I Think Therefore
Entry by: Al's Mam
2nd February 2025
I think.........therefore
“What I think round here doesn’t matter” she said, her blond bobbed hair falling like duck down over her face.Therefore I’m taking time to look after me..Maisie stormed out onto the porch with an elaborate pout messing up the heartline of her chin. Her words were flung into the wind for Prince Pluto the cat to catch.She was home alone and was aware she had a painting to finish,her “urban beauty” as part of her Leaving cert art project . Nobody in the house had seen it yet and she intended to keep it that way for as long as she could. She had put a lock on her bedroom door promising mum who looked at her with that despairing face she had somehow immunised herself against , she would tidy up all the paints by early next week.. Dad would never approve of a head and shoulders portrait of a vampish girl with flat green streaks in her hair, scathing metallic blue eyes and a sculpted nose with flaring nostrils.He was always playing golf anyway. What did he know about art.? He said she took after her grandmother, the one with the reading difficulties, loosely referred to nowadays as dyslexia.
She tentatively removed the key from around her neck and opened the door of her bedroom. Instantly she locked it after her- force of habit she thought. She sighed when she saw the carnage. Mum would have a hissy fit.The three paint palettes she rotated between were face down on the floor, She had left them on the window sill of course but the wind had toppled them aggressively. She shuddered, unsure really why but maybe there was a storm coming. Dad would be out late at least.
Impatiently she took out the white spirits and began to scrub the floor now bathed in iridescent green, aware she was most likely smearing her face as she touched her hand to her face in the middle of scrubbing.She was a messy painter but Miss Halpin the art teacher told mum and dad she had flair, a style very unique to her.She told them she deserved a place in art college.Dad wanted her to put down engineering on her CAO form so she could be a bloody clone of him.Mum had quietly suggested they help her with her dreams. “More like fantasies” Dad had snorted. She could hear them arguing from upstairs as her brush stroke delicately traced the outline of her urban beauty’s promiscuous carmine lips. Of course in the end she put down art in NCAD national college of art and design as her first choice. As a condition of her acceptance, she would have to put together a whole portfolio.Mum had initially hinted at letting her use the cabin , originally designed for mum and her meditation/pot smoking friends but most of them were too busy now being respectable and stopped calling. Then she suddenly changed her mind. Mum still used it herself for a quiet smoke .Dad never knew as he didn’t go near it ,like he hardly ever went near mum anymore.
Being an only child often meant hyper focus ,watching her through the zoom lens of their own unfulfilled lives or self justifications like Dad and his engineering. Mum and he met when he was in a rock band but Grandad was an engineer and a bully Mum told her once when she had finished a whole joint and there was just the two of them in the house. Just cause he hadn’t the balls to do his own thing didn’t mean she couldn’t The good thing about being an only child was you could set one parent against the other, kind a like two bulldogs in the ring. At least that was her friend Lily’s thinking but she couldn’t square the bulldog thing when she thought of mum,.It wasn’t that her mother didn’t love her she guessed but she was always so far away like she was looking beyond you at some fixed spot when you were talking to her. At least Prince Pluto listened when she brought him up to bed and rambled on and on their two heads under the duvet when she dragged him under. He didn’t like the paint and just sneezed all the time so there was no enticing him up to her room these days. Ah the price one had to pay for one’s art !
She held the brush in a softened limbo in her right hand as the dust motes caught her eye in the reflected light in the corner of the room.Good to catch a breathing space from her parents. She inhaled an intoxicating mixture of dust, mould and paint. Mum hadn’t gotten round to fixing the black mould in the ensuite yet. Dad was at something over in the clubhouse, another boring presentation.He was hyper focused on being captain for the third time .Picking up the brush again she began to mix more paints for the skin tone .She looked again at her reference photo. She took a mean selfie Lily told her.Just as she was rooting around in her box easel for the raw sienna, she heard the quiet purring of wheels on the gravel outside. Shit that was Dads car. What the hell was he doing back so early ruining her me time as the counsellor called it.
Slowly she put down her brush on the ledge of the easel and closed her eyes.Mum was probably gone on the piss as she often did on a Sunday afternoon.The bar man in Flahertys often brought her home round six when he finished his shift. He usually popped his head in through the porch door as she wandered into the living room with that increasingly fishy stare in her eyes as if the depths of the Antarctic waters were her natural habitat not warm breathing mammalians like her daughter or even dad. “Just dropping your mum home kate “ he said after a brief embarrassed pause. “She wasn’t feeling the best.”
