I've a ferocious dose of chickenpox and look like a type of sandwich meat

I've a ferocious dose of chickenpox and look like a type of sandwich meat Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  At Lowe's, this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic Milo's Rewards Silver Status Benefits. Plus, 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honor and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty programs subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a Berry Chantilly Cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.

• 1:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  Spread jam on your toast upon the hangman's balcony, you scandalous Anthony's. Welcome to the Blind Eye Podcast. I am hilariously, comically sick this week. I have adult chickenpox, which is not enjoyable. Not enjoyable at all. I'm over the worst of it. If you only get the chickenpox once, right? If you got it as a child, you're grand, you know the crack. If, like me, you couldn't remember whether you got it as a child, or your ma couldn't

• 1:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  remember if you got it as a fucking child. If you don't know, just get vaccinated against the chickenpox. Because it has a lot of crack with your body when you're a full grown adult. It's...

• 2:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's very plaguey. I have a lot of solidarity with medieval peasants this week. It's, it's a very 12th century type of fucking disease. My nude body looks like something you'd purchase at a deli counter and pebble dashed with red spots. And when you get it as an adult, the old spots are quite fond of the genitals, the, the greedy chickenpox. Has no qualms partaking in both gooch and glands. I've got blisters in my eyelids, inside my mouth, which makes it, I've been saving up this bit of talking for this podcast.

• 2:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  I have them inside my mouth and even it's difficult to wear my headphones right now because they're all over my head. And in the past two days, I had a fever, a fever that could bring about fucking visions, bedridden. And then a constant humming itch everywhere. I needed leeches. So I'm midpoint now and hopefully I should start getting better from about tomorrow. And it'll take about five days before I'm completely clear.

• 3:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then I have to worry about shingles. So when you get the chickenpox,

• 3:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  it can return at any point, especially if you're stressed in the form of a shingles, which is like a localized rash and a fever too, I believe. So I'll be looking forward to that. So it's been a rough few days. And also I had to cancel my gig in Galway and I just want to say sorry to anyone who had tickets and who was coming along to my gig in Galway last Sunday. I was gonna be chatting to Tommy Tierney and I was looking forward to it so much. So to everyone who was coming to that gig, I'm so unbelievably sorry.

• 4:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's the first gig that I've cancelled. The last gig I fucking cancelled, not including Covid. Covid doesn't count because that's outside of my control. The last gig I cancelled before that because of sickness would have been 2011. I hate having to pull a gig because there was like 900 people coming to Galway. So that's 900 people who had made a decision to come to a gig. And then it's, it's fucking with all their plans and it's disappointing so many people. So I want all you to know, I would never, ever cancel a gig unless I absolutely had to. On Sunday, I was fully bedridden. There was no way to do the gig, so I had to, I had to cancel it unfortunately.

• 4:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  But that gig will be rescheduled as soon as I possibly can. So if you bought a ticket, you'll get an email to know when the gig is on again. And you can come along to that. And if that doesn't suit you, you're fully entitled to a refund too. So thank you for that patience and understanding. Something I want to bring up too, in the context of this. So over the past couple of years, I've spoken more and more about experiencing burnout or being under stress to complete work. And in general, just getting more coughs and colds and flus here on this podcast. And it being difficult to record as a result of that. And then this week, people going, how the fuck do you get chickenpox?

• 5:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  Who gets chickenpox? What the fuck is that about? I got the chickenpox off my children. I have two little children. I've got a, a four-year-old and a two-year-old who are all so sick with the chickenpox right now. I've never mentioned that before. The reason I'm mentioning it now is I've just cancelled a gig. I'm turning up with a lot of excuses and I want to provide context for things like that. Or context for if you've ever listened to this podcast over the past four years and I'm clearly recording at six in the morning or clearly. Haven't slept and then I get concerned mails from people.

• 6:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  So I'm actually a dad to two toddlers who I love very much. And I love being a dad, but putting their needs first. And being physically and emotionally present for them. Means that this podcast and touring and gigs will take a hit. Like I can't stop getting sick. Like there's, there's nothing I can do about it. Little toddlers pick up every single cough and cold that's going and they bring it back to you. One of the benefits of being autistic is you don't get as many coughs and colds. Cause you simply don't do enough socializing to get them. And that was really fucking working for me.

• 6:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then I had kids and it's like, fuck's sake, I've got a sore throat or a black nose every two weeks. And that's difficult because my job means speaking into a fucking microphone. I haven't really slept in four years. That's just normal. If you're a parent, you know the crack. Jeez, if I do a gig and I don't get home till three in the morning, because gigs finish at one or two. I'm still up at six, so I can say good morning to my little babies. And it's also the reason I'm not touring as much internationally. Um, I'm doing Germany and the UK this year. That's it.

• 7:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  I have a little family and when I say on this podcast. I like the privacy, the privacy of just me and spending time with my family. And my fam, that's who I'm speaking about, my, my own family. The reason I've chosen not to mention this at all up to this point is because of. Privacy, ethics and safety. Tiny children are human beings, toddlers are, are human beings. And I, I don't feel comfortable turning the lives of a human being into content. So my goal was to try and keep it completely private. But the thing is you can't because it just gets out.

• 8:19Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like this year, a journalist mentioned it to me. They're like, oh, I heard you have two kids. And then I went, oh, fuck. Well, if they know that, then that person knows that. And then that person knows that. And it's only a matter of time before. Someone says it, not mentioning on this podcast has been very difficult because

• 8:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  we're talking about very emotionally significant moments in my life. And there's been so many opportunities where I've wanted to tell you stories. And it's like, no, that's not appropriate. These tiny little humans have not consented and cannot consent to me discussing anything about them to a million people. So I'd found other ways to be emotionally congruent, but I have to maintain privacy. And also tiny little toddlers are human beings who will one day grow up to wanna try and listen to their dad's podcast.

• 9:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  I don't think it's, it would be healthy for them to have an archive, a public archive of me passing opinions, even positive ones, on various stages of their development for them to then be able to listen back to as adults. We don't know what the roles are.

• 9:39Blindboy Boatclub?

  And this shit is new and I'd rather err on the side of caution.

• 9:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  We've seen fucking lifestyle influencers, lads. We've seen this. There's adults now, nineteen, twenty,

• 9:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  speaking out about their parents because back in twenty ten, when they were children, their parents made them lifestyle influencers on fucking YouTube. Family channels, unboxing channels,

• 10:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  where little children had cameras pushed in front of their faces to make content for hours a day. And this content was generating a lot of money and the kids were like, I didn't know, was I actually playing with my parents or was this a performance of play for the camera because it made good content? And now in twenty twenty six. You hear those adults talking about their childhoods and you look back and you go, "Yeah, that should have been illegal. That was really fucked up there." Back in 2010, when people were seeing these kids doing unboxing videos or fucking parent content on YouTube, some people were saying this is wrong, but a lot of people

• 10:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  were going, "I don't know, seems pretty normal to me. What are the rules? We don't know yet." So I'm choosing to disclose this about myself now because I feel I need to give ye context. I've just missed a gig because I'm sick and now I'm effectively showing up with no podcast on a Wednesday and I'd like ye to understand that there's this other huge thing in my life, caring for two little toddlers. All right, two kids under the age of four. And if I'm being incredibly vague with my language around all of this, I'm leaving out details that's deliberate. I'm trying to give the least amount of details possible

• 11:32Blindboy Boatclub?

  and hope that ye can... ye know where children come from, don't ye? So I have a family. I have a full family. All right? I just don't want to say anything on this podcast that the newspapers can quote and tidily put into a fucking headline and then it's clickbait on Facebook to be savaged and talked shit about by DAS. The business of media doesn't like it when public figures maintain boundaries around privacy. So I'm being as vague as possible while also holding myself accountable to ye for missing a gig and not turning up and I'm too sick to do a fucking podcast this week. I just want ye to go, "Oh, fuck. This whole time, this

• 12:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  whole time he's actually been looking after two tiny toddlers as well? Or that explains why he's always sick. Or that explains why he didn't gig in Canada this year. Or that explains why he sometimes sounds really fucking tired or is recording at six in the morning." And just because I know you're gonna have fucking parenting questions.

• 12:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  They could just go with Carl Rogers stuff.

