Angus Craddic was in a barrel.
He hadn’t always been in a barrel but now, in this moment, he was vividly aware that he was, without a shadow of a doubt, sitting in something that very much resembled a barrel.
A cooper, or barrel maker by another name, Angus moved with the enthusiasm of a working week that contained at least four mondays. ‘If I die in a barrel, god help me, it better be a full one’, the old cooper said as he climbed out of the barrel and stamped life back into his bones.
‘What’s that Mr Craddic?’ the apprentice replied, falling for Angus’s bait with the eagerness of a fish moments from a supprise lip piercing.
‘Oh! I didn’t know it was break time Arty. Well then, we’ll just sit down and have a little chat shall we? In fact, it’s a bit cold, how about we burn all this wood? Barrels make themselves now you know!’ said Angus, with a sarcasm so thick that the air took on a mildly damp feel. Pausing to ride the high of his apprentice’s sudden panic he continued, ‘I joke lad, I joke. Dry your eyes and get us some tea, my back has had enough for today.’ Letting Arty samper off Angus winced as he slumped down to the floor of his workshop and let the cool of the stone soak against his sweat-beaten shirt. Rolling sideways in an effort to free up the knot forming in his lower back, Angus heard a click that rattled all the way up to his brain stem. ‘Ah heck!’ he coughed with legs now feeling as mobile as two sacks of flour. ‘Arty! Arty! Me’ back may have given up the ghost right properly this time.’
‘Does this mean I can go home early today?’
‘Like hell it does boy! Bring in that tea I asked ye’ for and warm up a towel, we might have to call a medicine maker’, the sound of a kettle nearing its boil wafted in from the back room. ‘Hope Nevil doesn’t mind picking up a few less barrels tomorr- ACK oh gods that hurts’ Angus cried out in pain as he tried standing again.
Arty soon returned to the room and helped his boss up into a chair.
‘What about Miska the Alchemist? She’s got all sorts of magic-’
‘Magic!?’ Angus gruffly interjected, ‘Let me tell you about magic. I once had a rather nice woodworking store next to one of those alchemist what’sys. For two months I’d come in each morning and find that the brooms had sprung into life. They trashed the shop, and then fled into the night they did, the worst part was that I never had anything to sweep up the mess. Bah-! Alchemists indeed!
Arty was unsure whether Angus was becoming delirious or teasing him again so he kept quiet.
Some time later the old cooper was fast asleep, holding a grimace of pain as he weakly breathed. Worried for his master, Arty ran and fetched Miska.
‘Ahh! My my my.’ The heavily tattooed alchemist moved through the workshop like a serpant, drums of dissonance followed in her footstep. ‘He has been gripped by the ghosts of the dark.’ she spoke while tossing handfulls of chalk dust onto the ground.
‘Gosh! That sounds terrible Miska’ said Arty, his heart racing with fear as he watched Miska dance around Angus, sniffing the air and looking over him with wild unfocused eyes.
‘Yes, quite terrible, we must act with haste lest he be lost. A tomb of wood, a casket. He must be placed to rest in something such as this right away! He of shadow can not pass through the grains of our plane; tell me boy do you have any scotch?’
‘Yes Miska, there’s half a barrel we got from the distiller down the road.’
‘Half a barrel, how perfect! We must put him in this barrel and seal up the lid now, now, now. Scotch to heal the pain, darkness to cradle the soul, wood to seal the wound. Melinkya, Melinkya, Kari Ohm Shi-lyat nofalla. Away shadow, away! Hurry young one we lift him in together!’
To understand that you’re drunk is an odd feeling. It soothes the edges and clips the chaff away from rationalism.
To wake up unexpectedly drunk though, that is a different feeling entirely; it is a feeling that announces itself bodly. It creates a puzzle of tangled thoughts that flit unexpectedly with paranoia, grabbing half fragments of memory and holding them to light in the hope that they mean something.
The period between Angus’s afternoon and his waking within the confines of a barrel will forever escape the remembrance of reason but now, in this moment…..
Angus Craddic was in a barrel.
…
J.McCray
2019
Sunday Short Stories 