COVEN

I'm in Dundrum Town Centre. The usual thing. A look around. Meet the girls for a latte. Away In A Manger is wafting from the PA system. Little Saoirse is being a pain. Banging her fists on the buggy. Banging her fists on the buggy and wailing like a wild thing. Away In A Manger, I wish, I wish. That man is here. You know the one. The oddball. The one who looks right at you and roars things. His eyes. That stare. ‘Playing holy songs’, he says. ‘They’re playing holy song and the Antichrist owns the place’, he bellows and laughs. Laughs a big mental laugh. Saoirse wails louder and the place is packed and I’m feeling a bit unhinged. I can’t face the girls like this. I go into the toilets and roll the buggy into the disabled cubicle. I take a deep breath and wee snort of Peruvian. I’m back on form. I’m ready for anything. I meet the girls and speak about myself and boots and bags and bags and boots and myself. ‘You’re on rare form Collette’, says Mairead and tells me how she found little Kirsten’s lost mitten down the back of the Corsa and how the poor mite got streptococcal throat. Then a silence falls and we know it is time. We stand and leave and head up to the top floor for a dose of henbane. We park the buggies, climb out the skylight and strip off. We perch naked on the parapet and squawk like mighty birds of prey. The henbane’s really complimenting the coke and I am soaring over the world. I am the air and the cosmos. I am the wings in the night. I am the moon. I am the Goddess. I am RAGE! And I will swoop down and behead the tubby pieces of shit in tight fitting soccer tops that pass for men below me. They are looking up and imploring us to come down.
‘Jesus girls, come down. What are you at? Come down’.
I’ll come down. I’ll come down alright. I’ll swoop down and rip their heads from their fucking necks. I’ll shower the upper mezzanine in thick dark blood. I will no longer be tethered. I will no longer be tamed. I will no longer be marshalled and corralled. I will no longer push that squealing tyrant throughout the obstacle course of boots and bags and bags and boots. A new day is coming. A new day. And the suburbs will know fear and they shall abase themselves before The Ballinteer Recreation Centre Mother and Toddlers Coven of the Dark Lady Lilith. Lilith who spurned the obsequious Adam. Lilith who defied God. We, the sisters of Lilith, will shake this world and rule over those who cower within it. They will awake and hear us cackling in the starry sky above their homes. Soaring and swooping over the uniform rooftops of their battery farm estates. And they shall worship us, as sure as they worship their soccer teams and their boots and bags and bags and boots. And we will suck their souls dry of what little nutrition remains. And we will take them in our talons and we will carry them into the cold black air and we will release their carcasses and howl as they plummet down down down onto the sad little automobiles that scurry along beneath us and lo’ there will be an unmerciful pile up on the M50 and screaming and flames aplenty.

Remember now, that’s The Ballinteer Recreation Centre Mother and Toddlers Coven of the Dark Lady Lilith. We meet every second Wednesday morning. Perhaps you’d like to join us. Call Emer or Toiresa for details.

Caoi, Collette.