<BACK
 

BAA!BAA!
BAA! BAA!
“Shit man!! Stop moving will yer!”
BAA!!BAA!BANG!
“Gotcha! Yer little bastard”

Eddie Temple is dressed in a white string vest, his black trousers are held up by tartan braces and he’s wearing ill fitting wellies as he stands in the mud loading his shotgun. Eddie’s playing the country gent, in his own inimitable his way.

He slicks back his tight black hair and uses the accumulated Vaseline to groom his goatee and rests his gun on his shoulder and seeks out another target. Eddie’s got his ipod on stuck on his belt. White earplugs blasting out “Motorhead” by Motorhead. Eddie’s lost in his own perfect world: good loud music and a little bit of death.

BAA! BAA! BANG!
Another sheep explodes and falls to the ground with wool and guts flying all over.
He found a computer and a printer in the old farmhouse, printed off some targets and decided to have some fun.
He aims the shotgun at another target on the fleece of a sheep, it struts around from left to right, “Arrogant bastard, get ready…” BANG! “Get down ya bastard” his voice booms like a bouncing basketball in an empty gym all over the valley.

Two twitchy gun muzzles peep around the corner of the farmhouse and aim at Eddie’s back. Two men in black suits, white sneakers and matching t-shirts, stand looking on as Eddie systematically slaughters a field full of sheep.

“Eddie!” shouts Hedley the elder one.
“Eddie!” shouts Dervil, the younger one.

“Daft bastard, says Dervil “he’s wearing earphones”
“Best wait till he’s finished” says Hedley.

Eddie’s ipod randomly shuffles to Robbie Williams’ “Angels” begin to chime out. “How the fuck did that get on?” He whips out the earphones in disgust.

Hedley sees this.

“EDDIE!!!”

Eddie instinctively turns around and shoots, taking a lump out of the corner of the farmhouse showering mortar onto Hedley’s immaculate suit. Dervil, dives onto the grass and his gun lands in some horseshit.

“Jesus Eddie, it’s me, Hedley”
“Hedley?”

“Yeah, Hedley” he echoes getting up from the ground wiping mud from his Armani jacket.
“Whatever” snaps Eddie as he throws the shotgun away and walks over to the farmhouse. Hedley looks around and sees dead sheep dotted around the field with a few scared ones huddled in the far corner shaking their arses off.
Hedley beckons Dervil over as he wipes the shit off his gun.

Inside the tiny farmhouse living room Eddie stands in front of a mahogany mirror above the fireplace and puts on a white shirt. He fiddles with a gold cufflink. Hedley squeezes into a small brown chair “Are they fucking hobbits who live here?”
Dervil noses about, picking things up.

“You should have told me you were coming. Surprising me like that. Could have blown your fucking heads off”.
“If you hadn’t your headphones on…” said Hedley and regretted it as Eddie turns and eyes him with that cold grey stare.
Eddie turns back to the mirror tightening his tie like a noose.
“So why you here and why the hell am I babysitting two pensioners?”
Hedley tilts his head towards Dervil, who is examining the intricacies of a ceramic figure of a French Aristocrat.
“Then later” says Eddie putting on the other cufflink.

“Do you know they used to cut their heads off… that was the Revolution that was” Dervil carefully replaces the figurine in the roughly drawn chalk outline; he notices everything static in the room has been chalk marked.
“It’s Mario’s cousin” whispers Hedley to Eddie. Eddie shakes his head.

“I’ll get my bags” Eddie squeezes through the stiff door, walks along the narrow passageway and looks into the master bedroom.

Mr and Mrs Chillingham are tied back-to-back, bound and gagged seated on the floor, he’s slumped forward, she’s pissed herself. “You’re going to have to wait until I get back Marge, you move anything or try to get away you’ll end up as one of those baa, baa fucking red sheep, understand?”

Her red cheeks puff up as she tries to tell him something, but she gives up and throws her head back in frustration.

