Nothin’ much, what about you?

Ah s**t. Here we go again.

All right. Imagine Chuck Norris; but if he was a homeless, balding, obese alcoholic with KFC fart gas for breath. Now put him in a week-old wife beater and slap on some no-belt baggy denims that are threatening to slide down his hairy mammoth legs at any given moment. And that’s Peader, the man who’s just socked me in the face with his meaty paws.

My world seems to tip like an offset set of old-fashioned scales as darkness rapidly consumes my vision. Mere moments later, I wake up not to the sound of Over the Horizon – the default Samsung ringtone – but to the sound of his spiteful screaming. A dazed stare is all I can manage while I’m sprawled out across the damp hardwood floors of our apartment hallway. It feels like I’m dreaming; lucid. Only I’ll never be able to wake up. Even if I try.

[ Read all Fighting Words contributions here ]

“Tú go maith-do-rud ar bith soith!”

Bryan Dobson: ‘Retirement could be a terrible shock to the system – or not, who knows!’

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I spent my maternity leave in a chemo chair. Then I got a letter telling me to go back to work

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Trump’s week in court: Gasps and a pick-up in pace as Hope Hicks is called

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The Croke Park effect: ‘It was one of the very few times I cried during the opposition anthem’

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Oh. So it’s begun.

“Cúig bliana déag. Cúig bliana déag d’ardaigh mé do thóinmí-thaitneamhach, íobairt gach rud ar do shon! D’fhág mé mo theaghlach, mo phost, go léir ionas go bhféadfadh tú go mbeadh an deis nach raibh mé. Agus conas a dhéanann tú a aisíoc liom? AG TEIP DO SCRÚDUITHE!”

He’s waving my report card like there’s a fire in the kitchen and he’s trying to fan it out but ends up fanning the flames instead. He’s tweaking – just like Speed does in all his YouTube videos – which is usually a sign that it’s clobbering time. He does a little hesitant bunny hop of sorts before deciding to drive his freezing foot into my face; trying to crack my head open like it’s a Kinder Surprise egg.

“Tá do chol ceathrar, do chairde, na páistí go léir d’aois go maith ag rud éigin. Spóirt, ceol, staidéir, rud ar bith! Ach tú? An t-aon rud a bhfuil tú go maith dó ná leithris a ghlanadh ag McDonald’s!”

Ah yes, the classic ‘compare me to the rest of the people on planet Earth’ line. Never gets old. He’s doing this thing with his foot, the thing you would do if you were crushing a cigarette and I swear the cartilage in my ear just snapped or something. He’s paused the action so he can lean down. Stoop to my level, so to speak. His voice dropped an entire octave lower, resembling something sinister: like the growl of a grizzly bear.

“Ceapann tú go bhfuil tú ar fheabhas, nach bhfuil? Cheapann tú gur tusa an fear. Ní hea. Níl aon rud ar bith ort. Ní fiú duit aon rud. Agus ní bheidh aon rud agat choíche. Is féidir liom é sin a ghealladh duit.”

What answers him is not me (not that I would if I could) but rather the click of keys and the cackling creak of the front door as it opens.

Sophie.

She’s standing there – in her stained waitress uniform – staring at us. At her husband. At me. I stare. She sighs as if she’s dealing with some Karen at work. Sophie hooks her coat on to the wall, handbag on the coffee table and shuffles off to her room. Her appearance makes Peader disengage, calm down almost. No sooner has he lifted his foot, it is replaced by a fresh blob of his spit. He rips my report card in half and I watch them flutter to the floor.

“Éirigh as mo radharc. Anois. Téigh!”

He orders, before marching off after Sophie.

Every bone in my body seems to crack as I peel myself off the floor. What a massive waste of my time. The amount of things I could have done (like drugs) instead of quality time with dear-old-dad. I don’t bother to wipe the spit off my face cause I’m practically crawling into my room. My sense of balance – and self-esteem – seem a little off these days.

The rusted wrought-iron railings and dusty concrete decking of my balcony tempt me with thick air, and exposure to the elements. It may not have been quiet. But at least it was peaceful. It’s not long before I decide to soothe my pain by mindlessly scrolling through TikTok like a brain-dead zombie. I pull out my Samsung and type in the password, but not before I cut my thumb on the cracked screen. It vibrates a bit and says:

‘Incorrect password entered’

I groan, and try again.

‘Incorrect password entered’

I try again.

‘Incorrect password entered’

I try again.

‘Incorrect password entered’

I try again.

‘Incorrect password entered. Try again in 30 seconds.’

I fling my phone on to the ground, and I scream.

Except it’s not a scream. It’s a tortured whisper that’s audible only to me. I knit my fingers into my hair, fall to my knees and hunch over into the foetal position, and shake, and shudder, and cry, and let myself act like a crackhead for 30 seconds. Let myself act like the mentally and physically broken person that I am. All my pain, and suffering, and anguish all released in this volcanic explosion of emotional expression; all at once.

They don’t understand me. They can’t understand me. They won’t understand me. Peader. Sophie. My friends. Not even my goddamn phone.

Don’t you get it? I don’t want to try again. I’m tired of trying again. I’m tired. Tired of this. Of this situation. Of my situation, and only my situation. I don’t care about the starving kids in Africa, or the victims of war crimes, or eight-year-old Timmy who’s got lung cancer and needs your donation to save his life. I don’t care about what’s going on with the rest of the world, I just want to care about me.

How am I supposed to explain it all? The sonder and crisis? The love and loss? How am I supposed to explain that I’m a human too? How am I supposed to explain that it hurts me, just like it hurts everyone else?

How am I supposed to explain why I feel like jumping off this balcony?

How do I explain that I’m living just because I’m alive?

How do I explain any of it?

I close my eyes, feel my fingers gripping on to those rusty railings like it’s the last thing I’ll ever hold. And during this brief period of retrospective contemplation it’s not some revelational epiphany that wakes me, but rather Over the Horizon, the default Samsung ringtone. It startles me awake, and I realise that someone is calling me. Which is odd. I pick up my shattered screen Samsung and look at the caller:

‘Jesus’ it says.

I swipe right, and hear the all-too-familiar voice of my friend – Jesus is his name (he’s Mexican) – over the phone.

“Wassup bro?”

“Nothin much. What about you?”