• 12:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  I make sure that my love is like the sunshine.

• 12:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  Unconditional love. And the sun tells you all you need to know about being a parent. The sun's always there. The sun's rays are always there. Sometimes it's overcast, other times it's windy, it's rainy, but the sun's light is always there. That's love. I tried to put the effort in with my two little monkeys that

• 13:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  no aspect of their behaviour can influence how much I love them in any way. That my love is just, it's, it's stable and enduring like the sunshine. And it doesn't, it's not contingent.

• 13:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  And their performance, their temperament, achievements, or whether they even give that love back to me. There's no conditions for my love, it just simply is. And if I can

• 13:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  put in the effort and practise at doing that, then as they get older, there's a stronger chance that they'll feel that way about themselves. That they will, they'll have an intrinsic sense of self-worth. I'm trying to build intrinsic self-worth through unconditional love. I write them both, brand new bedtime story every single night. Anyway, they think my job is to, to read bedtime stories to adults. Which it is. And also what I do is

• 14:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  one of the reasons I don't do Twitch streaming anymore, because I used to Twitch stream three times a week and to write songs on Twitch and, and make music. I don't do that anymore. Instead, I do that with my two little kids. I have them playing instruments, banging drums, keyboards, singing. We record it, make songs. Now, this isn't about making good songs, making bad songs. Or anything being right or wrong. This is playfulness, no rules. Playing instruments, generating sounds, recording it, hearing it back. For the aesthetic joy of sculpting with vibrations of air.

• 15:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  Because I'm autistic and I'm not gonna switch off the part of me that's wants to write stories, wants to make music, the curiosity. I incorporate it all into my, into my parenting via playfulness. That's what I do so that I can make as much time for them as, as humanly possible. And that end up.

• 15:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  One of the fucking saddest stories. There's so many musicians and artists that I used to look up to. And now I don't look up to them as much anymore when I see that. They weren't present for their kids, that they placed their, their work, their art ahead of their little fucking kids. Someone I used to really look up to was, um, a musician called Frank Zappa.

• 15:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I used to adore Frank Zappa's work ethic. Cause he would just work, work, work. He was obsessed with his, with his output. He had a studio in his house. And he would spend twelve, thirteen hours there a day, just focused on his work. And I used to, I used to admire that because I'll focus on work for sixteen, seventeen hours, longer, if that's what needs to happen. But he never saw his fucking kids, even though they were in the same house. And the kids were told, stay away from your father if he's working, if he's in his studio, stay the fuck away. You're not welcome down there. The thing is Frank Zappa never had a big hit.

• 16:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  He'd loads of albums of very brilliant, complex jazz rock fusion. But never had like a mainstream hit that got on the radio or that would pay any huge royalties. He used to just make this obscure music that was liked by a niche audience. And then one day in nineteen eighty-two, I think it was. His daughter, Moan Unit. I know that's a mad name. Her name was Moan Unit. His daughter, Moan Unit.

• 17:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  She went down to his studio door in their house, in their home.

• 17:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  And he slid a note, she slid a note underneath his door. And the note, she was like, I think thirteen at this point, fourteen. And the note said, "Hi Dad, my name is Moon Unit. We live in the same house, but we don't see each other very much. I know you don't know me very well. Can I come into the studio just to hang out today? Can we break the rule?" And Frank saw the note coming underneath the door and read it. And obviously thought, fuck it, why not? I let her in today. I let my daughter in today, why not? This is a funny note. So he broke his own rule. And Moon Unit came into the studio with him that day. And then for the first time ever,

• 17:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  he's like, why don't we write a song for crack, for the fun? And they did. Complete fucking around, no rules. Father and daughter. Frank just did out a drum beat and pulled out a bass guitar. And Moon Unit just didn't even start singing, started talking over. The bass and the drum. No rules, just fun for the sake of fun, playfulness. And that then turned into a song called Valley Girl.

• 18:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  Which Frank Zappa released and it became his only number one song. With his daughter singing on it. And I remember vowing to myself when I heard that story, because it broke my fucking heart. I remember vowing to myself, if I ever have children, I'll never, ever allow my passions or my interests, my curiosity, my, my art, my creativity. None of these things, I will never allow them to be more important than my kids. No tour or, or fucking writing a book or podcast, anything is worth more than their time. So I'll work around their fucking time. So that's what I do. That's why I work deep into the night sometimes when they're asleep.

• 19:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I'm very careful about my tours because. Just trying not to have more than two big ones a year. I'm going to Germany this year just for a weekend and then England for like two weeks. But they miss me when I'm gone. All of the emotions I wanted to discuss around parenting and what it feels like to become a parent. And the, the love and terror that exists alongside each other. I channeled it into my last book. Stories like Pistol to the Dandelions, or The Poojean Maker, or even The Cat-Piste Astronaut.

• 19:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  Sorry if I'm slurring my words, I'm sick and I have blisters in my mouth. Blisters in my mouth from chickenpox. I explored all the, all the emotions of, of becoming a parent in these stories. Because I can't really deliver a podcast this week, because I haven't, I've been too sick to prepare. I'm gonna play for you again a story that I would have read out about two or three years ago when I wrote it. The story is called The Poojean Maker.

• 20:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  And it's about, it's a, it's a man and his little daughter was about nine months old. And it's, it's, it's about his, his internal world, his internal world of, of looking after his, his, his little baby, that in order to feel the, the intense love that's necessary to, to keep a little creature alive. You have to also confront the terror and fear of losing that little creature. And also with the story. Sometimes when I write stories, it's a fun thing that you can do with the written word and also in dreams.

• 21:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  I like something to be in two different timelines at once for something to be, for a story to be occurring in, in the, in the past and the future at the same time. And in this story, this character, the Poojean Maker, he believes that he's been hunted by fairies. He truly believes that the fairies are coming to try and take his little baby. And the, in the beliefs of Irish folklore, fairies take the form of animals, they shape shift into animals. So this father is, is at the same time marveling at his tiny little baby.

• 21:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  Who gets excited when she sees butterflies or deers or otters? But he then is terrified of nature because they could be fairies. But also what that's exploring now is the terror that everyone, every parent feels when your tiny little child has a sense of wonder about the world and nature, insects, birds. I mean, this is what little toddlers love.

• 22:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  And you have to get down there and, and see that curiosity from their level and explain to them what these things are, what insects are, but then knowing that everything's in a state of collapse, these things are also dying and you don't know what life is going to be like for that little child in thirty, forty years. If, if you're long-term listening to this podcast now and you're, you're taken aback by my sudden announcement this week, just pretend that a, a cat that you've been feeding has felt safe enough to show up with its kittens. Look, I'm fit to fucking collapse.

• 22:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  I, I have my Ocarina this week. I was actually given a Protestant whistle up in Belfast, a big long Protestant bass flute up in Belfast. Some people were suggesting that that's where I got the chicken box from. It's not, like a Protestant curse.

• 23:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  I, I don't have the Protestant flute with me. Thank you to the person who gave it to me. I'm gonna play it next week when I have it, but I've got my Ocarina now. I'm gonna play the fucking Ocarina. You're gonna hear some, some adverts, all right?

• 23:34Speaker 03

  Soft, cushy, plush, cosy, soft, smooth, buttery, marshmallow-y, warm, soft. Socks, underwear, tees and more. Bombas. Everyday comfort worth obsessing over. Visit bombas.com/audio and use code AUDIO for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S.com/audio. One purchase equals one donated, always.

• 24:06Speaker 00

  At Lowe's this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic MyLowe's Rewards Silver Status Benefits. Plus, 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honor and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty programs subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 24:34Speaker 04

  The youth mental health crisis is growing, and social media is a major driver. Kids are spending up to nine hours a day on screens, often unsupervised, and studies show a direct link to anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. That's where Gab comes in. Gab offers safer phones and watches for kids with no social media, tailored to every age, offering the right tech at the right time. Or Tech in Steps. From GPS tracking-enabled watches for younger kids to phones with parent-enabled apps for teens, each device allows kids to more safely grow their independence. Visit gab.com/getgab and use code GETGAB for an exclusive offer.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  That's G-A-B-B dot com forward slash get gab. Gab: Tech in Steps. Independence for them, peace of mind for parents.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a Berry Chantilly Cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.

