Synopsis
A brilliant research student discovers a plot fulminated by demons from another dimension and kills himself in the process. The fate of the world is left in the hands of an elderly academic and a mysterious orphan.
Using the facts surrounding Ireland’s economic collapse in 2008 as its starting point, Terminal Transit is an apocalyptic adventure dealing with death and destruction in a Dublin slowly devastated by demonic intervention.
Can the end of the world be avoided?
Or is this planet simply scheduled for Terminal Transit?
Terminal Transit,
‘Chapter I ‘The Song of the NotBeSpeak,’’ Verse 4
‘I have known you and your family for an exceedingly long time now,’ said the old man in the shadows of the winter evening.
‘In fact,’ Mac continued, ‘I have known your father since the very day he was born.’
Inteachán sat still as Mac told his tale.
‘He was always marked as different to me somehow and from his earliest days I recognised a lot of myself in him.’
Mac smiled at the memory. Inteachán listened intently. She had never heard this story before.
‘Your father was vibrant and inquisitive and life-bringing in everything he did. He was hopelessly in love with the eddies and whirls of the everyday.’
‘Eventually,’ Mac continued, ‘and after some extremely distinguished undergraduate and postgraduate work in physics, geology, archaeology and classical literature, your father and I started to work together here at Trinity.’
Mac paused and Inteachán could see that the old man was troubled by a recollection.
‘Sadly, it seems, your father was just too good and too thorough and far too gifted and so it was that during the preliminary stages of his academic career that he stumbled upon something so vast and so awful that it ultimately destroyed him.’
Inteachán was fast asleep in bed on that dreadful night and suddenly woke to find her father standing over her. He was crying hysterically and holding a strange curved knife in his hand. Inteachán groped for words.
‘Dad,’ she whispered, terrified. ‘What are you doing?’
Her father held the knife above his head. The darkness made him loom even taller over her. He started to chant in a voice that was and wasn’t his at the same time.
‘THe stONEs cRieD ouT As tHE dESERt fELL TO BLAck aND In THEir aNGUisH ThE sTONes reTURNed TO DuST.’
Inteachán lay petrified. She was unable to move. Her father kept on with his recitation.
‘WeEP nOT Said THE StaRs FOR YoUR tEars ARe aLL aS nAUGht.’
‘THE siLEnCe laUGhEd As iTS eMPtiNesS fELl liKe fOUl mATEriAl uPoN tHE pLAnEt’s FAcE.’
‘OnlY eVEr nEVEr NoW aND foREVeR mOCKed THe sTArS.’
Inteachán saw a brief flash in the darkness as the knife came down towards her but stopped just above her breast. She couldn’t breathe. Her father began to shake violently as he wrestled with his conscience.
‘I am not your bloody Abraham,’ he screamed. ‘I will do not your bastard bidding.’
He hurled the knife away and pulled the frightened child towards him.
‘Listen to me, darling. Listen to me. You must go now and never come back. Never ever come back.’
The poor man was in hysterics. He shook Inteachán.
‘My darling, you mustn’t be here with me for I am not sure how much longer I can hold out.’
Her father tore a large clump of hair free from the side of his head. He sobbed violently.
‘I have fought Them forever. They cannot have you. They will not win.’
BARNABY TAYLOR: Curiosity is Currency 