*

The car rocks its way from the Chillingham Farm and snakes its way through the Yorkshire winding lanes. The midday sun seeps through the heavy grey clouds like salmon blood pouring from a wound.

Hedley’s driving. Dervil is seated in the front trying to fill in a crossword puzzle.
Hedley eyes an agitated Eddie through the rear view mirror.
“To brighten… Ten letters” says Dervil sucking his pen.
“Little Chef” says Eddie
“No that’s only 1-2-3-4-…”
“For fucks sake put your foot down, I’m starving, those two grey haired bastards back there are fucking veggies, I want some fucking meat.”

The Little Chef is half full of pensioners and cosy little families. Eddie screws his face up, “Fuck me boys, now I have a real concept of what purgatory is, Ferries and Little Chefs, fucking in between worlds know what I mean, where the fucking half dead eat over priced crap.”

They grab a pew with Eddie facing the sliding doors, Hedley and Dervil sit opposite.
“Changed my mind, I don’t want anything, the bacons like cardboard in here.”
“Eddie you’ll have to eat something. Dervil, get Eddie a sausage sandwich and three cups of tea.”
Dervil sighs and does as he is told.
“He better remove his fucking attitude,” snaps Eddie.
Two little boys look over quizzically; prompted by their parents, return their eyes to the table.

Eddie puts his head in his hands and mumbles, “What’s this about?”
Hedley leans forward “Someone’s put a contract on Mario” Eddie looks up “A guy called Massima, a Greek hard nosed bastard, he’s like a myth, a ghost and he’s fucking evasive, powerful. He only wants to take over Mario’s operations, now his ex-girlfriend is the only person who can finger him, and you’ve been babysitting her parents as blackmail. So she’s in the country, you’ll have to meet her, she points out Massima you blow him off this little blue marble and we’re all happy again.”
“I haven’t even fucking heard of him”
“Me neither”
“Consequences, there’s always consequences” Eddie says dropping his head, gathering spilt sugar into a heap.
“They reckon he has more enemies than friends” continues Hedley “They’ll step in to take over, they’ll be all to happy to do that.”
Eddie looks contemplative “Like a kaleidoscope, one shuffle and it’s a new pattern.” “He’s your sandwich” Dervil bangs down the tray nearly spilling the teas, interrupting Eddies thought process. Eddie glares at him.

Eddie examines his sandwich “I’m not eating this shit it’s like a burnt cock” Eddie scowls. Dervil quickly grabs the sandwich and bites into it, “I’ll have it,” he splutters with his mouth full and tomato ketchup spewing all over.

“Oh! Eddie, I nearly forgot, I got you this” Hedley fishes out a Tate Modern pamphlet from his pocket, “Seurat? Never heard of him, but I’m sure you mentioned ‘im before” Eddie looks ecstatic. “Nice one Hedley”

As Hedley tells Dervil off about his table manners, Eddie interjects “Just going to take a leak”

As Eddie walks towards the toilets he can feel a rush like he’s in a wind tunnel, adrenalin tingling his forehead like he’s on a 500cc Harley doing a million miles per hour, everything in his peripheral vision blurs and the sounds of the restaurant become muffled, he feels so high, “Seurat and a hit in one day, beats them fucking sheep this morning, ten times”

He punches open the toilet door and stands at the urinal, a guy is standing in the corner wearing a Middlesborough football shirt. He’s typing in a number on his mobile with his free hand and zips up. “Is he going to the match?” says a voice from the cubicle.
“Must have it turned off” the guy looks at his phone and tries again, he glances at Eddie as he brings the phone to his ear “What you fucking looking at?”
Eddie zips up and can’t believe his luck, he looks behind him and grabs a mop Eddie rushes him and plunges the mop into his throat, “What the fu…” BANG! His head hits the tiles like a cement bag as Eddie pushes him to the wall.
“What you fucking looking at? What you fucking looking at? A dumb fuck, that’s what, well reach for the stars you fucking shit” Eddie pushes him up the wall, the shank bending from his weight, his legs kick out pathetically. Then Eddie whips away the mop and as the guy slides down onto his arse he smacks him in the nose blood splashing like a squashed tomato.