• 26:03Speaker 00

  At Lowe's this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic Milo's Rewards Silver Status Benefits. Plus 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honour and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 26:31Speaker 05

  Seventy-five percent of women who seek menopause care don't receive it. The lying awake at 3am wondering what's happening to your body ends now. Midi is virtual care built for women in perimenopause and menopause with clinicians who specialise in women's health. Plus it's covered by most major insurances. Getting started is easy. You can book your first visit with a clinician right away. Midlife needs Midi. Visit joinmidi.com to book your first visit today. That's join m i d i dot com. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage.

• 27:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  Sounds like a mournful orchestral. Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com/theblindbypodcast. If this podcast brings you mirth, merriment, entertainment, whatever the fuck has you listening to this podcast, please consider supporting this podcast directly. It's my full-time job. It's how I pay my bills. It's how I earn my living. Alright. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month. That's it. If you can't afford it, don't worry about it. Listen for free. Okay? Patreon.com/theblindbypodcast. Directly funding this podcast keeps it independent. Upcoming gigs. So Galway last Sunday, had to cancel it. I'm sorry.

• 27:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  That will be rescheduled. When I have the date, I'll let you know. If you bought a ticket, you're gonna get an email about the rescheduling and you can get a refund if you like. If that doesn't suit you. Then Saturday the 28th of this month, so I have two weeks off. I'm up in Killarney. Kerry there in the eye neck. Come along to that and suggest some guests to me on Instagram, please. March, I'm in Carlo. That's sold out.

• 28:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, that's pretty much sold out. Um, 26th of March, Cork Opera House, couple of tickets left for that at the Cork Podcast Festival, come along to that. April, Castle Blaney, there on the 4th of April, that's nearly sold out. Limerick City, Limerick City there on the, the 9th of April, Limerick City, University Concert Hall, come down to that, the homecoming gig. Then, up in Dublin, 23rd of April, in Fickers Street. June, just announced, right, tickets literally went on sale, couple of days ago and selling quickly. Berlin, alright.

• 29:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  And the 19th, I'm in the Babylon Theatre in Berlin, really looking forward to that. July, nice quiet summer, let's keep it that way. July and the 5th, Sheffield, that's, I'm at Sheffield at the, at the Crossed Wires Festival. Another very interesting thing I found out about Sheffield, I'm quite excited about this. There's a place called Eccleson Road in Sheffield, and there's a, a Co-op shop there, and at the back of this Co-op, the fridges, the fridges at the back and the freezers, they all hum together, and they make a perfect chord of C sharp.

• 29:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  And apparently, walking into the fridges of this fucking Co-op in Sheffield is an almost spiritual experience, to hear this, this perfect hum of fridges in C sharp. And I, I hope that I get to see that, or to listen to it, in July. And then, October, the tour of England, Scotland and Wales. Brighton, Cardiff, Coventry, Bristol, Guildford, London, Glasgow, Gateshead, Nottingham. You'll get those tickets at fein.co.uk forward slash blindby.

• 30:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then the Irish tickets, you'll get them on my website, theblindbypodcast.ie, assuming it's working. Now, I'm gonna leave you with a short story, it's not really short, it's an hour long. I'm gonna leave you with this story called The Poojean Maker. If you don't wanna listen to it, you don't have to, alright? It's there because...

• 30:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'm conscious of the fact that I'm showing up with no podcast this week, effectively. So I don't, I don't want to fuck up anyone's Wednesday. All right. So here is a full short story to listen to if that's what you want. If you just need the company and if not, I'd be back next week with something. Okay. God bless. Oh, and just one small little detail about this story, which is not an error, because it was pointed out to me before.

• 31:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  The girl in this story, her name is Coch, which is an Irish name, Coch, but it's pronounced cat in this story. The reason I did that is

• 31:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  to blur the line between human and animal, which then in itself is a call back to another story in the collection called The Pistols of the Dandelions, because all of the stories in that, in that collection are connected. It's an ecosystem of stories. The Poochine Maker.

• 31:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  The oak or kernels of barley sifted through his callous fingers, scarred from seasonal blisters. The grains had been soaking in the bloated bags for two days and two nights, woken by the silver water of the river. The starry odor of cereal hung in the earth of the hut. Tiny translucent hairs were sprouting from the base of each kernel. They looked like worms, the way they pushed off the slimy husk of the seed. There must have been 10,000 of them in his force sacks. He picked one kernel and held it between his index finger and thumb in a pincer. As he squeezed it, he fixed a squint on the white paste that emerged from the bran.

• 32:32Blindboy Boatclub?

  It stuck to his skin. He rubbed it between the tips of his fingers and pinched at the gummy resistance of it. There was a chalkiness that he felt in his back teeth. It was the malt, pure starch. He thought about semen. His head flew off to an endless yellow field of barley with tall fronds, tickling a low sun. The sadness and the fear entered him again, because each one of these little sprouting barleys was a young life that he was cutting short. He wiped his palms clean on the front of his trousers and stepped back from the sack of molting grains. The tightness was in his chest and travelled up to his forehead and followed a frown that

• 33:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  was painful. It had the bones of a headache in it. And Kat was bent over on the back floor of the hut. Her little chubby hands were playing in the dirt. She was forming balls of mud and squeezing them through her fingers. She smiled when she squeezed, and then the smile faded into the soft blankness of a daydream as her eyes focused on the strings of mud that pushed through the gaps in her fist. It was a wonder and a curiosity, as if she was only now realising that she had that power in her hands. He stooped down in a squat and put both his hands on her Kat's oxters, then stood up and brought her chest close to his chest.

• 34:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  She produced a gentle whisper of a gasp, and whenever he'd hear it, he'd think about how small her lungs must be. He repositioned her so that her bum rested on the crook of his left forearm. His right palm supported her spine, and her head was nestled perfectly under his nose. As he bent low to walk out of the hut, he took deep breaths in through his nostrils, reveling in the smell of her hair and her scalp. It was like garce flour or fresh milk or strawberry, and it trickled down into the pit of his belly and flowed around his lungs. It tingled to the edges of his toes. It shone on any bit of anxiety in his body and cleansed the feeling with terrifying love.

• 34:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  The sad pain in his forehead subsided and moved behind his eyes in a soothing balm. Tears formed, the healing tears that he'd search for whenever he smelled his daughter's hair. Kat's left hand reached up towards the curls of his beard, just under his chin. She fandled and pulled like she'd find something in there. She was wiping off the mud from her palm. It hurt him a little. He pressed his neck closer to her finger. She could clean her hands on his beard all day if she liked. The air cooled the tear on his cheek and they both gazed at the rolling bubbles of the stream. It was more of a river, but still a stream, somewhere in between.

• 35:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  The ripples slushed over pebbles into deeper pools of dark water. The surface reflected the sky. He watched slender brown trout reposition themselves in unison, blending into clouds of sand. They darted with the current so that he could only see them when he focused intently. He blinked and he lost them. He found them again. Blue mountains rose in the distance, watching him through the hazel trees on the other side of the stream. The mud hut was to his back, like the den of an animal. He had built it in this spot three autumns ago by piling dense grey sods of riverbed clay between layers of willow branches, eventually forming a wall. The exact spot was chosen with incredible care.

• 36:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  A small leafy ravine that looked like the earth had been split open with a hatchet long ago, hidden away from eyes. The water too shallow for any person to pass by on an oar boat. The hut leaned into the crevice of a limestone rock face that was just taut enough to dissipate the white smoke from his still. The roof had a chimney hole and was attached with fresh lumps of grass and ferns as green as the natural thickets that grew around them. If any passing person was ever to look down into that ravine, they'd have to focus intently to see the hut, but no person would ever find him. He knew that. A dusk breeze came down the water and Kat did her gasp again. The creeping chill of late autumn.

• 37:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  He heisted her up closer to his elbow so that her chest was nearer the warmth of his body, steadying her again with his palm. Her middle was sturdy and she could support her neck. She was almost as heavy as a bag of dry barley, but nowhere near as heavy as a bag of wet barley. The sun hid over the limestone ravine and cast a shadow. Everything became dull as the air cooled. A cormorant landed on a rock a slight distance upstream. It was a silhouette in the fading light. It spread its two black velvety wings wide, shaking them in a slow dance, its serpent neck tapering up into a sharp beak.