She heard Dad’s tread on the stairs. He had had one too many .She knew by the heavy footsteps and the way he almost fell over prince Pluto sending the wounded cat into a frenzied howl as he headed for the master bedroom to hide out in. “You in there Kate” he called out in a low hoarse tone. Her eyes wandered over to the key dangling in the lock. She tiptoed across to the doorway and put her head to the door. “Come out love” he said in that hoarse sexy tone he had used on her since she was twelve
She hadn’t yet plucked up the courage to tell her new counsellor who was treating her for her ADHD. Dad always hand picked the counsellors didn’t he? Well she was going to tell Miss Delaney her new year head any day now about everything.She was young and really kind. All the girls thought she was so cool and funky - big into art too she told them. Yes she had to find the right moment. But how ? How could she tell ? Miss Delaney had a very kind dad who often picked her up when she took study period after school. She wouldn’t get it. Lily said they might take her away if she told. Lily got sent to an aunt in Wicklow last year because she had such bad asthma; the country air would be good they said and she was studying too hard. Lily never studied. She often came into school with large black rings under her eyes.” I couldn’t sleep again” she said, her head hanging over the edge of her desk. She would press her hand and let her cog some of her maths homework.
Kate You in there? The tone was more husky this time the range even lower. Come out darling.
Come out to your daddy .If you don’t I might have to break the lock.She scrolled through her contacts. Her heart doubled down on itself with each beat. A cold sweat flooded her. The urban beauty looked at her disdainfully with her yet half finished skin colour and ropey neck muscles. Her hair was right though, a lovely green wave of the ocean surfing its brown strands. She was a mermaid, a siren. Was that what she was.? He always said she gave him the come on. Her sweating fingers slipped down the contacts list. She had seen Miss Delaney’s mobile no. on the back of one of her books one day and secretly photographed it. Fortunately all the other girls had left the room and she had stayed back to tidy up for the teacher.She was just wondering if she could say something when the Miss Delaney’s phone went off. She took the call outside the room, carefully closing the classroom door behind her. Kate seized the moment . Now was she glad. It was ringing and ringing. Oh god Miss Delaney please answer.
“Hello” the voice sounded puzzled. Panicked she slid across the red receiver icon. He was banging on the door now, shaking the lock. “If you don’t open up, I’m frigging breaking the door down.” Her mobile rang .Miss Delaney showed on the dial. She tapped on the green receiver icon. The lock was about to give way. “Hallo , help, please help Miss” she managed in a strangled voice. He’s coming in again!
“What I think round here doesn’t matter” she said, her blond bobbed hair falling like duck down over her face.Therefore I’m taking time to look after me..Maisie stormed out onto the porch with an elaborate pout messing up the heartline of her chin. Her words were flung into the wind for Prince Pluto the cat to catch.She was home alone and was aware she had a painting to finish,her “urban beauty” as part of her Leaving cert art project . Nobody in the house had seen it yet and she intended to keep it that way for as long as she could. She had put a lock on her bedroom door promising mum who looked at her with that despairing face she had somehow immunised herself against , she would tidy up all the paints by early next week.. Dad would never approve of a head and shoulders portrait of a vampish girl with flat green streaks in her hair, scathing metallic blue eyes and a sculpted nose with flaring nostrils.He was always playing golf anyway. What did he know about art.? He said she took after her grandmother, the one with the reading difficulties, loosely referred to nowadays as dyslexia.
She tentatively removed the key from around her neck and opened the door of her bedroom. Instantly she locked it after her- force of habit she thought. She sighed when she saw the carnage. Mum would have a hissy fit.The three paint palettes she rotated between were face down on the floor, She had left them on the window sill of course but the wind had toppled them aggressively. She shuddered, unsure really why but maybe there was a storm coming. Dad would be out late at least.
Impatiently she took out the white spirits and began to scrub the floor now bathed in iridescent green, aware she was most likely smearing her face as she touched her hand to her face in the middle of scrubbing.She was a messy painter but Miss Halpin the art teacher told mum and dad she had flair, a style very unique to her.She told them she deserved a place in art college.Dad wanted her to put down engineering on her CAO form so she could be a bloody clone of him.Mum had quietly suggested they help her with her dreams. “More like fantasies” Dad had snorted. She could hear them arguing from upstairs as her brush stroke delicately traced the outline of her urban beauty’s promiscuous carmine lips. Of course in the end she put down art in NCAD national college of art and design as her first choice. As a condition of her acceptance, she would have to put together a whole portfolio.Mum had initially hinted at letting her use the cabin , originally designed for mum and her meditation/pot smoking friends but most of them were too busy now being respectable and stopped calling. Then she suddenly changed her mind. Mum still used it herself for a quiet smoke .Dad never knew as he didn’t go near it ,like he hardly ever went near mum anymore.
