This one was a long one.
I wrote the second MSE with Cindy in ‘The Internship’ I felt sorry for her and so decided to bring her back for ‘The Interview’. Having written that I felt I owed her own story giving her side of things which turned into a love story.
Hope you enjoy it.
If you are curious this is the John Prine song I’m talking about in the story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFD2wZaBciY
Yeah, I do love his songs.I didn't see his dead body, obviously I was fourteen, but I heard all about it later.
When I was young, I was out shovelling some snow from outside the path of our house, when I heard the sirens, it was the Police and the ambulance. An altar boy from our local church, Simon, got killed by a car. He was walking back from rehearsal, along the pavement, the car driver was sober, he hit a patch of ice, skidded, maybe he was lost in thought, the car wasn't travelling fast, but when it skidded it crushed Simon against a garden wall, it mangled his body. It hit me hard, I knew Simon. He was going to play for Scotland, wanted to study music at university, and he already had the university picked out. And now…
Nothing.
School got cancelled, and I think I was shell-shocked, all I did was gaze out the window of my room. It was the unfairness, the futility of life, the knowledge that all your hopes and dreams could be swept away by one stupid, pointless accident. I sat there overwhelmed by the knowledge that I could die, that everything I could ever do was meaningless, you could describe it as an existential crisis. My parents were starting to panic, I think they worried I was self-harming. Then I heard the music drifting into my room, Da was playing this song, the singer had a rough voice, it was about wrapping yourself in a chain of sorrow. It was a weird feeling. some stranger singing your innermost feelings, but he was.
I remembered an old movie; in the film, a character says “ I guess it comes down to a simple choice. Get busy living or get busy dying”. I realised that yes, I was going to die someday, but I had a choice; spend the rest of my life in my room staring out the window or get busy living. It’s the journey, not the destination.
I went downstairs and announced to my mum and Da, that I'd like to go for a walk. My mum was so relieved I was getting out, that she immediately volunteered to take me. We walked along the seashore; I’ll never forget that walk.
That night the Aurora came out. I’d never seen it before, we occasionally get them in Scotland, but I lived near a city and rain, we get a load of that. That night no clouds. We got a full view.
I just stood on the shore and watched the waves, the waves of light in the sky, the waves in the water, so beautiful.
Have you ever watched them, really watched them, why is every wave different? Where did they come from? I stood there entranced by the beauty. I asked my mum, and she had no idea it was or what caused them. Mum and Da were not the most educated, he worked at a petrol station, and she worked at Sainsbury's.
There and then, I made it my life's mission to know everything there was to know about this amazing event. But I studied hard, I was the first person in our family to ever go to university. I was racing out along the seashore of knowledge scooping up as many smooth pebbles and shells as I could greedily stuff in my pockets.
In case you want to know, particles from the sun interact with gases in our atmosphere resulting in beautiful displays of light in the sky. Oxygen in the air gives off the green and red light, the Nitrogen glows blue and purple. The patterns are caused by gravity waves, they’re different to gravitational waves. A gravity wave is a wave propagating on a liquid surface or in a fluid or a gas through the effects of gravity e.g. Waves on the ocean, or cloud patterns in the sky. While gravitational waves are distortions in the fabric of time/space, I bet you're glad we cleared that up, Now where was I?
Now I know about calculus, chaos theory and Navier-Stokes I see the waves and I'm still blown away by the beauty of it all. I discovered that researching waves was, in fact, a subject, Fluid Dynamics and people would pay you good money if you knew this stuff, even more amazingly you could actually do it as a career!
Later I asked my Da about the music, details; he's from Ireland so he's my Da, pronounced dar, not my dad. Getting further off the track, my mum's English and I'm Scottish 'cos I was born there; yep, our family is a proper United Kingdom, all I need is a Welsh brother, scratch that, I don’t want a smelly brother.
