Short fiction by Lily Murphy ⇔ Art by Holly Cannell
Lynch was a lazy bastard. He lived, just about, in a run down cottage on the outskirts of town. He was born and reared in that abode, he was too idle to get up and move out. When his parents died it was just him and his constant laziness occupying the primitive walls of that cottage.
Lynch never made much of an education because he rarely made up much days in school. He hated having to get up out of bed and trudge on to school. What he did excel at was slacking. Without doubt Lynch was a class A slacker.
He loved his bed as he loved himself and that love was a great love. Lynch spent something like 70% of his life in bed. He enjoyed nothing more than just laying there, not doing anything, not even thinking, just laying there, resting.
Work was never on Lynch’s radar. He lived most his days in bed so work would never come into play, in fact he would proclaim that he was worn out from unemployment.
His mother would sigh heavily when he was seen to pass up the opportunity to work while that same flabby attitude Lynch had would drive his father insane and some might suggest even to his grave.
Anyway, Lynch always maintained that nobody ever died from too much rest. It was work and too much of it that would put a person into their grave at the end.
Lynch laughed at any poor hardworking old sod who complained about the unfair boss man or long working hours. Lynch scoffed at his seventeen uncles who worked the railroads and got nothing more than meagre pay checks some broken bones and missing limbs.
Lynch snorted at his older brother, a dustbin man. He would smell rightly awful after a days work and probably the main reason why he never got a girlfriend. Lynch didn’t have a girlfriend either. The reason for that was that he was too lazy to go out looking for one.
Before Lynch’s mother passed away she asked her son why he was always so tired. She never said lazy. She found that word to be taboo. The same as abortion or cock. They were words she felt could not be said in public.
Lynch assured his mother that it wasn’t just him. It was everybody who was tired. He assured her that everybody was born tired so therefore life was there for every one to rest through.
Lynch thought he was right following that slothful mantra while the others who defied it and opted to go out working missed the opportunity to rest a life long rest.
Lynch maintained that work and the hard aspect of it was invented by someone who lived long ago and now that they were dead, well it didn’t matter anymore.
One time his brother asked him,
‘you seem to rest a lot, why so?’
Lynch answered from his bed,
‘well brother I need to rest during the day so as I can sleep at night.’
The subject was never brought up again.
Procrastination was always a major aspect of Lynch’s character. Some may say that procrastination is not a lazy aspect of a person but for Lynch it came part and parcel.
Don’t do today what you can do tomorrow was his mantra for getting things done. Of course nothing was ever done. Tomorrow would never come. It was always a long way away by the time Lynch got anything done and in the end he got fuck all done at all!
He did try to learn Spanish. He failed due to his inactive approach to getting things done but he did learn one Spanish word: Manana, and it was his favourite word for getting things done.
His end came, not surprisingly enough, through his own slothful ways.
One night in bed he heard a crackling sound then he got the smell of smoke and lo and behold the cottage was on fire around him.
Lynch had failed to put out a candle before he went to bed. ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’ he thought and hoped it would burn it self out anyway. Unfortunately for him it didn’t and instead it’s flame licked some nearby curtains and within seconds the cottage was a blaze.
Lynch didn’t want to jump out of bed because he was too tired and much too fucking lazy at that. So he just shrugged and maintained that someone else will phone the fire brigade and put the fire out so he turned around in his bed and went back to sleep.
The next day nothing was left of the cottage. It had burned completely to the ground. All that was left was the spine of the bed and the ghost of Lynch. But fear not, he wont be haunting anyone anytime soon because even in death Lynch is a lazy bastard.
Lily Murphy (Cork city, Ireland) Lilymurphycork@gmail.com
Leave a Reply