Being an only child often meant hyper focus ,watching her through the zoom lens of their own unfulfilled lives or self justifications like Dad and his engineering. Mum and he met when he was in a rock band but Grandad was an engineer and a bully Mum told her once when she had finished a whole joint and there was just the two of them in the house. Just cause he hadn’t the balls to do his own thing didn’t mean she couldn’t The good thing about being an only child was you could set one parent against the other, kind a like two bulldogs in the ring. At least that was her friend Lily’s thinking but she couldn’t square the bulldog thing when she thought of mum,.It wasn’t that her mother didn’t love her she guessed but she was always so far away like she was looking beyond you at some fixed spot when you were talking to her. At least Prince Pluto listened when she brought him up to bed and rambled on and on their two heads under the duvet when she dragged him under. He didn’t like the paint and just sneezed all the time so there was no enticing him up to her room these days. Ah the price one had to pay for one’s art !
She held the brush in a softened limbo in her right hand as the dust motes caught her eye in the reflected light in the corner of the room.Good to catch a breathing space from her parents. She inhaled an intoxicating mixture of dust, mould and paint. Mum hadn’t gotten round to fixing the black mould in the ensuite yet. Dad was at something over in the clubhouse, another boring presentation.He was hyper focused on being captain for the third time .Picking up the brush again she began to mix more paints for the skin tone .She looked again at her reference photo. She took a mean selfie Lily told her.Just as she was rooting around in her box easel for the raw sienna, she heard the quiet purring of wheels on the gravel outside. Shit that was Dads car. What the hell was he doing back so early ruining her me time as the counsellor called it.
Slowly she put down her brush on the ledge of the easel and closed her eyes.Mum was probably gone on the piss as she often did on a Sunday afternoon.The bar man in Flahertys often brought her home round six when he finished his shift. He usually popped his head in through the porch door as she wandered into the living room with that increasingly fishy stare in her eyes as if the depths of the Antarctic waters were her natural habitat not warm breathing mammalians like her daughter or even dad. “Just dropping your mum home kate “ he said after a brief embarrassed pause. “She wasn’t feeling the best.”
She heard Dad’s tread on the stairs. He had had one too many .She knew by the heavy footsteps and the way he almost fell over prince Pluto sending the wounded cat into a frenzied howl as he headed for the master bedroom to hide out in. “You in there Kate” he called out in a low hoarse tone. Her eyes wandered over to the key dangling in the lock. She tiptoed across to the doorway and put her head to the door. “Come out love” he said in that hoarse sexy tone he had used on her since she was twelve
She hadn’t yet plucked up the courage to tell her new counsellor who was treating her for her ADHD. Dad always hand picked the counsellors didn’t he? Well she was going to tell Miss Delaney her new year head any day now about everything.She was young and really kind. All the girls thought she was so cool and funky - big into art too she told them. Yes she had to find the right moment. But how ? How could she tell ? Miss Delaney had a very kind dad who often picked her up when she took study period after school. She wouldn’t get it. Lily said they might take her away if she told. Lily got sent to an aunt in Wicklow last year because she had such bad asthma; the country air would be good they said and she was studying too hard. Lily never studied. She often came into school with large black rings under her eyes.” I couldn’t sleep again” she said, her head hanging over the edge of her desk. She would press her hand and let her cog some of her maths homework.
Kate You in there? The tone was more husky this time the range even lower. Come out darling.
Come out to your daddy .If you don’t I might have to break the lock.She scrolled through her contacts. Her heart doubled down on itself with each beat. A cold sweat flooded her. The urban beauty looked at her disdainfully with her yet half finished skin colour and ropey neck muscles. Her hair was right though, a lovely green wave of the ocean surfing its brown strands. She was a mermaid, a siren. Was that what she was.? He always said she gave him the come on. Her sweating fingers slipped down the contacts list. She had seen Miss Delaney’s mobile no. on the back of one of her books one day and secretly photographed it. Fortunately all the other girls had left the room and she had stayed back to tidy up for the teacher.She was just wondering if she could say something when the Miss Delaney’s phone went off. She took the call outside the room, carefully closing the classroom door behind her. Kate seized the moment . Now was she glad. It was ringing and ringing. Oh god Miss Delaney please answer.
“Hello” the voice sounded puzzled. Panicked she slid across the red receiver icon. He was banging on the door now, shaking the lock. “If you don’t open up, I’m frigging breaking the door down.” Her mobile rang .Miss Delaney showed on the dial. She tapped on the green receiver icon. The lock was about to give way. “Hallo , help, please help Miss” she managed in a strangled voice. He’s coming in again!
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