In any case, Da was simply listening to the radio and didn't know which song I was referring to. So, I ended up shazaming it to find out, it was a guy called John Prine, who died in 2023. I streamed all of his songs. Yes, I know that makes me old-fashioned, I should have gone to a record shop and bought the vinyl, but I like being able to carry around every song he ever did on my phone. His songs are cynical but optimistic. Even though I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, I'd constantly sing his songs to myself.
I went to university and studied hard. I was known as Cheery Longbottom, after a Terry Pratchett character. The cheery bit was sarcastic 'cos I work hard and didn't party. The Longbottom was even more sarcastic, again, 'cos I'm not, I'm short and skinny and blonde, that's about it. I didn’t really care about what they said, I was too busy studying to socialise.
When the offer came for the Internship to go out on the oceans and study the waves, I jumped at the chance. Turns out I was not the only one, and since this is the MSE we would have to fight for it. The sassenach I had to fight was called Cathy. She'd fought before and won; they called her the Titkiller. Yep, I was scared, but I also wanted that place. They say you shouldn’t fight if you don’t think you can win, no you fight because the alternative is that you spend the rest of your life staring emptily out the window, getting wound up in that chain of sorrow.
I made her work for it, but that sassenach beat me for the internship. I spent a day or so staring out the window, didn’t have much choice, my body ached in places I didn’t even know I had. Then I got busy living, got up and got on with the rest of my life.
First thing first, I enrolled in fight classes, I didn’t want to have this happen to me again. My first instructor told me I would never be a skilled fighter, I was, however, a really good brawler, she recommended MMA classes, so that’s what I did.
On my way back to my room, I stopped off at the Uni bar for a quiet drink, I just wanted to be around people but not have to talk to anyone. Unfortunately, it was Karaoke night, feck. The DJ was a right lavvy heid, he was going around everybody getting them to sing. Fecking, feckety, feck. I tried to sit in the corner quietly and finish my drink, but eventually, my luck ran out, the moment I dreaded, which I hoped never would come, came. He stuck a microphone under my face.
"Your turn, to sing us a song". He said so cheerily, that I wanted to strangle him.
"Feck Off!". I said.
Water off a duck’s arse to him, "Go on, sing a song any song". He said.
"Chain of Sorrow" I snapped. That ought to shut him the feck up.
"The John Prine song, okay"
What the actual feck? He's heard of John Prine?
He looked at his phone.
"Loading ..."
What the feckity, feck, feck!!? He has it? Who has John Bloody Prine on their karaoke machine? My heart filled with fear upon realising that I now had to perform the song I had selected in front of all these fecking people!
The music started up and I got handed the microphone. I was less scared when I fought the sassenach! I started singing, no it wasn't singing.
“My hearts in the icehouse
Come hill or come valley"God, I must have sounded like those monotone tuneless druids droning on and on and on.
"Like a long ago Sunday when I walked through the alley"Gawd the verse seemed so short when John sang it, now it just seems to go on forever.
"On a cold winter's morning to a church house
Just to shovel some snow”Maybe it's just as well he's dead as he'll never have to hear this. I can feel every set of eyes in the room boring into me. I want the ground beneath my feet to swallow me up, please.
God now the chorus. I can feel my face glowing bright red, and my throat is getting dry, please God let this end. Let this end. Then I hear another voice.
“YOU CAN GAZE OUT THE WINDOW, GET MAD AND GET MADDER
THROW YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR, SAY, "WHAT DOES IT MATTER?"
What the feck?
From across the room, another voice joined in, and it was beautiful. Gobsmacked, I looked across the bar. The DJ had this massive grin on his face and there was this girl with a golden voice. I'd heard a version of this song sung by Bonnie Raitt and this kid was like that!
“BUT IT DON'T DO NO GOOD TO GET ANGRY
SO HELP ME, I KNOW”
She wasn't even looking at the karaoke screen, she knew the words by heart. I could tell that they meant a lot to her too.
