The Strangely Unmistaken Long Ago Story of a Mistakenly Unintended Meeting of a Fairy-Tale Fantasy in Ancient Youghal, County Cork, Ireland
By Leo Crowley
The other day, in the midst of the bleak Irish mid-winter, with the soft eiderdown mist of an East Cork morning dropping lazily out of a gun-barrel grey blanket of an uninterrupted leaden sky, it was so cold that my 108 year-old dad (Matthew) made me put on his Russian-styled beehive of a balaclava head-covering hat, suitably embroidered with the harp insignia, and his all-weather flying jacket, suitably lined with lambs’ wool, and which he always wore when he went to the local hamlet for shopping on a winter’s day.
Due to his increasing age and limited mobility, it was now my duty to run the household errands as he used to, and now as he wanted me to continue in his own previous custom. Upon seeing me walking out the door his delightfully friendly and conversant Irish housekeeper said, "well now, you look just like the way your Dad used to dress when he went to town every Christmas-time for the last 30 years or so." Being quick to please and slow to chide, I embraced her remark like a friendly father-son embrace, and lightly and brightly stepped out into the damp, decaying dawn into the newly enlightening twilight of an increasingly, progressing winter’s day.
So I went into town (dressed like my Dad) and immediately and spontaneously a gentleman (the ‘Quare Fella) crosses over the road towards me and asks "Matt, is that you?" – obviously believing his is addressing my Dad - so I reply "yes it is'" (pretending to be my Dad), and the fella says "my word, you do look well" and I reply "well I don't feel so well," and his eyes light up and he says" well, then, you are Matt Crowley for sure, as that's the very thing he would say !"
Not waiting for any explanation, and without any chagrin, the “fella now says "my, but you do look great" and I reply "well I don't feel so great" and again his eyes light up and he says" well, you are Matt Crowley for sure, as that's the very thing he would say!" Then delving into the depths of his deepening memory recesses of many years of knowing my Father, and his rapidly clamoring brain self-informing him that my dad had passed his 100th birthday some years ago, the ‘fella then politely asks and respectfully states "I thought you (meaning my dad) died a long time ago" and I reply (again pretending to being my “dead” father) "well I did die, but I did not get a free pass to Heaven as the Archangel that I was assigned to told me I would have to do further penance.” “Ah, well now,” says the ‘fella, “that’s a very strange story” and expecting a very strange ending, he encourages me to continue.
“Well now,” says I (now once again pretending to be my suddenly deceased father) “well the Archangel further explained to me that it was of the opinion of his consulting overseer Saint Peter that 'although the Irish were too good for the Earth below, they were not quite good enough to enter Heaven above' and so an extra penance was levied on them."
"And what was that, then?" Asks the ‘fella to which I replied "well my penance was to return to Earth and personally have to live with my own kids for another 5 years" says I, as succinctly as possible. “And why was that?" asks the fella, now rumbling and tumbling into his own aura of questioning incredibility.......”well, it was explained to me that then and only then would I understand the true meaning on Earth of real pain and real suffering." "That's it! 'Tis very true" says the now suddenly and independently departing ‘fella, processing this new information like a paper-shredder stuck in mid-shredding, and taking a step backwards, he slowly dissolved into the graying background of the busy street, stepping carefully into the enveloping mist of his own obscurity, shaking his head, and then, like a new day dawning off the shimmering river Blackwater, and suddenly self-piercing his own cloud of miserable unknowing, he suddenly breaks into a smiling caricature of himself, delightedly glowing with a new incandescence, and he departed decidedly and deliriously out of the unmistakably marvelous egalitarian experience of his own incredibly creative experience, his comprehension without further mention, he stood to attention, his glowing face now wrestling with this new futuristic incomprehension, and forever achieved and was never grieved, of his delighted reception of his now non-contributory pension.
Strangely Unmistaken Long Ago Christmas Story by Leo Crowley