The guy in the cubicle walks out, takes one look and rushes back in again. Eddie kicks in the door in “Give me your fucking scarf” The guy gives him it as he cowers at the side of the bog, Eddie bundles the scarf into a ball, places it on the guys leg, pulls out his hand gun and gives him one in the leg. BANG!

The mobiles rings resonating Mr Blue Sky, the guy against the wall scrambles blindly around for his mobile, holding his nose, “Mr Blue Sky, I see you’ve got class, fucking train spotter” Eddie sees it in the urinal and picks it up, he looks at the callers name: “Now that’s interesting”
he throws it into the bog and flushes it into bog heaven.
He takes one look before he leaves, the guy against the wall looks like a pissed off Buddha with a broken nose and the other squirming around holding his bloodied scarf on his leg. “Now that’s what I’m looking at dumb fucks.”

*
No one says a word a all the way to London. Dervil is still trying to complete the crossword, “To brighten… Ten letters” Eddie is benignly calm but Hedley is keeping an eye on him through the rear view mirror.

They pull up outside Mario’s home, a large chalk white house in Chelsea, just off the Belgrave Square, around the corner from Victoria station. It’s late afternoon, the Sun is high, their long shadows ripple up the steps and loom onto the side of the building, menacingly like three uninvited guests.

A small thick set man, bald head, black crombie coat opens the door, recognises Hedley and Dervil and invites them in, Eddie is frisked and his gun taken from him, he causes no fuss under the circumstances.

They’re led into a large living room. Fawn coloured walls, with a brown dado rail running hip height around the room, white fluffy floor mats, queen bee chandelier and a snakeskin curtain with French aristocrat figurines dotted all over the place.

“Classy” says Eddie.

Enter Mario, bronzed, small, nervous and weighed down with bling. “Bonaparte” thinks Eddie.

“Siddown Mr Temple”
“Of course. Thank you.”

Dervil and Hedley disappear. They’re replaced by two bouncers who position themselves behind Mario.

In walks Miranda, pink see through no bra and a leather thong, she hands Eddie his favourite tipple: Jimmie Bean with a dash of cream soda. Eddie’s index finger strokes her hand as she passes the glass, she suppresses a smile and sits on the other side of the chesterfield cooing over the rim of her wine glass.

Eddie is not impressed by Mario’s taste in Art; Oxfam kitsch, a painting of a crying boy.
“You want to get rid of that Mario” Eddie says pointing to the picture. “That’s a jinx of a picture, I read about it in a Sunday supplement, houses being burnt down, people having weird freaky accidents, it’s cursed.”
“Listen I don’t give a fuck, I want this Massimo character fucking blown away, you understand?” He twitches his arm nervously, nearly spilling his drink.
“I don’t know who this fucking Massimo is, this is totally out of the blue, I mean who the hell is he, he’s got me all worked up, but he’s in town and the only person who can point him out is his old flame, Magdelan X”
“Who the fuck is Magdelan X?” asks Eddie drinking his Bean soda slowly.
“Margaret Chillingham aka Magdelan X, she’s a cult movie director, record producer in with all those fucking gangsta’s, she’s here from LA, you’ve got to meet her at the Claremont at one.”
“What does she look like?”
“A fucking extra from a vampire film”
“Good” Eddie resigns, “Looking forward to meeting her and wrapping this up.”