"FOR A HEART STAINED IN ANGER GROWS WEAK AND GROWS BITTER
YOU BECOME YOUR OWN PRISONER AS YOU WATCH YOURSELF SIT THERE
WRAPPED UP IN A TRAP OF YOUR VERY OWN
CHAIN OF SORROW”
By this point, I was just opening and closing my mouth silently in time, letting her do all the singing. I was just listening. Entranced.
When the song finished, I went over to speak to Miss Bonnie fecking Raitt.
"You like John Prine?" I stammered.
"Yes, I bloody love him. I nagged the DJ into getting some of his songs on the karaoke machine, and I promised him I would always sing along if he played one". She beamed.
"Always loved him". I muttered weakly.
She stared at my bruises and two black eyes, which I still wore after my scrap with the sassenach.
"Did you win?" She asked.
"No", I said. I tried not to sound bitter but failed.
"That's the way that the world goes round" she snickered.
Her name was Emma, and she was a sweet kid and soon-to-be my best friend, my only friend if I’m honest. She had lovely, raven black hair and chebs, nice grapefruit-sized chebs not great-big hulking chebs like some, and way unlike my glorified man-boobs (I'm not jealous!) and she wore glasses which didn't make her look nerdy, just magnified her amazing blue eyes. She was majoring in medicine; she didn’t know or care anything about fluid mechanics, but then the thought of blood and guts and medicine made me wanna boke, but we still found plenty to talk about.
We used to meet between lectures and have a good chat and coffee. It was a couple of weeks after my beating and my bruises and cuts had healed, I no longer looked like a fecking panda. Emma was asking how my training was going, and I said very well.
Suddenly we were interrupted by the gobshite. Can't remember, don't care what her name was. She’s just the gobshite. She was a big loud blonde with big chebs. She'd had a couple of fights at the Uni and won them all, apparently in a couple she'd used those big chebs to smother her opponent out, she was very proud of that, as she informed everybody in the canteen, she called them the ‘Jugs of Doom’, I joked to Emma that she probably had names for them, Emma suggested ‘Gargantua’ and ‘Titania’, we sxxxxxxxed at that. Seeing us sxxxxxxx she turned to Emma.
"Hey sugar tits, how's it going?*
Emma shifted uncomfortably.
“Aw c’mon sugar, give us some honey”. She reached over for Emma’s chebs.
Emma pushed the hand away, trying not to do it too roughly.
“Bitch” gobshite cursed.
“Stop it!” I spoke. I was going to get involved, shite.
“Oh, the girlfriend, little stumpy”. She turned and looked at my chest with a look of amazement on her face.
"Fuck me I've never seen in-growing tIts before! Does it hurt?".
The gobshite was trying to wind me up. I refused to take the bait.
"She’s not my girlfriend, just leave her alone feartie!". Maybe I took the bait just a little.
She gave me a puzzled look.
"What? "
"Cow, you glaikit sassenach!"
"Don't you talk to your betters like that. I'll put you in your place”.
I just looked at her. My best steely-eyed missile man look.
"You can try, anytime, I'm not afraid of you".
"Are you challenging me loser? "
“Yes, if you don’t leave her alone”. I’d gone and done it now.
"Are you after another beating, panda face?" She continued.
“Fine, Friday night. I’ll beat the shit out of you and then spend some quality time with my little sugar tits”, she blew a kiss at Emma. “Laters…”
I’d done it now. I didn't know if I would win. But I couldn't stare out the window. I had to keep living. I knew she wanted to reduce me to a crying mess and hurt me badly in front of her friends. What had not penetrated her tiny little mind was that I wanted exactly the same for her.
After gobshite had gone, Emma turned to me.
“You don’t have to do this”.
“I do, friends do this for friends. You can’t challenge her, but I can”.
