Free Absolute Zero Cool by Declan Burke

repeatedly breaking off her upright arm.
    I sympathise with her, as I sympathise with Diana, who still peers down horrified from Olympus as Herostratus burns her temple to the ground in order that posterity might afford him a footnote.
    I think about how women who are enlightened enough to realise that men probably won’t be interested in what they have to say have mined a nugget akin to a glass diamond.
    ‘So what do you think?’ Cassie says.
    ‘About what?’
    ‘You weren’t listening, were you?’
    ‘Not to you, no.’
    ‘Who then?’
    ‘Diana.’
    She blinks, then cocks an ear to the stereo. ‘Diana Ross?’
    ‘Diana. The goddess who had her temple burned down by a man who wanted to be remembered.’
    ‘What has that to do with anything?’
    ‘Isn’t that why we’re together? So I can eventually destroy your temple and be remembered?’
    ‘What’re you talking about, temples?’
    ‘The body is a temple, Cass. A child’s passage through the vaginal canal is an act of destruction. Hips crack, abdominal plates split. There is sundry ripping and tearing. All so my name can percolate down through the generations.’
    I use the word ‘percolate’ because we are in a coffee shop.
    Cassie stares at me for a long time, then turns away to gaze out at Lady Erin. She spoons the cream in her cappuccino and says, ‘K, how come you have to make everything more difficult than it really is?’
    ‘Nothing’s more difficult than it really is, Cass. The myth that something can be easier than it really is was invented by Hoover salesmen.’
    ‘You know your problem?’ She shakes her head despairingly. ‘You don’t have the imagination to see how things can be better.’
    Cassie’s problem is that she thinks I only have one problem.
    My line for today comes courtesy of Dame Iris Murdoch: You can live or tell; not both at once.
     
    •
     
    ‘If you’re aiming for reverse psychology,’ I say, ‘you’re laying it on a bit thick.’
    ‘What’s the best way to get a woman’s attention?’ he says, putting down his sheet of paper.
    ‘Pretend you don’t care.’
    ‘Treat ’em mean,’ he says, ‘keep ’em keen.’
    ‘There’s mean,’ I say, ‘and there’s being an antisocial bastard.’
    ‘Relax, it’s a first draft. I can always go back in and kill any babies you don’t like.’
    The quality of our entente cordiale is somewhat strained. Billy is adamant he had nothing to do with Rosie crawling into the shed, that he would have nothing to gain and everything to lose.
    ‘Put it this way,’ he’d said. ‘You’re a bit fragile about the writing as it is. How would you feel about it if anything happened to Rosie?’
    ‘Writing wouldn’t come into it. I’d be struggling to get out of bed in the morning.’
    ‘Exactly. And where would that leave me?’
    ‘In limbo, I know. All I’m saying is, it’s a bit of a coincidence that something happened to Rosie after we had that chat about killing babies.’
    ‘You’re reading too much into it, man. Besides, if memory serves, you’re the one who was up for killing babies.’
    ‘Only as a metaphor. You’re the one planning to blow up a hospital.’
    ‘Only as a metaphor.’
    ‘It’s not the same thing.’
    ‘Isn’t it?’
    Billy believes that I am Neville Chamberlain, waving the pages of the latest manuscript around to convince myself that he and I have peace in our time.
    I prefer to think of myself as Churchill in the early months of 1940, boozing away the phoney war and wishing the Japs would hurry up and bomb Pearl Harbour.
    I’m under no illusions. It’s only a matter of time before his blitz begins.
    The Big Question: which of us will get to split the atom first?
    ‘So what’ve you got?’ he says, nodding at my side of the table.
    ‘You meet the old guy for the first time.’
    ‘Yeah,’ he says softly. ‘I liked him.’
     
    •
     
    ‘Being old is like being hung-over all day, every day,’ the old man says. His voice