First came the shadows, darting beyond the dismal webbed roof of our nation. The Goddess of Night seemed perturbed. There was a build up of static in the air, a distinct electrical charge silently awaiting activation, like a calm before a storm. The demonic agents of malign Samhain stopped cackling, whirling and screeching. Instead, they sat upon rooftops, silently sharpening spears and watching the skies. Nyx’s antennae moved to and fro, wary, attempting to detect something. Beltane approaches. The gates are opening again.
For every demon that resides in the Collective-Unconscious there is also an angel. They are unruly angels but they are angels nevertheless. You will have seen them, recurring as archetypes in popular culture. The ones you rooted for in the tales of your childhood. I had taken advantage of Beltane, a favourable 24 hours when the divisions between dimensions are weakest, to activate the portal. The portal is probably one of the most powerful artefacts known in the world of the occult. It tears down the walls that separate fantasy from reality. As you can imagine, this results in mayhem. The portal should only be used by experts. I bought mine in Spar.
Letting the paranormal stand-off continue for the days leading to May 1st, I finally, that afternoon, opened the portal properly and let what lay in wait above break through. Great fiery seams tore across the dirty grey net that held back the heavens. The agents of Nyx took their positions and the Goddess herself assumed a defensive posture. There was a sound, like a distant roaring ocean, and then, through the rips in the firmament, poured the first wave of the mighty army that would be our salvation. The contents of the human imagination made incarnate. Battle Commenced!
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The first battalion comprised of the Mythologicals: the Tuatha Dé Danann in their mighty sky ships, Fin and the giant Cu, the Knights of the Round Table, Robin Hood, Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy (the latter three looking just like they did on the TV show). Monkey swept down on his cloud, hammering demons with his staff. Harpoons shot out from the sky ships, embedding themselves in the sides of a shrieking Nyx. The sky was a mess of combat with things whizzing about in all directions. The cacophony of clashing swords and injured howls was deafening.
Things were looking good for while but Nyx had met these foes before. She had their number. The Mythologicals were corralled into a valley and surrounded. Battered and weakened, they awaited their grim fate when, from up above, came the sound of roaring motors and reinforcements. ‘High ex!’ bellowed a voice and no one was more pleased than I to see Judge Dredd, Cassandra Anderson, Jonny Alpha, Slaine, Nemesis the Warlock, RoJaws, Hammerstein, Mek Quake and a whole 2000AD rocket powered regiment enter the fray with astonishingly savage abandon. They plummeted downward, hitting the legions of darkness like a blazing metal fist. BOOM! CRASH! BUDDABUDDABUDDA! BIG JOBS!
‘Follow our lead’, ordered Dredd, ‘my girlfriend will use her psychic powers to detect vulnerabilities’. Anderson seemed a little ruffled by this command. ‘Um, I’m not your girlfriend Dredd’, she pointed out. Dredd looked back at her and barked, ‘silence Anderson or you’ll do cube time for insurrection.’ This tiny Mega-City domestic was the gap Nyx needed. She used her own psychic powers to infuse internecine animosity in the 2000AD ranks and soon they were engaged in combat amongst themselves.
The hallowed ranks of both Marvel and DC comics were next to show up but they got bogged down keeping the 2000ADers from each other’s throats (and poaching the more conventionally talented amongst them). It looked like the positive forces of the twilight realms were truly on the back foot. Nyx began to chuckle. Her minions began to bay in celebration. Then came another sound, a kind of groaning, stretching sound. As if time and space were being forced to give birth to, . . .to what? . . .a blue box?
An eccentrically attired little man got out of the box and attempted to reason with Nyx. Big mistake. She stood on him. Squish! But when she moved her leg another strange man was there. This second man, or ‘Doctor’ as he called himself, continued on the same tack as the last and he too was squished, only to reveal another man, Squish! and then another man, Squish! and then another man, Squish! and . . .I swear this must’ve happened twelve or thirteen times before the final ‘Doctor’ realised that softly softly wasn’t going to catchy monkey and instead pointed some kind of futuristic wand at the sky. ‘There could’ve been another way’ he said to himself in momentary sombre reflection before instantly cheering up and shouting the word ‘Geronimo!’
A blistering bolt of incandescent light shot down toward the wand (or screwdriver as he called it) which seemed to be acting as a kind of conductor. The cobweb curtain across the sky was incinerated, its remains floating to earth in blazing ribbons. Then came the rest of the battalions that comprise the army of human imagination. Oh, Nyx was f***ed now and no mistake.
Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Zorro, White Fang, Black Beauty, Babe the Pig, Champion the Wonder Horse, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, TinTin, Captain Haddock, Chewbacca, Popeye, Desperate Dan, all the Disney creeps, some yokes from those Pixar films, the New Shmoo, the cast of Happy Days, Blake’s Seven and every possible protagonist you can think of from fiction (except Ronald McDonald because he was actually on Nyx’s side) came raining down upon the spider Goddess and her legions of depravity.
I saw the Good Fairy from At Swim Two Birds kicking the jaws off lads and a posse of cowboys riding up from Ringsend, shooting harpies from the air. I distinctly heard James T. Kirk say that he was going to ‘ride’ the Old Hag and Spock say ‘I’ll watch Captain’. I saw Moomin Mama chase the animal headed children of Nyx back down to Hades by banging pots and pans together and saying ‘shoo now’ (simple but effective). I saw Iorek Byrnison swallow a goblin whole like it was a fish. I saw Godzilla kick the butts of Nyx’s ogre horde. I saw the Banana Splits run over a werewolf with their dune buggy. I saw the A-Team and McGuyver turn a bunk bed into a tank and badly concuss (but not actually kill) a few monsters. I saw Cornelius from Planet of the Apes leap down on an unsuspecting Shadow Hat Man. I saw Starsky and Hutch make some arrests. I saw the Sweeny bashing heads. I did not see any Stargate characters because they’re crap. I saw the Wombles pick up litter.
Then, I heard MUSIC, intriguing and slowly building, and then I saw the SUN. The Sun we thought was gone forever (kicked to death in a shop doorway) was being raised back into the heavens on a system of pulleys that were heaved up by Princess Mononoke, Chihiro, Haku and the rest of the Miyazaki fusiliers. The Sun was not dead, just hungover. Badly hungover. He opened his mouth wide, wretched and then proceeded to puke up a spectacular yellow morning. Honey light spread across the earth like a blanket of golden goodness. Flowers raised their bowed heads and drank deep of it. Children cheered and birds sang. Nyx however, Nyx cowered.
Looking around her, Nyx saw that her legions had been laid low. She turned and fled toward a great black chasm that led to her dark nether world (the same place Moomin Mama chased the animal headed devil children off to). ‘Stop her’, I roared, ‘if she escapes she’ll only return some day’. The army of imagination gave chase but Nyx dowsed them in webbing and they were incapacitated. Oh, we were so close but now it looked like this war was to continue. Or so I thought, until, from the tangled sticky heap of cobweb, I heard two defiant little whistles. Satsuki and Mei Kusakabe, two wee but worthy warriors were summoning something . . .and that something came.
CAT BUS. Yeah, you read right. Mutha fuckin Cat Bus. The strangest and perhaps greatest trooper in the imagination’s army. You could tell Nyx was well discommoded by the sight of Cat Bus as he soared though the clouds and began to orbit the Sun at incredible speed. As Nyx sped away, Cat Bus caught fire. ‘Oh No!’ But then the flaming Cat Bus dived, kamikaze style, straight into the alarmed and agog mandibles of the spider goddess. Like a comet, he dove down her throat and was swallowed whole. Nyx seemed overcome. Her antennae waved about like demented windscreen wipers. She scuttled in one direction, then another, then around and around in circles. It looked, for all the world, as if she was malfunctioning. Then she stopped still. Totally and completely still. And then . . .KARAKAAABOOOOOM! . . .she exploded into a billion pieces. A billion pieces of rancid spider flesh flew high into the air and came back to earth with a SPLAT.
Ireland was free
. . .again.
Everyone spent the following days cleaning bits of Nyx from their cars, homes and streets. They were happy though, assisting each other and taking time out to prepare bunting for a special celebration. A state funeral was held for Cat Bus. Seamus Heaney said a few words in his honour which everyone pretended to understand and appreciate but it was the eulogy delivered by Cat Bus’s little friend Satsuki that really had us all in tears. A huge monument in the likeness of the mighty Cat Bus was unveiled on O’Connell Street on the day of the mighty celebration and a new National Anthem was written in his honour.
In all fairness, Nyx had rid Ireland of the church and establishment in general (did I ever get around to telling you what she did to Tony O’Reilly? . . .yikes) and that was something at least. The population of Ireland decided to replace the old order with a system of bottom up governance based upon Anarchist principles. People sat down and really thought about what they wanted to do with their lives and how they could ease each other’s burdens. There was a lot of vegetarian quiche about the place and much basket weaving. I was getting a bit worried it was going to be boring to be honest but I took perverse comfort in the thought that things can never be perfect. No one can expect a perfect life. There’ll always be some darkness.
Anyhoo, looking up, you can see that the sun is getting stronger in the sky. Summer is almost upon us and there’s always fun to be had down the beach (don't play too rough now).
. . .see you there.
The END.
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