Did I tell you she was in a wheelchair? Car crash at sixteen. She came to John Prine after lstening to all the music on the radio while she lay in her bed, she had a lot of time to do that. This MSE business is not so good for disabled people. Sure, they can have cripple fights (God I hate that word) against each other, but against us ‘Normies’ they’re always at a disadvantage. They always need a champion, and I would be Emma's whether she wanted one or not. That’s what friends do for friends.
Friday, I got to the fight arena fifteen minutes early, I didn't want to stand around. It was the same place I'd fought the sassenach, a converted lecture theatre. The lecturer’s lectern had been removed, and the entire area was covered in matting. Last time it was a private event, a was a darkened room with polite applause from the professors. This was a public one, full lighting, and the seats were full of the paying, braying audience, the crowd was loud, nothing would be polite about this lot. The only other difference was that the matting was enclosed within a roped-off area, so we had a ring.
I was wearing my hair in a bun, white chemise and shorts. I wouldn't say it was my lucky outfit after last time. But it's what I felt most comfortable with, it's a fight, not a striptease. gobshite wore a black bikini, she sure liked to show off those udders.
We were first on; the running order was decided by how likely it was to overrun and mess up the time slots for the other fights. They obviously didn't think we'd overrun. I’d like to be able to say they did it ‘cos they thought I’d easily win. Yeah, dream on.
Emma kissed me on the cheek.
"For luck". She smiled, but you could see the worry on her face.
I touched my cheek.
"For luck" I repeated dumbly.
Silence. We stared at each other.
"Well, I can’t hang around here all day, I've got a gobshite to beat up", I said as I walked into the amphitheatre.
“Beat her up good!” Emma called after me.
The announcer said something, I don't know what, the audience just blurred into background noise. It was just the gobshite and me, nothing else existed.
Gobshite held out her hand, with a questioning look on her face, she wanted to shake.
It seemed churlish not to accept so I did.
We shook.
"May the best girl win". She grinned as she pulled me into a devastating gut punch. The contents of my mouth sprayed across the mat. I staggered away from her, bent over in pain.
She grinned, and paused, taking her time to think about what she should do next. While she was doing that, I charged into her belly taking her to the ground. I hit her in the nose, then a one-two shot to her eyes. I was about to start on the rest of her face when two fingers went for my eyes, I screamed as she pulled me off her by the hair.
As I rolled, I got a good skelp into her face, her cheek went red.
She grabbed my hair, pulling it into a punch to the face. I yelped. I started punching at her body. Raising her hand, she slapped me hard across the face, forehand, then a backhand. She didn't see what I was doing until I clamped my legs hard around her waist. She gasped out, her arms windmilling blindly. Grunting, I pumped my legs and yanked her head back by the hair to face the ceiling. I pulsed and pulled her hair again. I was hoping I could just pulse her into oblivion.
Until she brought down her fists onto my little chebs. I may not have much in the way of chebs, but I still have nerve endings there. I opened my mouth in a silent scream. She joined her hands together whacking me on the side of the head, it spun to the side. She raised her arms again for another blow.
My feet stopped pedalling empty air and launched straight out into her face. I didn't feel the crunch, but I saw the spray. Her body launched back. I raised my head to see what I had done, I saw her lying on her back, gasping, good. I let my head drop back and had a few gasps myself.
We both lay there gasping, preparing ourselves for the next stage. The crowd cheered us on, there had to be a winner, and they wanted to see the violence continue.
Slowly she unsteadily got to her feet, I saw her rise, and I struggled to get up. She got there first and kicked me hard in the chest as I was rising. I curled up to protect myself as she frantically kicked at me. I kicked out with my feet, and she tripped. As she went down, I kicked her in the face opening up her lip.
We got back to our feet, carefully, never taking our eyes off each other, circling. She knew she was in a real fight now. I wasn't the pushover she expected.
