might tread underfoot when you were pacing the perimeter of the football field in the company of your colleagues at the end of a long teaching day. Surely, dear readers, even amongst
the fallen themselves there must prevail some form of hierarchy. One must surely believe that even within the breast of the wickedest succubus there gleams some tiny star of hope, of goodness.
*
But not within that of Packie Cooley. For, as it gradually and inevitably became clear to me, he was no unspectacular drone in the armies of Hades. Would that he had been! Would
that he had, gentle reader!
By now, I feel certain that it is evident as to why these reminiscences continue to trouble me so. Had Packie Cooley been nothing more than a humdrum private in those black, smoking regiments of
the expelled, perhaps there might have been a tiny glimmer of the hope of which I have spoken earlier. But what I didn’t realize – along with the fact that it was by now already too
late to do anything even if I had! – was that I was dealing with no casual, insouciant, part-time agent of the shadows. What I now harboured within the walls of my beloved seminary –
which I would have realized had he not so effectively fashioned winkers for me with his – as I now can see it – reptilian charm – was the very President of the Damned, the Earl of
Nothingness – Satan himself!
*
The first indication I had that Fr Packie Cooley might not exactly be who he said he was came on a dark night in the year 1961, not long after the terrible news had arrived that
some Irish soldiers had been brutally done to death by members of the marauding Baluba tribe in the Congo region of Africa. I had just concluded my spiritual reading and was making my way along the
main corridor to my room when I became aware of a presence close by, and upon turning the corner leading to what was affectionately known as the Big Corridor, to my astonishment found the student
in question (he was by now a subdeacon) chuckling away to himself as he held the newspaper, as large tears coursed down his flushed, excessively mobile face, spattering the newsprint of the paper
which he held before him. ‘Packie,’ I gasped, ‘oughtn’t you be in bed?’ ‘Yes,’ he coughed as he began his reply, ‘but I was so upset at this dreadful
news that I simply couldn’t sleep. Did you read about it yourself, Father? You know what they did to those poor soldiers, don’t you? They ate them! It’s beyond words! It’s
just too much to bear!’
With that, he covered his face with his black-clad arm and fled down the corridor, the echo of his muffled sobs lingering in the silence long after he had left the building.
Had that been all, it is likely that I should have thought no more of it, but when I examined the newspaper – which in his ‘distressed’ state he had discarded on the window
ledge – I noted that onto the image of one of the unfortunate deceased military had been added a crudely drawn pair of spectacles and ludicrously thin moustache, and beneath that again, a
barely legible scrawl which formed the words – my head lightened –
Irish stew! It’s tasty!
The strangest of feelings enveloped me as I stood there in the half-light of evening, as if a ghost-snake were making its way with infinite but lithe patience up and down the length of my spine.
The tragedy is that I did not acknowledge the import of this sign, shot through with foreboding as it most surely was, but simply shook myself and folded up the newspaper, popping it into the
waste-paper basket as I proceeded on my way to the Sacred Heart dormitory.
The next incident took place in the sacristy on the 11th of November 1962 when I was doffing my vestments, having completed my celebration of Mass. I was in quite high spirits – it was a
truly beautiful morning, with spears of golden sunlight seeming to impishly fence with each other above the mosaic in that bright and airy room – and was looking forward
the fallen themselves there must prevail some form of hierarchy. One must surely believe that even within the breast of the wickedest succubus there gleams some tiny star of hope, of goodness.
*
But not within that of Packie Cooley. For, as it gradually and inevitably became clear to me, he was no unspectacular drone in the armies of Hades. Would that he had been! Would
that he had, gentle reader!
By now, I feel certain that it is evident as to why these reminiscences continue to trouble me so. Had Packie Cooley been nothing more than a humdrum private in those black, smoking regiments of
the expelled, perhaps there might have been a tiny glimmer of the hope of which I have spoken earlier. But what I didn’t realize – along with the fact that it was by now already too
late to do anything even if I had! – was that I was dealing with no casual, insouciant, part-time agent of the shadows. What I now harboured within the walls of my beloved seminary –
which I would have realized had he not so effectively fashioned winkers for me with his – as I now can see it – reptilian charm – was the very President of the Damned, the Earl of
Nothingness – Satan himself!
*
The first indication I had that Fr Packie Cooley might not exactly be who he said he was came on a dark night in the year 1961, not long after the terrible news had arrived that
some Irish soldiers had been brutally done to death by members of the marauding Baluba tribe in the Congo region of Africa. I had just concluded my spiritual reading and was making my way along the
main corridor to my room when I became aware of a presence close by, and upon turning the corner leading to what was affectionately known as the Big Corridor, to my astonishment found the student
in question (he was by now a subdeacon) chuckling away to himself as he held the newspaper, as large tears coursed down his flushed, excessively mobile face, spattering the newsprint of the paper
which he held before him. ‘Packie,’ I gasped, ‘oughtn’t you be in bed?’ ‘Yes,’ he coughed as he began his reply, ‘but I was so upset at this dreadful
news that I simply couldn’t sleep. Did you read about it yourself, Father? You know what they did to those poor soldiers, don’t you? They ate them! It’s beyond words! It’s
just too much to bear!’
With that, he covered his face with his black-clad arm and fled down the corridor, the echo of his muffled sobs lingering in the silence long after he had left the building.
Had that been all, it is likely that I should have thought no more of it, but when I examined the newspaper – which in his ‘distressed’ state he had discarded on the window
ledge – I noted that onto the image of one of the unfortunate deceased military had been added a crudely drawn pair of spectacles and ludicrously thin moustache, and beneath that again, a
barely legible scrawl which formed the words – my head lightened –
Irish stew! It’s tasty!
The strangest of feelings enveloped me as I stood there in the half-light of evening, as if a ghost-snake were making its way with infinite but lithe patience up and down the length of my spine.
The tragedy is that I did not acknowledge the import of this sign, shot through with foreboding as it most surely was, but simply shook myself and folded up the newspaper, popping it into the
waste-paper basket as I proceeded on my way to the Sacred Heart dormitory.
The next incident took place in the sacristy on the 11th of November 1962 when I was doffing my vestments, having completed my celebration of Mass. I was in quite high spirits – it was a
truly beautiful morning, with spears of golden sunlight seeming to impishly fence with each other above the mosaic in that bright and airy room – and was looking forward
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