Mario turns to pour himself a stiff one. Eddie gets up from the sofa and squeezes the big toe of Miss Tease; “You want to see a chiropodist pet I can feel a corn coming on.” She giggles. Eddie slaps Mario on the back “I’m telling you, you want to get rid of that painting, the kid crying, it’s a jinx.”
“It belonged to my sister, it’s precious.”
“So where is she now?”
“Dead. About three years ago a lorry went out of control and ploughed through her sitting room while she was on the ladders wallpapering.”
“Goodnight.” Eddie leaves.

*


Eddie is surveying the intricate dots of a Seurat; Bathers at Asnieres. The colours merge as he steps back and sees the firework of paint, scatter and fuse into the synergy of a recognised image. He gets up close again, his nose nearly touching the canvas. “Perfectionist, an ultimate perfectionist, carefully building up the colour, he knew the art of perception”. Eddie stands back in amazement, “The delicacy of tone, the vibrancy and soft luster… Illumination, fucking class.”

Eddie smiles, checks his watch and leaves.

*

The midday sun makes everything golden like a Dali painting. The windows reflect the light, illuminating the streets like a theatre. Eddie walks along dressed all in black like an undertaker, slick back hair, long black coat , black drainpipes and winkle pickers. On his ipod; Alabama Train by Louisiana Red. “Alabama Trainnn!!! Going down the line.”

Eddie enters the Claremont’s Art Nouveau doorway and onto the oceanic red carpet. He smiles at the receptionist, nods to the lift attendant and makes his way to the West Bar.

Eddie pauses before he enters, plucking out his earphones, staring intently on a woman sitting on a high stool at the bar. “Well if it ain’t Lily Munster”
A slim Gothic 30 something sporting a Louise Brooks black helmet haircut. Her sinuous legs covered in red wine fishnet stockings. She’s wearing the same clothes as Theda Bara, like she’s dug her up and stole her wardrobe. Pale skin coloured by purple lipstick, dark panda eyes and a white pearl necklace colliding down her neckline.
Eddie’s mesmerised. He holds out his hand, they shake, her hand limp, soft and dry as paper.
She manages a thin pencil smile like a crack across a plate.
“Magdelan X?”
“Eddie Temple? The Eddie Temple?”
“Why? You’ve heard of me?” Eddie sits next to her.
“You have a reputation that I have admired from a far”, she sips her vodka keeping her eyes on Eddie.

Magdelan is a producer of snuff porn movies, attracting suicide cases and terminally ill people to act out their final fantasies on video to the soundtrack of crap hip hop artists. “I run a public service” she explains. “Great, as long as you’re happy, by the way your parents are fine, don’t worry” Eddie tries to put her mind at rest “Big deal, you should have shot them” she takes another sip and blows smoke into Eddies face “And you should have filmed them, I would have handled the distribution.”

Eddie is just about to tell her about her parents dwindling livestock when she raises her eyebrows and gestures for Eddie to look behind him.

A Medditerean looking guy in a brown tweed coat is standing waiting for the lift. “Massima?” Magdelan nods.
Eddie is just about to get up when a slap on the back takes him by surprise. “Hey Eddie!!” says Dervil with big smile on his face.

“What the fuck”
“Mario says I can tag along, to see if you need any help” He gives Magdelan’s body a complete inspection, Eddie heads for the lift, Dervil follows but leaves his eyes on Magdelan’s legs. She winks.

Massima doesn’t look much, small and thin, only the coat makes him bulky. Eddie could take him now, snap his head like a twig, but the lift attendant is an old man nearing retirement and Eddie thought twice. He didn’t want any surplus and besides he gave Eddie a nice smile when he came in.

Massima gets off, third floor and stands in front of a door looking for his keys in his deep pockets. Eddie counts down the doors from the lift “1-2-3-4” They both stay in the lift, Dervil was expecting to get off and do him in the corridor. Eddie holds him back and shakes his head, looking at his apprentice with disdain.

They get off the floor above and take to the stairs. Eddie screws on his silencer, Dervil is watching like a little kid at his every move.
“What the fuck are you looking at?”
“How do you keep so cool? I’m shaking and I ain’t going to do nothing.”
“Watch and learn you little fuck.”