She charged in, grabbing me by my chemise, the buttons flew across the mat, and she swung me by the shirt, into the ropes, as I hung there the crowd could see my bare chest as I did nae wear a bra, she grabbed my body and started abrasing my chest against the hard ropes, my top was tangled round my arms, my face was red with tears flowing down my face, and my chest glowed a smouldering red like it was on fire. She seized the back of my head and then started rubbing my eyes into the ropes. I tightly closed them, trying to protect them from the chafing.
Satisfied with the damage she had done, she moved away. Showing off to the crowd as I tried to put myself together. My vision was blurry, my chest felt like it was on fire. I was in a bad way. I was at her mercy. She jerked down on my shirt leaving me in nothing but my shorts. Instinctively I crossed my arms trying to cover myself up, the crowd laughed.
“Show us your tiny tits, you in-growing freak!” she jeered.
Spinning me around, then she jumped on my back and put her arms across my throat, feck! I was in a serious choke situation, with my arms out, I fell to the mats, and under the crushing weight of the gobshite, unable to take the pressure, my arms gave way. I fell flat onto the mats.
I struggled for what seemed like forever, to get this gobshite off my back, I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t move my legs. My body felt so sore. I was starting to get dizzy; I was so fecked. That bullying tart was gonna win. I wanted to cry. Then the ghalla started punching me in my fecking back, I would have gasped but I have no breath, remember? If she hits a kidney...
She’s crowing, revelling in her triumph, what she’s going to do with me, what she’s going to do with Emma, poor Emma. I can’t let her down.
Then the thought hit me if she's punching my back, there must be space between us. My hands reached behind me, searching, I found her big fat juicy cheb and squeezed and twisted with all my might. She screamed, releasing the chokehold at once.
"I’m gonna fecking tear them off and stick them up yer fecking fat arse!" I threatened.
Giving a good twist, I rolled her by the cheb onto the mat. Then with my other hand clawing face, I banged her head into the mat, once, twice. Then furiously went to work on destroying her prized chebs with both my hands free. I smashed them together like I was pounding rocks.
She was sobbing now. She reached up to my bared chebs and squeezed my nipples between her thumb and forefinger. like she was going to carve them off.
"Oh, yer fecking piece of shite!" I moaned.
Gobshite just cackled and squeezed harder, my nipples were flooding my entire body with agony. But I would not give in, for Emma. I gritted my teeth and started moving my hands up and down pulling those chebs into cones and then mashing them flat driving my thumbs into her nipples. My bony arse bounced up and down on her stomach. Her sobs were getting louder. I was breaking the bitch, I was going to do it, I was gonna...
Her flailing fist crashed into my temple, slamming my head back. By reflex, my grip on her big chebs loosened and she was pushing with her body, scrambling with her legs she kicked me away.
Damn! I almost had her!
She was standing, moaning, sobbing, gasping, her fists raised, a murderous look on her face. I raised mine. Emma was gesturing with her fists. "Fuck her up!", I thought she said. The crowd was calling out the same thing. We floundered together like a couple of drunks, the end was coming for one of us, and we both knew it.
She swung, and I ducked, firing a punch into her belly, my fist sank up to my wrists, and she gasped.
She swung a right, mashing my face, and I stumbled back to the ropes.
She came after me, I fired a kick straight into her belly. Staggering back, she bent over. I raised my arms my hands joined together ready to bring an axe-handle down on her. She headbutted me in the chest. I bounced off the ropes straight back into her.
We staggered together we were both running on fumes. She was determined not to lose her winning streak to me. I was determined to beat her senseless.
She swung a right at my face. I moved back, she hit empty air.
"I beaten four fucking bitches. I am not losing to a runt like you".
"Yes, you are!"
As my right hook slammed into her head. I realised my arms felt like lead weights.
She clocked me with an uppercut on my chin, my head flew back, and I staggered back seeing stars, my eyes glazed over.