• 37:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  Cat jolted in his arms with excitement and pointed at the bird. "Gak, gak," she said, her eyebrows raised as if they were ready to jump off her forehead. A look of new surprise and amazement took over her face. "Gak, gak," pointing more at the cormorant, like she could reach over and touch it. The terror and tightness returned to his chest. He felt that they were being monitored. He quickly turned his shoulders to the water, retreating inside the hut with Cat firmly in his arms. She squirmed to look back at the bird. The puccine hut was smaller than their stone cottage over the hill, but there was enough space for him to stand upright in the centre.

• 38:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  The mud walls made the whole place smell like being buried alive. It was very dark. A turf fire pit in the centre gave off a faint orange glow about as bright as two candles. He sat Cat on a bed of straw and fed her a gluey meal of barley porridge and smoked dried trout in a wooden bowl. The bowl rested in between her thighs. She ate with her hands and her little face took on a studious look when she savoured the food. He tipped water against her lips from his tin cup and her fingers stained the sides with gruel. He basked in her delight. A pride filled his belly when he recognised that something he had prepared could bring her such pleasure and vitality.

• 39:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  She paused between bites and looked at him with an urgency. "Gak, gak," she'd say in an excited pitch. He smiled back at her, saying, "Yes, yes," not understanding what she was trying to say, but truly believing that it was very important to her, whatever it was. He didn't eat. Pitch darkness came outside, and he knew she'd be getting tired and cranky soon. He set to work on the soaked barley. He had crocheted a robust drying rack, woven in a teepee shape, from bendy branches of blackened willow that had been smoke-hardened over the years. It could hold significant weight, despite its spindly appearance.

• 39:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  It was taller than him, and was situated over the glowing embers of peat turf. It reached up, so that the top was just under the chimney hole in the roof. He settled a barley sack on the bottom tier of the rack, which was interlaced in a hatched pattern. Using his knife, he cut a careful slit down the centre of the coarse bag. He pulled the hessian apart, all the barley swooshed in a triangle pile on the splayed sack. The white spouts of each grain caught the glowing light in the dark and stared up at him like red eyes in a forest. This made him pause for a bit. Kat was playing with her empty wooden ball behind him, and making little groans of frustration.

• 40:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  A few kernels rolled towards her, and she crawled forward, with a curious hand unfurled. He swept them away with his palm before she could put them in her mouth. He quickly got back to work, spreading the barley out evenly on the fabric with his palms. He repeated this four times on each shelf of the drying rack, so the gentle heat of the peat fire could rise up through the striating layers of grain and draw the moisture out. This would stop the seeds from germinating, and complete the malting process. It would take all night to do this. He arranged straw on the bare mud floor beside the rack.

• 41:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  On a strip of hessian, he placed a smoked trout in a small tin cup of water. Next to this were several sods of fresh turf and a set of iron tongs. The turf was well-dried. He dug it himself from the bog of skulls at the feet of the Blue Mountains. It would produce hardly any smoke, nor would it impart too strong a peat taste on the barley malt. He sat down with his shoulders against the natural limestone wall at the back of the hut. It was cold, but his feet reached the rim of the fire. He rehearsed picking up a piece of turf with the tongs and dropping it in the fire, making sure his arm had enough of a span to do this without needing to get up from where he lay.

• 42:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  When he was satisfied that everything was in its place, he called to Kat. She was rubbing her eye with her fist. He said, "Night, night", and she understood this, and crawled towards him as best she could. He reached out and laid her whole body on his chest. He relished the warmth of her back. She slumped into him, her head under his chin, and her feet reaching down to the top of his thighs. He wrapped Kat in a red blanket made from wool, tied and cosy up to the top of her belly so that she could still move her arms. She looked up towards the chimney hole, where the smoke escaped. His lips pressed against the back of her head, and he noticed the warming fog of his own breath.

• 42:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  He admired the perfect softness of the left side of her face. His two hands secured her in place, and she began to wail. She reached behind her head and tugged at the curls that finished on the back of her neck. She pulled at the hairs of his beard. He knew this meant that she was very tired and needed help falling asleep. When Kat would cry in the hut, a great panic would consume him. He worried that she might feel his heart pounding against her back, and then bawl through the night. He told himself that the thick mud sods in the walls would dampen the sound of her cries. He told himself that the rushing of the stream outside would overpower the noise she made.

• 43:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  He could deal with a human hearing her, but dusk was when the fairies listened out for babies. He inhaled the perfume of her scalp through his nostrils. His heart lulled in his chest. He rocked his torso and sang a whispered lullaby, until her wailing became a quieter, rhythmic groan that matched the tempo of his movement. When she drifted off, he placed the warm iron tongs between his hand and her chest to protect from the fairies' magic and to help transport Kat into a deep sleep. He listened to the pace of her breath, scrunching the muscles around his eyes to hone in on the sound.

• 44:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  There was always a ringing in his ears, like distant bells. He couldn't remember how long he'd lived with the bells in his head. He'd only noticed them when Kat was a few weeks old, and a tiny breath was something he needed to hear. As the air from her nose flowed heavy and slow, he cautiously took the iron tongs from her chest and placed a fresh sod of turf on the embers. He watched the orange glow creep and singe the fibers. Clean heat wobbled the air like worn glass and distorted the yellow barley. He wondered if she was old enough to have dreams yet. The sound of water rippled outside.

• 44:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  When Kat slept, he had the misfortune of being alone with his thoughts. How the fairies had taken her brother in the night and replaced him with a changeling. They come for the baby buys. Intrusive images nailed themselves to his head. The month-old baby, stiff in the straw cot on that morning. A frozen face like a little apple made out of candle wax. No priest would bless the dead child. You can't bury a changeling in a graveyard. His two hands thatching his son's body into the roof of the cottage with an iron horseshoe for protection. Was it his son in the ceiling, or the fairy child they left in his place?

• 45:39Blindboy Boatclub?

  The fairies had taken Kat's mother too, in a fever the week after Kat was born. In the daytime, he kept his hands busy to stop himself from thinking about his wife and son. He couldn't even say their names, and he knew with utter certainty that it was all his fault. He had been targeted by the fairies because of what he did with the barley and the still. Every drop of spirit stolen from a grain belongs to the other world. They'll take their reparations. He was haunted by the sound of them coming for Kat in the tiny bells they put in his head. Cat was born a by, but he's raising her as a girl.

• 46:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  He'll grow her hair out long and put her in dresses when she's older, all to trick the fairies. And that stayed locked in his mind with the visions of her dead mother and brother. She was Cat, she was nothing other than Cat. But he knew that cormorant had its eye on her when it did the dance on the stream. That was no cormorant. His heart got loud again and the chilled sweat bloomed out of the pores on his forehead. He felt the powerful urge to get up and walk it off. Cat blubbered and irritated, groaned and exhaled, as if her body sensed his intentions. She was a ball of heat on his chest. He moved his left hand up slightly so that it rested under hers.

• 47:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  Her hot palm gripped his finger from the depths of her sleep, and he was frightened by how much he loved her. The barley made crackling noises. He dipped his other hand in the tin cup and flicked water on the burning tarp. It hissed and white smoke swirled up and out the roof. He hoped that it wasn't seen in the sky.

• 47:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  The song of a thrush brightened the ravine. Perfect beams of blue light penetrated every fault in the mud and shunned through the smoke of the hut. Cat awoke with a groggy cry. She had relieved herself in her sleep. He cleaned her off and quickly washed his soiled shirt in the stream. Beside him, she swept at grass with her hands and tried to place some in her mouth. Wisps of dawn fog curled over the surface of the water. He focused on them from his knees, and in that small moment, he was not consumed by worry or guilt. He moved her to his lap. They ate porridge and buttermilk warmed in the ash of the sods.

• 48:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  The barley kernels were bone dry from the night. The malt was complete. He sniffed them in his palm. The sweetness of cereal climbed up the hairs of his nostrils and finished with the smoggy violence of peat. His thoughts could taste their spirits in the arse of his throat. They would make a fine pochine. Kat's blanket was stretched over the grass by the edge of the stream. She had only learned to crawl a month ago, but stayed within the warmth of the woolen surface. He settled two oak barrels in front of the hut, aged and coopered with rusted iron bands. They'd been buried nearby when he did this last year.