They walk down the corridor. Eddie counts the doors and pulls out a small screwdriver.He jimmies the lock, rushes in with his stiff arm extended, sees Massima sitting on the bed typing a number on his mobile. Eddie puts a bullet in his head sending Massima’s wig flying off his head and hitting the back wall like a flying rat. Massima slumps to the bed. Blood pours out of his head, quietly staining the quilt.

Eddie lowers the gun and breathes in then WHACK! Dervil hits Eddie with the butt of his gun.

*

Eddie comes around, his vision is blurred but he sees Massima’s body still on the bed. He’s sitting up with his arms bound with a dead man’s tie. Magdelan is sitting in a chair opposite Eddie near the bed, she laughs as she’s looking through Massima’s wallet. “Get this, he’s called Costos Kaopolos and he’s here to attend a Sanitary Towel Sales Convention.”

“Talk about losing your rag” Dervil quips, they both laugh. Dervil speaks into his mobile “Jimmy? Is this your new number? Yeah…Yeah… Come on up”

Eddie is pissed off.

To make matters worse in walks the fat guy from the Little Chef toilets, he’s wearing a neck brace and thin butterfly stitches zebra, across his nose.
“So this is Eddie fucking Temple? He done me in the bogs in the Little Chef.”

He gives Eddie a kung fu kick to the side of the head. Eddie takes the force and creases his face in pain. “Fucking shit head, nearly killed me”
He turns to Magdelan.
“Mags.”
“Jimmy” says Magdelan. They kiss and grope like sixth formershis hands all over her. Dervil looks away all shy.

Eddie contemplates his situation, it’s like that Seurat painting. When you’re up close you can’t see the picture, the motives, the consequences that lead you to a place, one step back and you can see everything, the whole caboodle. This is his one step back and he’s pissed off.

Magdelan and Jimmy go into the toilet for a quickie, leaving Dervil having a power trip.He’s fiddling with the standing lamp in the corner, turning it on and off.
"Ten letters" scowls Eddie, Dervil looks at the lightbulb, turning it on and off, "Still can't get it?" says Eddie mocking him.

“I might as well tell you, you’re fucking fish bait” says Dervil. He waves the gun in Eddie’s face wearing a Joker smile.
“The big Eddie Temple eh? Well you’re going to get fucking hunted down because we’re going to fucking blow Mario to kingdom come and while they’re chasing your sorry arse, Jimmy’s operation is coming South and, it’s going to be spectacular.”
“Good, it sounds like a great turnaround of events, I wish you luck but I wouldn’t trust those dick heads even if you made me king Dalek.”
Magdelan screams with joy “YESSS!! YESSS!!. Dervil creeps up to the door and presses his ear to the wood, he sucks the barrel of his gun.
“Wouldn’t mind a go myself”

He leers towards Eddie.
You’re as good as dead and I’m taking over from you I’m the new Eddie Temple”
“Your fucking what?” Eddie half laughs and gestures to Dervil to come nearer;
“To brighten… twelve letters, still ain’t got it?”
Dervil, incensed, flips the gun to pistol whip Eddie but a dishevelled Magdelan grabs his arm.
“We don’t want damaged goods, take it out of him later.”
Jimmy, sweating profusely, zips up and sits on the side of the bed near the corpse, wheezing and giving his lungs overtime. He dampens a hankerchief with something from a little bottle, throws it to Dervil.
“Right. Here’s what we do.” Dervil places a cloth over Eddie’s mouth, he struggles moving his head from side to side but falls unconscious, the blurred figures of Jimmy and Dervil looming over him.

Eddie wakes, like he has one almighty hangover, his vision returns and finds himself in a field its pitch black, Dervil is muttering to himself near the barbed wire fence, Magdelan lights a cigarette and pollutes the full moon with her smoke. Jimmy is sitting in the car holding his mobile. Eddie struggles but his strength is still a long way away, he gives up and watches. Curious.

