Crayic and the Toupatou- Part I
Here’s the beginning of something I wrote a while back; it’s kind of an adult kid’s story.
Crayic and the Toupatou
There was a mouse living in Ireland, Dublin specifically, not far from the Guinness brewery. His name was Crayic, and with his keen olfactory sense he could find his way home very easily—even from miles away—because the smell of cooking barley from the brewery was very distinctive indeed, and it wafted all over the great city.
Crayic lived along the canal near Dolphin Barn; actually he lived beneath the bridge going over the old water lane. He held a lovely spot full of newspaper clippings, tire rubber and bits of wire all piled together into a magnificent, tunnelled nest. He insisted upon multiple routes in and out of his fabulous little abode because the neighbourhood was crawling with rats, cats and people. You never knew what might happen next where he lived, especially at night when the cats and rats were active, and when the men came stumbling out onto the streets—themselves smelling much like the brewery down the way.
Unlike other city mice, Crayic liked to get up very early in the morning and roam about the city until late afternoon. He loved the hubbub of his home town, and sought out those places where people would toss away perfectly good bits of food, like along Grafton Street and in the vicinity of Trinity College, with its lofty beige walls and its plethora of students—discarding pizza crusts, apple cores and even the occasional yogurt container or hunk of cheese.
Crayic adored the sun, and what really bothered him was Dublin's—and Ireland's, for that matter—constantly changing weather. He would peek in at the audio-video store run by the nice Indian man on Mercer Street; in the front window a television would broadcast the weather report in Irish, and Crayic would watch and listen (he was a bilingual mouse, so he understood it all.) But it didn't seem to matter what the Weather Lady said, or what any of the Dubliners said, the weather always followed, every single day, the same, predictable, persistently pestersome pattern:
RAIN, CLOUD, SUN, CLOUD, RAIN, CLOUD, RAIN, CLOUD, SUN, CLOUD, RAIN
And so forth. Crayic liked the sun best of all things. It brought out more people and more excitement. It cooked the food ever so perfectly on the pavement. Most of all, the sun felt great on Crayic's soft pelt. He'd find himself chasing all over the maze of a city bits of sunshine to bask in, even if only for a few seconds. In the morning he felt the warm blast from Phoenix Park, at midday from Samuel Beckett Bridge or from Parnell's Statue or atop the Old Abbey Theatre, late afternoon he caught the dying rays on St. Stephen's Green.
But always Crayic found himself running around like a rat in a race. It was no way for a civilised Irish mouse to behave. He couldn't fathom how to control the weather, let alone predict what might happen at any given moment. By observing the changing shadow clouds and rainy area over Dublin he rationalised that it could be sunny on one side of the Liffey while it was bucketing down on the other. While it was pissing down on his home in Rialto it was clear in Ballybough.
How to make the weather do what he wanted? Could he? Should he?
Crayic and the Toupatou
There was a mouse living in Ireland, Dublin specifically, not far from the Guinness brewery. His name was Crayic, and with his keen olfactory sense he could find his way home very easily—even from miles away—because the smell of cooking barley from the brewery was very distinctive indeed, and it wafted all over the great city.
Crayic lived along the canal near Dolphin Barn; actually he lived beneath the bridge going over the old water lane. He held a lovely spot full of newspaper clippings, tire rubber and bits of wire all piled together into a magnificent, tunnelled nest. He insisted upon multiple routes in and out of his fabulous little abode because the neighbourhood was crawling with rats, cats and people. You never knew what might happen next where he lived, especially at night when the cats and rats were active, and when the men came stumbling out onto the streets—themselves smelling much like the brewery down the way.
Unlike other city mice, Crayic liked to get up very early in the morning and roam about the city until late afternoon. He loved the hubbub of his home town, and sought out those places where people would toss away perfectly good bits of food, like along Grafton Street and in the vicinity of Trinity College, with its lofty beige walls and its plethora of students—discarding pizza crusts, apple cores and even the occasional yogurt container or hunk of cheese.
Crayic adored the sun, and what really bothered him was Dublin's—and Ireland's, for that matter—constantly changing weather. He would peek in at the audio-video store run by the nice Indian man on Mercer Street; in the front window a television would broadcast the weather report in Irish, and Crayic would watch and listen (he was a bilingual mouse, so he understood it all.) But it didn't seem to matter what the Weather Lady said, or what any of the Dubliners said, the weather always followed, every single day, the same, predictable, persistently pestersome pattern:
RAIN, CLOUD, SUN, CLOUD, RAIN, CLOUD, RAIN, CLOUD, SUN, CLOUD, RAIN
And so forth. Crayic liked the sun best of all things. It brought out more people and more excitement. It cooked the food ever so perfectly on the pavement. Most of all, the sun felt great on Crayic's soft pelt. He'd find himself chasing all over the maze of a city bits of sunshine to bask in, even if only for a few seconds. In the morning he felt the warm blast from Phoenix Park, at midday from Samuel Beckett Bridge or from Parnell's Statue or atop the Old Abbey Theatre, late afternoon he caught the dying rays on St. Stephen's Green.
But always Crayic found himself running around like a rat in a race. It was no way for a civilised Irish mouse to behave. He couldn't fathom how to control the weather, let alone predict what might happen at any given moment. By observing the changing shadow clouds and rainy area over Dublin he rationalised that it could be sunny on one side of the Liffey while it was bucketing down on the other. While it was pissing down on his home in Rialto it was clear in Ballybough.
How to make the weather do what he wanted? Could he? Should he?
TO BE CONTINUED
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