• 49:01Blindboy Boatclub?

  All his equipment was hidden and buried near the ravine, with the exception of the copper worm. He arranged the barrels so that he could see Kat while he was working. Their rims reached his thighs. He emptied the malted barley into both of the barrels. White powder kicked up from the starch of the grain and chalked his beard. Squatting with a stable back, he lugged a tin milk churn onto a three-legged grate and set it there. He lowered the tan ceramic jug into the stream with both hands and slooshed it into the churn until it was full of water. A fire of tarf and sticks was lit under the base. Flames blackened the bottom.

• 49:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  The stream carried a breeze that flomed the smoke into the hazel trees. The leaves ate the plumes. They didn't slither above the ravine. Kat played with her ball and paused when damp wood popped in the fire. "It's okay," he said to her. As he waited for the water to boil, a white butterfly jittered over the grass. It landed on the red fabric of Kat's woolen blanket, confusing it for a flower. Slow movements, fanning its wings with a delicate grace that caught the sunlight and glinted. Kat reached for the butterfly. "Gak," she said. She planted her palm down on its body and pressed it against the wool, her face with

• 50:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  the daydream gaze. He looked up from the bubbles of the heating churn and screamed at her, "No!" She reciled and began to cry. He had never shouted at her like that before. It was the same guttural cry she made the time she accidentally burned her hand on a kettle. He rushed to her side and picked her up, rocking her and kissing her forehead. Her face was pink and swollen with tears as she wailed through the ravine. Birds flew from a hazel, spit dripped from her mouth, and her few small teeth were visible. "I'm sorry." "Shh, shh," he said, "I'm so sorry."

• 51:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  Her crying faded into staggered anxious gasps, which were somehow more painful to him than balls. He rubbed his cheek against her tears and wished that he could put them back into her eyes. They were diamonds to him. The morning had been peaceful, and now he had ruined it. He hated this world where she experienced hurt and terror. He despised himself for being the source of it. The butterfly was still alive. He peered down and watched it unfold its snowy wings against the scarlet blanket. Cat's hand on the soft wool had not been powerful enough to injure it. After a few seconds it fluttered off again over the stream.

• 51:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  He had cat close in his two arms. He told himself that it was just a white butterfly, even though he knew what they say about white butterflies, but it was definitely just a harmless butterfly. He tried desperately not to entertain the fear that the butterfly was the soul of her dead brother, who would come back from the fairy world to warn them. Steam puffed from the boiling water of the churn. He wanted to hold her to his body all day, but the job wouldn't wait. He took a baton to the malted grains that rested in the wooden barrels and crushed them under the cudgel, beating the wood like a drum. He sung the song his mother sang when he'd watched her do the same.

• 52:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  The chaff separated under the battering until a coarse raggedy yellow meal remained.

• 52:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  He poured boiling water from the churn and scalded it. He did this until the barrels were almost full and the oak was warm to the touch. The kernels floated up and frodded at the surface, releasing the stodge from their endosparms. With two fists around the long wooden batten, he stirred the mixture anti-clockwise in a gentle vortex. The swirling grains were hypnotic, and they released him from his ever-present sensation of panic. Plumes of steam sweated up the hairs of his forearms and condensed in dripping beads on his face. The mixture resembled the grey porridge that they ate.

• 53:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  The barley bloomed in the scald, and the dead grains diffused their full bouquet. His seasoned nose took in hazelnuts rolled in burning sugar, goat's cream about the sour, a new-turned sod of earth on bruised grass, stained with the dungy viscera of a lamb's birth, the stolen nectar of a foxglove, toasted bread, the screams of a widow after the battle, a thousand yards of peat bog under thunder and the sharp zest of vomit. Every seed was a unique life with a story and an ancestry,

• 54:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  and he had no business translating these ghosts into a bottle for a human to comprehend with their lips.

• 54:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  He released heavy black treacle from a ceramic pot, and it folded on the meniscus and sunk below the liquid to the bottom of the barrels. He agitated the grey wash and the sweetener stained its sienna. From his waistcoat pocket, he produced the yeast wrapped in butter paper, a live culture that might be three hundred years old and passed down from distiller to distiller. Yellow and doughy with a sickly essence, it would devour the barley starch and treacle to excrete them as heady alcohol. He scraped the yeast into the barrels and covered them with their lids,

• 54:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  leaving enough space at the top for the bubbles of the wash-the-burp. He draped the wood in an olive drab waxed tarp that could stand a bit of rain if it came. He would leave it now for a week, until it awoke for the still.

• 55:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  He wrapped Kat to his chest with their few important belongings in a sack on his back, performing the necessary precautions of subterfuge around the hut before they left. The olive tarp of the barrels was staggered with some ferns to break up their shape. The milk churn and any other instruments were placed back in the hut with the opening shut. From her bundle on his midriff, Kat reached out helpful hands at every object he grabbed and said "Gack!" and squealed. Any trace of a fire pit near the stream was dug up with the heel of his boot uncovered in grass.

• 55:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  They exited the ravine by the end of the stream where it tapered off into a wider river, up the slant of a mossy hill and through the heather of the moor until they found the grey-shailed boarine. The blue mountain stood watch like impartial deities. He began the trek back to their cottage.

• 56:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  It was midday and Kat was stirring in the bundle under his chin. There was nothing strange about a man and his daughter travelling home on the moor. He stood taller on the path than he had done in the ravine. One arm swung and the other supported Kat's back. The odd bit of sun warmed the top of his head. They passed a raggedy tent on wooden poles, with the look of the fabric of the barley sack about it. He couldn't tell if the people inside had no belongings or if they were transient. A man lay at the entrance in a stupor, with his face pointing up at the sky, drunk as drunk could be. His body had sunk into the mud like the earth had no teeth

• 56:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  and was slowly sucking him down with sloppy brown gums. A bare-chested child of about five wore a line cloth and was playing with a grey dog who bounced and barked. The child barked back at the dog and was indifferent to its father in the mud. He slowed his step until he wasn't moving. His shoulder pointed toward the tent with the tension of intent in his tilted neck, like he would stop to check on the man and the child. The ground off the path was marshy. He kept walking on and wondered if he had distilled the bottle that caused all of this. Kat always slept easy when his silent body produced heat and rocked her with the predictable

• 57:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  rhythm of his pace. It was clear heather moors for acres on either side of the crumbling path. The shadow of a cloud dragged across the side of a mountain in the distance and disappeared. The rock face lit it up bright purple with the flowers of the heather. A fox emerged from a trail ahead of him, bushy-tailed. It stopped in the centre of the road, looked at him and Kat, then moved to the other side and was gone. It was definitely just a fox. The animals didn't frighten him out here in the open. Kat was waking in the bundle when he came up the hill to his cottage. She did cranky little groans that shook off her sleep.

• 58:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  He moved closer to the cottage and noticed a single white sheet hanging on his washing line. A worry came over him. He had not put it there. It was a message from the Gadger Mul Queen. One white sheet on the line meant the Gadger would need the stock of Poochin in one week. There must have been a wedding suddenly announced down in the village, or maybe some person was at the door of death, and there would be need of spirits at their wake, whatever it was. The Gadger had a sudden demand for drink, and it was none of his business who bought it and why. Sure, he didn't sell it. He just made it for the Gadger to sell. But a week was too soon.

• 59:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  The malt was only put to ferment that morning. He'd have to rush to distillation and risk producing a spirit that could blind a person or worse, kill them stone dead. If he refused, he'd be in debt to the Gadger and his men, a rotten shower of thugs. There was nothing special about their cottage, but it wasn't a tent on the side of the road either. Walls of stone with a lime wash and a strong roof of thatch. It always stayed dry inside. The wood of the door was heavy and it could tell you stories about battles it had won with February winds.

• 59:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  There was a pine table by the fire, two chairs and a cotton mattress full of straw, a dresser that was taller than him. Kat had her own cot with high sides that enveloped her, and he could afford the rent of it, no fear of a bailiff around here. They had been away for a week, and the stones in the wall had sucked in the cold. There were piles of wood adjacent to the hearth of the fire. He lit them and the room filled up with warmth. Kat was wide-eyed and sat up on her blanket. She reached out her hand and pointed at the objects around the room, like they were all friends.

