Free The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley by Jeremy Massey Page B

green facecloth, the one I’d cleaned off Lucy with. I’d forgotten all about it. I closed my eyes and tossed it towards the little pile of laundry in the corner before heading to the bathroom where I stripped and ran the shower. I stepped in and washed myself thoroughly and dried off afterwards with a fresh towel. I avoided looking in the mirror. I didn’t want to see myself consumed by fear.
    I crawled into bed and huddled in the fetal position, my mind scrambling for exits or explanations. What would Frank have done? Frank wouldn’t have been in this position in the first place. If he had filled my shoes for the day, none of this would have happened. And Frank couldn’t help me with this one anyway. Nobody could. If I’d Eva here beside me, she’d hold my head in her hands and kiss my forehead tenderly and be my lover and confidante, and we’d get through it together with our bulletproof love shielding us from the world. But Eva was gone. As I lay there bereft of comfort or hope, grappling with my predicament, if I could have had the counsel of any one person, living or dead, it would have been my father.
    After bringing my father to the forefront of my mind, my thoughts spontaneously vaulted back to an afternoon I’d spent with him when I was fifteen. We’d been painting the living room in the house I’d grown up in on Arnott Street at the back of the Meath Hospital, and had stopped to have a cup of tea. It was a hot day in the middle of summer and a big fly was buzzing around the room. Shay smiled at me. He had a way with all creatures, no matter what kind, like no one else I’d ever known.
    Out of the blue, he said, “Make the fly land in your hand.”
    â€œCome on, Dad, the fly’s not going to land in my hand.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œThere’s no way I could get the fly to do that,” I said emphatically.
    â€œTry it.” He smiled.
    â€œIt’s not going to happen,” I said, smiling back at him.
    â€œRelax,” he said, “and clear your mind.”
    I’m not sure if it was what he said or how he said it. But at that moment, I understood what he was talking about in a way I hadn’t before. I let him guide me.
    â€œOpen your hand and imagine all your power, all your spirit, your essence, moving into the center of your palm. Imagine it’s the seat of your soul. Everything that makes up who you are is now in that hand.”
    After a minute or so, there was a subtle but definite change in the feeling of my hand.
    â€œRight?”
    I nodded.
    â€œNow allow the fly to land in your hand.”
    I looked at the fly, and as soon as I’d imagined it landing on my hand, it flew down and did just that. I was so astonished that my jaw dropped open. But I had the sense not to move my hand. And the fly stayed there. I looked at my father, who remained relaxed as always. Like he knew this would happen.
    â€œYou can close your hand,” he said.
    Slowly, I closed my hand over the fly, and it let me. Then I opened it slowly, and still it stayed there.
    â€œNow let him fly away.”
    Just then it flew away, out the window. Neither one of us said anything. We drank our tea in silence while my father’s eyes smiled, his head nodding imperceptibly.
    Back in my bed now on Mourne Road, I stretched out my hand and imagined all that I was, my soul, my mind, the totality of me, in its palm. And after about a minute or so, I felt the change. I felt my palm pulse. Every part of my mind was focused on it. I became the process. Then the perceiving part of me left its seat behind my forehead and traveled slowly down my arm until I was in my hand, looking back at my face. And what I saw on my face was rapt focus. And then an even stranger thing happened. I detached. I was released from my body and gently floated up to the corner of the ceiling where I rested in my suspended state. I thought I must have died, had a