In the distance, on the far side of the field, three cars trundle into a warehouse yard, their headlights piercing through the aluminium fence. They get out, a little guy hovers then enters the warehouse, Mario and his cronies. A figure exits the warehouse gets into the car and drives away. Jimmy receives a call, “Okay” he shouts over to Dervil.

Dervil gets on his hunkers, wipes his brow and presses down on something. Suddenly a humungous orange flower explosion lights up the whole place.

BANG!!

Dervil looks over to Eddie and smiles inanely.
“I told him to get rid of that fucking painting” says Eddie.
Magdelan takes a small knife and stands behind Eddie, he thinks he’s going to be cut free but she cuts into his finger, Eddie winces and watches her balance the blood drop on the blade and walk over to wipe his blood on the barbed wire and the detonator.

“Job done, now get in the boot” Dervil lifts Eddie to his feet and marches him over to the car. He’s bundled inside and sees Dervil silhouetted by the Moon, “Hey Dervil, to brighten twelve letters.”
“Fuck you” and the black door crashes down with a dull thud.

Eddie hears their muffled voices getting into the car and Magdelan giving Jimmy directions. Eddie curls up like he’s in a womb only he knows he’s not going to be reborn.

He sighs and thinks not of his oncoming execution but all the hits, his greatest hits: pushers in seedy bedsits, red corpse ridden swimming pools, burnt out cars, asshole druggies with heads wide open like busted oranges, bath time strangulations and dead sheep. He thinks back to his school days. He stabbed the art teacher with a pencil because he called the Mona Lisa a transvestite, “Fucking supply teachers, he taught Maths anyway”. He sees his brother just turned 21, being fished out of the River Wear, his grey face coloured by indigo lips with a single gun shot hole on his forehead like a birth mark, born to die, now there’s an irony. The seaweed on his head made him look like he won something, a laurel for getting into deep shit.

And the sister he never had, she died 3 months after his Mother gave birth, her feet never touched the earth. He was in a class at junior school, his dad finished early came to pick him up. Only the family attended, a little white coffin with golden handles was lowered into a hole underneath willow tree. It was a foggy day and his dad’s hair was silver with grief, his mother didn’t attend, locked herself up for a few months. The funeral meant being off school, all Eddie wanted to do is get back home and rip the limbs off his Action Man. “Who put the fun in funeral?”

The car boot opens and the Full Moon halos Dervil, “Fucking get out.” He pulls Eddie’s shoulder and hauls him out. Magdelan cuts Eddie free and steps back immediately. Dervil has his gun pointing at Eddie and with his other arm, throws a spade to Eddies feet. “Dig.” Eddie reluctantly picks up the spade, “Over there near them rocks” Eddie stumbles over and plunges the spade into the soil.

“Don’t I get a last request?”
“Whatever”
Eddie searches his inside pocket.
“What the fuck… Don’t move” wails Dervil pointing his gun at Eddies head. Eddie plucks out some white headphones and fiddles with the toggle “Number 22… Time takes a cigarette, puts it in his mouth.” Eddie carries on digging, Dervil leans back on the car “I’ll have that when I’ve blown your fucking head off”.

Eddie looks over, he sees Jimmy lean into the car to turn the headlights on, the spotlights light the whole place up like a theatre . Magdelan, leaning on the bonnet of the car hands Dervil some weed, he smokes it like he knows how to then coughs violently, he stumbles over to Eddie.

“Fucking nugget” Eddie whispers leaning on his spade watching Dervil approaching him. Then, in slow motion, Eddie notices Jimmy’s head explode on one side a plume of blood squirts out, his legs swirl and he hits the ground with a groan and a smack. Magdelan takes a draw, turns her head to see Jimmy when a bullet rips in one side of her neck and out the other side. She slumps onto the bumper slides down into a sitting position and slumps forward her nose bobbing up and down, inches from the dewy grass.