• 1:00:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  The wooden butter churn in the corner, the oil lamp on the table, and Kat's doll that sat on the top shelf of the wooden dresser. She was excited and he was glad that she was home in comfort and not in the cold of the mud hut. The sky outside grew mauve. Kat fell asleep in his arms and he lay her down in her cot. He had prepared a quick dough for bread earlier. It rested in a blackened pot that was smothered in ashy coals. A smell of baking stuck to the air. The embers of the hearth glowed just enough that he could save the bit of oil in the lamp for another time. Kat's slumber was all-consuming.

• 1:01:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  She was surrounded by the familiar smell of her home. He placed an iron poker that had warmed near the fire across her chest to protect her from fairy magic in the night. Quietly, he removed a bottle of whisky from the dresser and sat down at the wooden table. He wiped away flour and dough with the edge of his palm. The crown stamp was torn under the cork. The stamp let him know that the necessary taxes had been paid, and that this was a regulated and legal bottle of alcohol. He'd spent a fair bit on this bottle last year.

• 1:01:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  He poured a small measure into a cup and topped it up a quarter way with water.

• 1:02:04Blindboy Boatclub?

  The bottle went back into the dresser. The whisky was the colour of strong tea. He lifted it under his nose and marvelled at the aroma of butter and bubbling sugar. The alcohol odor was pure, with no fruity trace of the dreaded methanol. The sip he took was miserly, just enough to dance around his mouth and burn his throat. He could make a spirit as good as this if he had the equipment and the time to age it in the barrels, without fear of them being dug out of the bog by the revenue men. And it wasn't his fault either, that the safe stuff was beyond the means of the ordinary people of the countryside.

• 1:02:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  He was only meeting a demand. If he didn't do it, someone else would. He inserted his index finger in a remnant of itinerant bread dough that rested on the wooden table. It was puffy and raw from the yeast. The dough sucked the tip of his finger down and smothered it in its beige sludge.

• 1:03:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  The harsh lick of winter was almost in the air. He watched Cat sleep and gulped the last of the cup of whisky. He clenched his jaw in anger, grinding so hard that he felt the sugar in the drink between his back teeth. He thought about the money he'd earned from the Gadger for a full delivery of pochine, and he inventoried the next eight months in his head. The rent paid to the landlord, six bags of flour, charns of milk, plenty of oats, coal, the few spuds in the ground outside the door. He could buy a young pig and fatten it come November, and himself and Cat would have salted bacon hung from the rafters until May.

• 1:03:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  His eyes moved up to the rafter, where he envisioned the hanging pig. To the right was the spot where he'd patched his baby son's body into the straw of the roof. Tiny porcelain bones now, he supposed, encircled by the iron protection of the horseshoe. Or maybe he was still there the way he found him that morning, because changelings don't rot. Little fleshy dolls, made as a joke in the other world, from materials he can't even fathom. And what was the point of even thinking about it anyway? Because he'd never dare check to find out.

• 1:04:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  He saw the sour head on the priest who refused to bless the stiff little body in the cot. Did the priest refuse to bless the dead boy because it was a fairy child? Or was it a cruel human punishment for how the boy's father paid the rent? At least the fairies would never look down at you. If you took from them, they took something back and that was that.

• 1:05:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  He moved his left foot to his heel and slid off the boot on the other foot. The leather made a squeaking sound against his skin. He reached down and took off the right boot with his hand. He got up from the wooden chair with his two hands on the table, so that it didn't scrape against the stone floor. He crept over to Kat as she lay in the cot, negotiating with the smack of his bare soles on the stone. Cartilage of bone cracked in his knees, and betrayed his attempt at silence. He bent and kissed her forehead, reassured by the heat of her skin on his lips. She had the look of her mother from this angle. He listened for the breath from her nose. But the bells in his head were too loud,

• 1:05:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  from thinking about the priest. When she gets old enough, maybe five or six, she'll start asking questions about whether she's a boy or a girl. He will deal with it then, it'll be up to her then. The fairies will have moved on, if they can just keep it going till then.

• 1:06:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  He let five days pass in the warmth and dryness of their cottage. His head was away in the rising bubbles of the barrels in the ravine. On the sixth day, the fizz of the ferment sang to him across the moors and called out for his intervention. From the rafter, he took down the worm of the still and held it aloft in his fists like a curly sword. The worm was a winding brushed copper tube, a rose-orange tangle of metal that glimmered like the inside of an oyster shell around the bends of its kyles. The open ends crusted turkeis in a vardigree rust.

• 1:06:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  It had been hammered out by a rare craftsman of the ditch and then blessed by a fairy doctor in a holy well. The worm was the tunnel through which he saw a life in the other world and stole it. It was a pink-eyed all-white badger and the collarbone of a saint. Not a hope would he risk stowing it in the mud-pot Jean Hut with the rest of his instruments. He circled the worm at his feet and stood back admiring it. Kat entertained herself on the floor with a strand of yellow straw, chewing it and relieving the soreness of her teeth and gums. On the stone slabs, he rested the worm on a yard of cloth and wrapped the kyles tenderly.

• 1:07:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  In that brief moment, there was something in front of his eyes that he worshipped as much as his daughter. Kat watched him coddle the copper worm with about as much patience as an infant could muster. He packed it with the straw and twine so that it looked like a square bale on his back. He then took Kat in his arms and secured her in the bundle under his chin. There was no space on his back, so he hung a compact lamb's leather pouch from Kat's waist, placing in this some bread, stewed apples and cheese, but not so much that it would burden her.

• 1:08:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  From the threshold, his eyes scanned back over the room. He tapped an iron key off the wood of the door and said to himself in a whisper, "You've put out the fire, you've packed everything. You've put out the fire, you've packed everything." He repeated this four times and turned back in the threshold twice to make sure that he had put out the fire and packed everything. Cat began to whimper and struggle in the bundle. She reached up towards her doll on the dresser. The doll was wooden and had a polished ceramic face. Its timber ribs were covered in a bright blue dress with a head of hair that had carled like hanging sausages.

• 1:08:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  He was reluctant to bring it with them to the Poojean hut in case it got damaged or dirty. He wasn't made of new dolls, but now the cat had panted at it. He couldn't risk her crying all the way back to the ravine and drawing attention to them. He handed her the doll and she said "Ah" and hissed out smiles, tugging at the doll's hair and soothing herself. He locked the door of their home. They exited the cottage at dusk and cut across the field to the route that led to the ravine. He fed Cat morsels from his fingers as they moved.

• 1:09:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  She ate lumps of cheese and stewed apple and fell asleep in the bundle with her legs dangling and wrapping off his thighs. He retrieved the doll from the clutch of her sleeping hands and tucked it inside the leather pouch around her waist.

• 1:09:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  An accusatory moon saucer up in the stars and it lit the wild path with a paleness that turned shapes into faces. It wasn't great for his imagination.

• 1:10:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  The terror returned in the sweat under his arms. Slumbering Cat dragged down his chest. Crossing the moor, he stooped from the weight of the worm and the moonlight cut him a beastly side profile. The mountains and their heather were only a rumor in the blackness. He thought he saw a fairy light flicker up over the bogs and disappear again. He heard the crunch of the shale boarine under his feet. He listened to bats swoop over the midges that bit at the grease of his scalp. The tent with the drunk man and the barking child was gone or swallowed by mud. Catching sight of Cat's white breath in a lunar beam, he tasted the damp and the chill in the air.

• 1:10:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  The chatter of the stream was close. He held her two feet in his palms as they negotiated the hill down the ravine and entered the mud hut for the night. He didn't sleep, and she did. He set to work at the first glimmer of dawn. Cat ate porridge from the wooden bowl. It stuck to her fingers and got in her hair. He gently plucked the goop from the strands before it dried and nestled her on her red blanket with the doll. Peeling off the drab tarp, he scored the knife tip under the lid of the first barrel and sensed the new pressure that was not there when he sealed it a week ago.

