The Emerald Lie

Park Wilson never saw the brick coming. Smashed into the side of his head and, though not killing him, it shook the be-Jaysus out of his brain cells. Park had been as usual in a swirl of letters, clouds of vowels fandangoing and cartwheeling in a cacophony of verbal dexterity. A crew of kids, standing on a wall, saw him thus, engrossed and muttering to himself. The fiercest of them spat,

“Wanker”

Pulled the concrete brick loose from the wall’s edge and let fly.

To his astonishment and horror, it hit the man square on the forehead, felling him instantly.

They fled.

Park twisted on the ground, the sheer impact bringing a moment of clarity unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He tried to rise but blood poured into his eyes, disorienting him. He managed to get up on one shaky knee, reached out

For help?

Letters?

Clarity?

His fingers found the said brick and he pulled it toward him, lifted it up to his face, and, momentarily wiping his eyes clear, he peered at the assault weapon, imagined he read on the side that was unbloodied

... a... e... i...

His brain started to freeze and he muttered,

“What comes after i?

I before e?

But not...”

What?

Holy God, what?

He fell backward, the brick slipping from his dying hand, the last vowel eluding him just as peace had eluded every decade of his insane existence.

He emitted a tiny sigh and his last breath formed, danced a little, then died on the gravel stones of the gravel path.

He died as he had lived.

Without rhyme or reason.

It was, if not a fitting epitaph, at least a grammatically correct one.

The wall the boys had been standing on was known locally as Casement’s Wall. He is said to have begun building it before being arrested.

Sir Roger Casement, 1864–1916, Irish rebel, has reportedly

... been hanged on a comma.

At his trial, Casement had argued that the Treason Act was unpunctuated and thus not legal. Two diligent officials searched the Records Office and stated that the original document was legal. Thus the story spread that Casement had

... attempted to be freed by grammar.

It may have been of some scant comfort to the dead Park that a grammatical brick had done him in.

A variation on the so-called bucket list, meaning it is compiled as if Jack Taylor meant it, dancing as fast as he could. Driven by a hundred forms of despair, he realized that only grave defiance would be a response to a literal death sentence.

A cri de coeur