Onlookers kept a certain distance and as blood and shreds of flesh flew through the air, cries of disgust and abhorrence arose from the crowd. There was a sudden silence, before panic broke out with bystanders jumping out of the ongoing spray of blood and others still trying to see more. Marvin felt himself being pushed and pulled from left to right. Almost stumbling he was able to dodge in a shop entrance, where he managed to keep view on the horrid display. The ragged man was being torn apart, shreds of cloth and meat sailing high through the air. Throughout the crowd, people cried out and prayed and disappeared under heavy feet and burden. The cacophony of ill shrieks and low grunts from human voices sounded like the doomed wailing from the utter darkness in the fiery gulfs of hell. And yet above all that, the shrieking of a man’s immortal soul being prepared for eternal justice. Marvin tried to shut his ears off but forget his eyes. Monstrous claws ripped and tore unseen at the helpless sufferer in an obstinate and righteous manner. No man is immortal. Most of the bystanders turned their heads away from the flying blood and mush, covering their ears and faces. Marvin also turned his head away and then he noticed a brown leather book closed by a metal clasp lying on the street near an air conduct. Without thought he reached down for it, his hand hit by several legs as he snatched the book from the street and stuffed it under his jacket.

Zealous like Olympic runners within metres of the gold more people speared far away from the mayhem. When it was finally over and the infernal wailing subdued, the blood and screams mixed into lost remorse for Marvin. He had run home, crying all the way.

Monday morning.

    ‘Marvin! Can you please just tell me what happened!’ his mother shouted. Roughly she banged his door without response. Screamed her lunges out but he didn’t even answer her with sobs. Just like his dad, she thought to herself and felt tears swelling up. Patience. Grace talked some sense in to herself. Smiled as she rubbed her cheek dry and sniffed shortly. ‘Alright sugar, you call me when you need me, right?’ she managed to say motherly.

    ‘Right…’ Marvin affirmed very softly. He stared at his Iron Maiden covered wall.

    ‘Love ye.’ She finished and strayed off as her eyes searched the hall for hints.

    ‘Love you too,’ Marvin whispered. He felt relieve as he heard the hall door finally close. ‘I really do…’ he continued. His eyes left his wall and drifted to his bed. It was made up, by his ma this very morning. On top of his desk lay a book, bounded in dark leather closed by a metal clasp and appearing tattered by time and mouldy with slow decay. It wasn’t a gift of ma, he knew that. She likes to see his face when she gives him something. Seeing him smile. Then slowly he remembered putting it there himself after he came home from… The book was stunning: so present in the here and now that it seemed alive.

    Only now his mind pictured what his friends would say. It would look so cool to use as a table for playing the Magic cards. And then the thought slammed into him like a loaded truck at full speed. That poor man. Marvin felt frustration boil up as he remembered the bloody display. So much blood… Nobody could tell what had happened. Most of the newspapers at the shop down the street described at short length the bloody liquidation of a member of the IWF party in a drive by shooting. The Irish Gazette gave food to the thought that a suicide bomber had covered a sizeable part of Jervis Street with his own blood, without making any victims. Perhaps by pure coincidence, Marvin read that next week’s sermon held in the Destiny Church downtown fixated on the power of life and Death.

    It was The Irish Globe which referred to a practical joke, as part of a bachelor party. Dublin is the town of bachelor parties, everyone knows that. That’s right. A fucking bachelor party. Marvin started sniffing. Ma said it’d feck his nose up. He made effort to stop it but couldn’t, and huffing fell in line and started a symphony. Desperately he rattled his head, denying it was happening and that’s all there was.

    ‘Mah! Ma…! Momma!’ he shouted for Grace, his sweet mother. Within seconds she flew from the waiting chair in the hall through the door over the stairs to her son. Half stumbling and out of breath she entered his room, their eyes met and she flew at him to give comfort.

    ‘Ah my boy! My sweet boy! What have those wankers done to you?’ she cried and cradled his head in her arms. Marvin cried freely, like a baby at birth. He cried even louder as he tried to explain, wailing and with a face wet and flushed in complete surrender.

    ‘There’s daemons, momma! Daemons!’ he shouted. Her eyes grew big with unbelief. Now she started to shake her head. ‘I saw ‘em! Killed a man on Jervis Street! I was there, ma, saw it happen….’ Grace slapped her son.

    ‘You said you weren’t there! You just said….’ Grace lost it. Marvin moved to hug her. She refused and stood back. ‘There are no fecking daemons!’ She screamed. ‘Only the good lord, Jesus Christ!’ Grace spoke softer: ‘You and your friends and your… Your… Your books!’ she pointed her bad finger, broken and misgrown, to the dark brown book on his bed. It lay quietly in anticipation, soaking up the words.

    ‘That’s not my book, ma! I… I found…’ he tried.

    ‘Well it ain’t fecking mine either! Get it fecking outta here!’ Grace finished and slammed the door, leaving Marvin alone with his fears and a dark leather book that seemed to be waiting. In a play of the breaking light, he thought he saw a blurry face briefly smiling on its cover.