out in the open on Main Street.
A wave of relief swept over him.
He burst out laughing.
A light came on in a house nearby, briefly illuminating the scene.
The cloth wrapped figure stepped back from my father and shook a fist.
"Who's laughing at me?" roared the Diderum.
The young student finished his journey home at a gallop, pursued by the enraged Diderum.
The Diderum could run surprisingly fast for an inebriate.
The front door of the Healy homestead, which was the old post office on Blessington Main Street, banged shut behind my father with inches to spare.
There came a thump as something collided heavily with the other side of the door.
Then a sliding sound reminiscent of a body slumping gently onto the pavement.
Then, ever so softly, the long easeful cadences... of the Diderum snoring.

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