• 1:11:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  With the weight of his wrist on the knife handle, he pried the wooden lid open and felt the pop. He watched vapor emerge against the trees in the foreground, and the barrel fizzed with enthusiasm. Bubbles rose up in the caramel liquid and frothed a yellow scum at the top that reminded him of an elderly malicious river. The pickwant hammer of alcohol met his nose. He dipped a glass in the barrel and held it to the sky. The morning sun shot through the bubbles and cast an awbourn stained window shadow over his eye. He put it to his lips.

• 1:12:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  The excited ghosts of barley kernels scarpered around the purgatory of his tongue and he spat them out on a dock leaf. He let the air of the bog enter his mouth and noted the uncorrupted fermentation of the brew. On the grass by the stream, he blended coarse flour and water in a bowl and kneaded it into a fist-sized ball of dough. It was speckled and rough. He left it to breathe. He kept one eye on Kat and ran to pick her up when she crawled from her blanket. Flat rocks were lifted from the bed of the stream. He arranged them in two piles near the edge of the water, one taller than the other. The taller pile had a chamber in the middle.

• 1:13:01Blindboy Boatclub?

  It was a fire pit. Sods of turf and sticks were placed in the chamber. He walked towards the hut to quickly retrieve the components of the puccine still. In the brightness of the sun, he detected footprints in the mud around the entrance of the hut. They were impressions of a cloven hoof, like those of a goat. He sensed terrible burning fright in the pit of his stomach and it went up into his head where his thoughts were and began to control them in a very cruel way. What if they were the footsteps of a divil or a puka who had come to find Kat? Or they had slept inside during the night? What if it was watching them now?

• 1:13:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  What if it had made its mind up and there was nothing he could do to stop what was gonna happen to her? He turned to look at Kat, she stared up at his eyes and stopped playing with the doll. He scanned the trees and the water for danger. They all blurred into one threatening visage. His breath was up in his throat and he felt like he was dying. He hoisted Kat up and tried to protect as much of her body with his arms as he could. A panicked right hand grasped at her shoulder and then clasped her two feet. It was cold. Kat's bottom lip quivered and her face became pink. His heart hammered at the bones of her chest. He considered abandoning the entire distillation process there and then.

• 1:14:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  She cried, he kissed her forehead and the smell of her hair helped him to slow his breathing down.

• 1:14:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  He listened to the air swoosh through the hazel trees. Down the ravine in the distance at the end of the stream, he could now see a red deer fawn among the trunks of the trees. Beautiful and peaceful with a coat like flour flicked on a toasted loaf. Its head grazing the earth. Calmer now. He traced the cloven footprints from the hut entrance with his eye line and they led in the direction of the deer.

• 1:15:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  With Kat hunkered against his ribs, he entered the hut and saw the leftover piles of malted barley had been disturbed by an animal's muzzle. He felt relief and he felt foolish. He saw himself telling the gadger about confusing a little deer for the puka fairy and how he nearly didn't distill the puchine and the kines in the gadger's hand and his dirty fingernails and his sneaky laugh. He situated Kat back down near the fire pit outside the hut. She was still upset, but he didn't have the time to console her. He rapidly retrieved the milk churn, a copper kettle, a pipe and a few dozen glass bottles that were stored in the hut.

• 1:15:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  He hauled the tin milk churn onto the flat rocks of the fire pit. Using the big jug, he filled it with the fermented barley brew from the wooden barrels. It fizzed and small bubbles danced up over the brim of the churn. A copper kettle with a spout was secured on top of the churn. The barnished metal was cool against his skin. He had cut out the bottom of the kettle so that it had no base. It would be the head of the still where the vapors collect. He took pinches of the coarse dough from the bowl. At the seam where the kettle rested on the churn, he molded the dough to create a seal. He smudged the putty with his thumb, pressing and kneading, until no vapors would escape.

• 1:16:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  Kat was crawling by his feet. She took twigs from the fire pit and broke them in her hands and put them back. He was afraid she might knock a churn on top of her. He moved her. On the shorter of the rock piles, he rested a wooden barrel that had a hole at its base. The coiled copper worm was lowered into the barrel. It was a perfect fit. The worm spiraled, orange and metallic, from the top of the barrel to the bottom, and the end poked out of the hole in a spout, water-tight around the hole. A pipe connected the spout of the kettle to the top of the worm, both ends sealed with the dough. He filled the barrel with very cold water from the stream.

• 1:17:19Blindboy Boatclub?

  He peered down into the clear water and watched how the submerged kile was distorted in size under the surface. He placed Kat on her blanket, which was a safe distance away from the still. A ball of dry straw nestled among the hazel twigs and turf of the fire pit. He napped lively sparks from his flint rock. They kindled the hay. Wisps of white smoke licked out like tongues and he blew on them. Flames came into being as if given permission from his breath. Everything crackled and popped. The turf began to burn with tiny green flames he'd seen over the bogs in darkness.

• 1:18:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  The flickers reflected in his pupils and he felt the heat on his face. Angry orange fire rose up the base of the blackened churn and the doughy seals at the seams of the metal shrank and hardened like white plaster. It was still blue early morning. He set a glass bottle directly under the warm spout at the base of the barrel. It would take at least twenty minutes before the fire started to heat the fermented wash in the still he waited. The blanket was comfortable under him, next to Kat. He stroked her arm. The calluses of his skin scraped off her skin, and she reciled instinctively.

• 1:18:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  He experienced shame and guilt and told her that it was just a deer earlier and that there was no need for her to be as upset as she was. He sat with his legs crossed and lifted Kat so that she rested on his thighs facing him. He held her hands and doted on her, telling her in high pitched whispers how much he loved her. She looked back at him, her eyes wide and affectionate, a feathery smile with soft teeth. She stared directly into his face with an awesome glare of pure innocence and unconditional love. And when she did this, he broke eye contact and felt deeply undeserving.

• 1:19:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  A confusing flicker of resentment towards Kat glimmered in an untrodden part of his brain.

• 1:19:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then he knew that he was a despicable person. The churn began to rumble with the bile inside.

• 1:19:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  He stalked around the side of the gargling still. A pinhole of vapor hissed through a seam on the kettle. He thumbed dough over the orifice. The churn growled and staggered. He poured quenching water on the fire underneath to modulate the aggression of the distillation. Squeezing his palm around the pipe that connected the kettle and the copper worm. It felt blood warm and pulsed with the chug of the spitting brew. Alcohol vapor coarse down the submerged kyle and condensed into liquid when it hit cold copper. Poochin trickled out of the turquoise lip of the spout into the glass bottle. He splashed more water on the fire.

• 1:20:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  Opaque smoke wafted through the ravine and stung his eyes. The spirit spurted out until it stopped about three quarter ways up the glass bottle. He held it up to his eye. It was like water, clouded with a thimble of milk.

• 1:20:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  Under his nose, the odor attacked with an acridity that split a squarm through the middle of him and echoed back up his mouth in a gawk. He salivated. It retreated with the fruitiness of a withered brown apple. He shook a drop on the fire and it exploded in a green flame the way poutine doesn't. The ghost of the spirit was demonized by vitriol. He would not even taste this, it was methanol, the poisonous singlings of the grain that he expected from the first run of distillation. The singlings were the property of the fairies and could only be drunk by the fairies.

• 1:21:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  He held the bottle in front of his chest with inertia, as if he was considering the tradition of throwing it over his left shoulder as an offering to them. There was no point. The fire picked up pace and he let the cloudy methanol fill the bottles. The sun was higher in the sky now. He wrapped the tin churn to hear its hollow clank. Eight bottles of milky fluid rested on the grass by the river, ready to be corked. The fire was only ashy cold. Cat was seated in his left arm and was groaning in the cranky way that implied hunger. Tears and commotion if he didn't feed her soon.

• 1:22:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  After they ate a lunch, he would fill the churn up again with the wash from the barrels and begin another distillation. He'd repeat this until he had twenty-four bottles of poutine, ready for the gager that night. On Cat's blanket they sat together. The water was at their feet with the mud hut behind them and the still to the left. Brown as the pebbles beneath, the trout were hidden in their forever dance with the current of the water. He watched spidery-looking flies skirting across the deeper poles of the stream. Satisfying circles rippled out when a fish surfaced the bite.

