Kilian Doyle's year year has had a most inauspicious start, most inauspicious indeed
This unhappy tale begins on New Year's Day. Herself and I were en route to her folks' house in Meath for a celebratory dinner of goose. A fine beast, the goose, much underrated. I was looking forward to it. Little did I know how close I would come to having my own metaphorical goose cooked.
We were forced to take a detour around the Phoenix Park, due to some race, instead opting to amble through Castleknock and along the Luttrellstown Road.
The sky above us was angry and black, as if painted by Turner when he was a depressed teenage Goth. The wind howled and roared like a wounded werewolf. The trees rattled like the Pope's dentures.
In the distance, we could see what we later discovered was a mini-tornado whirling away, overturning Toyotas and ripping flashing Santas off roofs just out of our eyeshot. To top it off, we were listening to Johnny Cash Live in San Quentin, a dark, dark record of bubbling malevolence and barely-suppressed rage. It was all a tad spooky.
Bloody hell, said I as we turned a corner to see a flash of blue flame in the near distance. Did the sky just explode?
Don't be silly, said she, ever the brains of the operation. It was just lightning, it must have hit the power lines. Slow down, all those cars in front are stopping.
Muppets, thought I. Bunch of wusses, scared of a bit of electricity. (I was a bit pumped up on Johnny Cash, I'm the first to admit it.) I hadn't noticed the tree. No match for the wind, it had given up and laid itself to rest in the middle of the road. Sure why not. We had to turn around.
Which is where it really got spooky. We were halfway through my usual seven-point turn when we were confronted with a sight that turned our blood cold.
Dangling inches in front of the Bavarian princess' bonnet was a snapped power line, spitting blue fire like a decapitated electric Hydra. The wire of death was blowing around like, well, like a snapped power line in a gale. You get the picture.
I uttered something unpublishable and quickly reversed. I had dreadful visions of my wife and I and our unborn child being microwaved, turned into human TV dinners inside the car. It was not a pleasant few seconds. I've always wanted to be cremated, but this wasn't quite what I had in mind.
Eventually, we arrived chez in-laws. Over the aforementioned goose, the subject of insurance arose. I have the bare legal minimum of insurance, the basic third-party fire and theft package.
Had we actually been hit by the tree or zapped by the wire, presumably the Evil Insurance Empire would gleefully dismiss my claim, citing an Act Of God.
To an agnostic like myself, this would present something of a challenge. How can I accept my misfortune was caused by something I have no proof exists? That and my inherent loathing of uppity, jobsworth insurance clerks would force me, on principle, to fight the case.
I'd begin by drafting a short letter. It'd go a little something like this: "Act Of God, eh? Prove it." If they couldn't prove the existence of God, then there must have been a third party responsible, and I'd succeed in my claim. Cue the downfall of the insurance industry as a million Joe Soaps tore them asunder in the courts.
But theologists and philosophers have been trying since the dawn of rational thought to prove or disprove the existence of God, without success.
The only way the insurance companies could win would be to blow their cover and admit in public what everyone suspects already - that they are the earthly agents of Satan, used by him to kick sand in the face of the common man when he's down.
If Satan exists, ergo God does too. They'd have won their case. And my agnosticism would go the way of my insurance claim - to Hell.