Dervil with his mind on plugging Eddie gets a bullet in the shoulder, he falls into some horse shit.

Eddie is frozen to the spot, he grips the spade as an inadequate weapon then a figure emerges from the trees and stands in front of the glaring headlights, the silhouette walks towards Eddie.
“Eddie?” syas the mysterious voice.
“Who the fuck is that?”
“It’s me Hedley”
“Hedley?”
“Bit of a situation you’ve found yourself in eh?”
“You could say that”
Hedley moves closer, his breath clouds, engulfing Eddies bemused face.

“There’s only me and you left Eddie, lets get out of here, buy you a drink?”
“A drink?” Eddie lifts the spade to the bottom of his chin “Yeah, chin, chin”
and plunges the spade down hard into Hedley’s feet. Hedley lets out one hell of an atavistic scream, howling like a werewolf. He falls back onto the ground crying like a baby. “Jesus Eddie, what the fuck… Why? Why?” Eddie is just about to cut his head off, “Why?”
“Never did like you, you fucking judas” Eddie stabs the spade into his neck and brings his foot down onto it for extra depth, Hedley gurgles, his eyes are like golf balls and his swirling tongue sticking out like a piece of rolled up ham and jets of blood spurts freckling Eddies white shirt. “I’ll tell you why, it was your name on Jimmy’s mobile, in the Little Chef, fucking Judas.”

“Keys” Eddie finds them in the ignition.
Dervil is moaning, squirming around in the mud and shit. Eddie has a bright idea, to even things out so to speak.
“You’re not that bright son are you? Just mixed with the wrong crowd, come with me and I’ll patch you up.”
Eddie helps Dervil to his feet and puts his arm around him, helps him into the back of the car. Dervil reluctantly agrees.
“I didn’t mean it Eddie”
“Shh! It’s just me and you now Dervil, I’ve got this really bright idea that’s been buzzing around in my head, I just have to carry it through”.

They drive off.

Dervil examines his wound, underneath his thick overcoat, “I don’t think it’s that bad.”
Eddie eyes Dervil in the rear view mirror and manages a wry smile at the irony of the switched positions.
“It’s not that bad, mind we’re going back to the hotel to fix you up, behave as normal as possible, you hear?”
“Aye” Dervil’s head slumps back.

They pass the half empty reception without suspicion, enter the lift and get off at Massima’s floor. His body is still on the bed and starting to smell. Dervil collapses onto the bed.
“You know Eddie, it’s been on my mind all day, it’s about the chalk lines in the farm house, around all the ornaments… whats all that about?”
Eddie looks at Dervil.
“I just don’t like people to move anything, ever heard of the Butterfly Effect?”
“No”
“A butterfly wing can cause an earthquake on the otherside of the world, it’s all about consequences”
“Bullshit”
“You move things to one side, another takes it’s place, bit like today, those chalk lines… call it a premonition I had before you came.”

Eddie hauls Massima’s body to the floor.
“Now here’s that bright idea”

He walks over to the standing lamp in the corner, whips off the lampshade, and grabs the long thin wooden stand like a lance, throws Dervil back onto the bed and sticks the red hot bulb into Dervil’s mouth… “You’re not that fucking bright are you… Ten fucking letters… To brighten… ILLUMIN-FUCKING-ATE”

The light bulb burns the inside of his mouth he tries to scream, his cheeks puffing up and down like asthmatic balloons. Eddie takes his fists and hits him on either side of his swelling cheeks, the light bulb bursts in his mouth and out comes a mangle of broken glass and thick darkened blood.

Eddie stands up “Aye you’re not that fucking bright are you?” and throws down the lamp.

Straightens himself up and leaves the room. Gets in the lift.
Puts in his phones, toggles Number 10, "Sweet Jesus irony.... Great Balls of Fire."

<BACK