• 1:22:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  The ravine had a peace in the ether and the leaves of the hazel didn't sway at all. The bread he had baked was round like a mushroom, tanned and blackened from the hearth. The crust made a tapping noise in his hands. His fingers pulled apart the loaf in two halves and revealed the spongy innards with big creamy holes of air. It smelled like the comfort of their cottage over the moor. He pinched at the soft bread and rolled it in a ball. He inserted some cheese and handed it to Kat. She gummed at the morsel and clasped her hands, studying the food in her mouth with her serious expression.

• 1:23:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  He smirked at her face in adoration. He ate too, and relished the tang and resistance of the toasted crust against his teeth. He'd made a pot of black tea on the fire pit embers and drank it warm and tannic from the vessel it brooded in. The tea coaxed out the unctuousness of sweat in the bread. He was distracted by the eight bottles of Puccine that stood on the grass in the corner of his eye. The pale grayness of their fluid brought up the shame in him. If he could only have a week to let them sit and then run it through the still a second or a third time, he could purify it and make it safe for the drink, ideally a month to breathe in a barrel after.

• 1:24:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  But even one more time through the still would nearly be enough to sort it. Maybe if he'd have thrown a few lumps of charcoal in a funnel under the spout, that might have extracted some of the badness before it went in the bottle. Why didn't he think of that? His feet stretched beyond the red blanket towards the mud of the stream bed, the heels of his boots indented in the sludge of the earth and sank a bit. He watched the mud envelop the leather. He knew the Gadger Mul Queen wouldn't give two fucks about the colour of the drink. The Gadger would have no bother on him watering it down and cutting it with horse's pace to hide the fruity tones of the methanol.

• 1:25:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  It was none of his business what the Gadger did or who bought the bottles. And it was the Gadger and his bed sheet who told him to rush the whole thing anyway. He gritted his teeth again, and evicted bread from a molar with his tongue. Kat had eaten well, and was stroking her doll's dress, and making cooing noises in a languid state of satiation. She sat up between his legs with her back to him. His left hand was on her left shoulder, and his other hand was across her chest. He raised a finger, and felt the softness of her ear and the wisps of her hair. He tried to bend his chest forward, to kiss the crown of her scalp, but her head was just beyond the reach of his lips.

• 1:25:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  He watched the surface of the stream with intent, tried to locate the trout underneath. A quick shadow blackened a ripple, and his eyes flew up. It was the cormorant, flapping up above. The bird landed in a pool of the stream where the water was slower and deep, about two yards from him and Kat. It bobbed on the water, with the look of a malnourished swan, much smaller than when its wings were outstretched. The slick iridescence of its plumage, scintillated like black pearls you wouldn't see on a diva's necklace. Feathers shifted shapes in front of him. The panic came up into his forehead,

• 1:26:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  but he was determined not to react to this feeling after the incident with the deer. He focused on its snaky head, and the tiny side at the end of its beak. He couldn't decide if the bird was monitoring Kat, or if that was just the way it held its head. Slowly, the cormorant arched its slender neck back, raising its beak skyward, and then sprang forward, and disappeared its entire body under the water. It barely created a ripple. The eyebrows raised on his face and he waited for the diving cormorant to return to the surface. He was unable to tell if time was slowing down in the moment, or if the cormorant was

• 1:27:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  really under the water for that long. How could it stay down that long? It must have been two minutes. He became aware of his tongue in his mouth, and the metallic taste of his saliva. He wondered if he controlled his tongue, or if his tongue controlled itself, and what was preventing him from swallowing his own tongue and choking on it. This brought on the heartbeat again. He scanned the stream, fixing and darting his field of vision on all the possible spots where the cormorant might emerge. What type of cormorant is this at all? That it can stay down that long? Doesn't it have lungs the same as me?

• 1:27:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  He heard an unmerciful splash that slapped through the quietness of the ravine, in an unexpected spot of the water. The cormorant emerged, as if a hand was pushing it up underneath the surface and stabilizing it. Two black wings stretched wide with sharp feathers that dripped silver beads of river. The full span must have been the length of his leg. There was a plump, tumescent trout thrashing in the cormorant's beak. The cormorant's eye was bright green and round like a wound. Cat was now pointing at the bird, and shouting "Gag, gag" in her high pitch, delight and excitement on her face.

• 1:28:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  The cormorant hopped onto a rock. Through the splashing and cat's shouts, he saw and heard the trout's tail thud off the rock, its mouth gaping in a steady rhythm, like it was trying to drink the air. The fish was drowning in the same air that he was tasting in his mouth. The cormorant pinned the trout with the talons on its left foot, and pierced its beak into the slimy skin of the creature until it stopped being alive. It celebrated the killing with a clacking noise from its throat. When cat shouted, the bird paused and then resumed. This terrified him to his core.

• 1:29:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  Blood that was bloodier than blood oozed on the stone and diffused into the water. The cormorant pincered its beak around the fish's robust torso, muscular and firm, and then bit through it until the trout was severed in two. Cat panted more and screamed, "Gack!", drawing attention to herself. In that moment, he jolted to his feet and grabbed Cat under her armpits from behind. Her doll was clasped in her hands, its hair dangled, her mouth gaped into a silent maw. She searched for a noise and then let out a mighty cry that changed in pitch as he dragged her away.

• 1:30:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  He pulled her towards his chest and ran with her into the mud hut. "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay", he said. Cat squirmed under his arm. In a panic, he used his free hand and raised the doll to his mouth. He gripped his front teeth around the fabric of its blue dress and pulled, revealing a sparse wooden skeleton. He situated the doll on the bed of straw where he and Cat had slept, and followed the indentation of a miniature crib. He exited the hut backwards. Tears were tracking down her skin as he glared at the stiff dummy by in the straw that would bide them some time with the fairies. Outside, Cat wailed through the ravine.

• 1:30:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  Her muscles had tensed with fear and she stretched out her limbs in a star shape against his chest. The cormorant was still eating the trout on the rock. He shouted at the bird, "Hey, hey, look at me!" Cat faced outwards, his hands under her arms. He kicked at the churn. The tin buckled down the centre and stuck on his boot. He shook it off and the contraption crumpled into a heap. He fell back on the grass but held Cat so that she didn't make contact. His toe was sore. He got up, he turned to the eight bottles of Puccine with the peg of his boot and knocked them all towards the stream with frantic swipes of his legs.

• 1:31:32Blindboy Boatclub?

  Some spilled out on the grass, others plopped under the ripples of the stream. Their milky essence blended with the water and the ghosts of the barley dispersed back into the land. He was certain that the cormorant saw this.

• 1:31:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  Cat was now bawling loudly. He ran into the stream and generated big splashes with his knees. Trout dispersed in all directions away from him. He held Cat high above his head and screamed an animal scream at the cormorant, a scream from the bottom of his guts where the pain lived, as if to make himself sound bigger than he was. The cormorant flew off over the hazel trees and left the bloodied trout on the rock. He turned Cat around into a hug and held her firmly and lovingly with both arms around her, heisting her higher up to his chest than usual, so that her head lay over his shoulder.

• 1:32:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  Her pink, swollen face sobbed and gasped intermittently as she watched the puccine still in bits behind them. He would explain this day to her when she could understand it. No smell to follow or tracks to trace. He waded deeper into the river until it reached his stomach and never touched her feet. They both moved with the current and blended with the flow upstream until they exited the ravine. His heart was dancing inside his ribs. Steam rose from his clothes like a horse and he stared out at the moor. He told the Blue Mountains that he would figure something else out and begged for their protection.

• 1:33:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  Cat's bum nestled in his arm, his hand secured her back, with her head resting over his shoulder. She slept with the movement and a little brown curl from her neck blurred into his vision. He told himself that he would kill or die just for one of those curls.

• 1:33:38Speaker 06

  Your daily supplement routine doesn't need to be managing a handful of different bottles. Onnit's Total Human brings key research-based vitamins, minerals, herbs, and amino acids together in convenient day and night packs. One all-in-one product designed to make supplementation easier. The day pack supports cognition, focus, and cellular energy production. At night, the night pack helps you wind down and supports a calm, relaxed state. Less time managing your supplements, more support for your day and night. Shop Total Human now at onnit.com.

• 1:34:15Speaker 00

  At Lowe's this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic MyLowe's Rewards Silver Status Benefits. Plus, 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honor and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.