She reached behind her back and undid what was left of her bikini top, twirling it around and throwing it into the audience, who cheered, of course. She was going for the big finish, she had me fecked, her winning streak unbroken, she grabbed me round the neck and started tossing those chebs of hers into my face. Not as much fun as it sounds, my head was getting pummelled by a kilo of tit flesh, and my senses were scrambled. She raised her arm, smirking for the audience, she had done it, she had beaten me, her record unbroken as she guided my head in for the smother from those jugs of doom.
What she didn't expect was my fist in her gut, with all my remaining strength, I put my entire body behind it. The contents of her lungs boked out in one giant gasp and her eyes came out on stalks. Her arms fell away, and I moved back ready for my next move.
I pivoted and kicked her in the head, her eyes went blank, and she lazily fell onto her face. Splat. A bit of whining and gasping from the floor. She was done, but I wasn't. I needed to make this public; I wanted her pride, on my wall, displayed for all to see.
"Give up? " I asked.
"Fuck off haggis-shagger!"
She tried to rise. I stamped on her back; she caved in, crumbling down face first, her body right on top of those mutant chebs which oozed out all over the mat.
Hmmm…
I stood on her splayed-out cheb, pressing and bouncing up and down hard. She screamed. Then straddling her I stepped on the other cheb. She howled and sobbed. Not good enough.
I slammed down arse first onto her back, never taking my feet off those chebs, I pulled her head back by the hair. I'm staring into her red tearful upside-down eyes.
"You'll have the chebs of a saggy ninety year by the time I finish with you!" I informed her.
I could see the fear in her eyes, good.
I could see Emma cheering, the crowd was going wild for me, turns out not many people liked her, what a surprise, apart from that handful of hangers-on whose social status depended on her. They were tearfully begging, pleading with her to do something, anything.
No fecking chance.
I started twisting the heel of my foot like I was stubbing out a fag. There was a nipple in there, I'm sure.
She surrendered pretty fecking quickly then. The flood of tears had turned into a tsunami.
"I submit...I fucking submit...please stop".
I ground my foot in harder and I bounced even more.
“Louder!”
She screamed out “I surrender…I surrender…Please stop…I’m begging you!”
I stubbed on her chebs a few more times, just to make sure. Then I unsteadily rose, taking my feet off those chebs.
Then the floodgates opened, she curled up holding her chebs and started bawling like a little-bitty-baby. I gave her a contemptuous kick on the back and then triumphantly walked away. The sound of the cheering audience rang in my ears. Feck me backwards, I’ve got adoring fans! I was waving my arms, smiling as I staggered off the stage.
I fecking won! I fecking won!
Off to the wings of our little Amphitheatre were rooms with a bed for the combatants to recover after their fight. As I lay there, my head spinning, I heard the door open, and Emma wheeled herself in. She sat there staring at me, pondering something, something serious I could tell. Then she spoke,
"Thank you"
"No problemo. That's what friends do for friends". I replied in my best casual voice, with a smile.
She looked to the floor; something was really on her mind.
"Look Cindy, there's something I need to tell you. I....I...I"
She was struggling poor luv!
I decided to put her out of her misery.
"I know," I said as I pulled her in close and then kissed her mouth. She was shocked, she wasn't expecting that. Shite, did I read this wrong? Then she responded, passionately. Gently she pulled my head into hers.
It was going to be the first of a million kisses.
Between kisses, I told her how glad I was that the DJ made me sing that night.
She smiled a very smug self-satisfied smile.
"Why the fuck do you think that DJ asked you to sing..."
"...Because I asked him to, you wazzock...".
"...You looked so beautiful. sad, lonely, like a little beat-up teddy bear, sitting there alone in the corner. I felt sorry for you, I wanted to cheer you up. The DJ's a friend, so I got him to ask you to sing. I didn’t know you liked John Prine, I was expecting an ABBA song or something”.
Then it occurred to me. I’d wanted that internship more than anything else in the world. I was so devastated when I lost. But if I hadn't lost, I would never have met Emma. Losing the Internship was the price I had to pay for knowing Emma. The aurora will still be there, there will be other chances and I'll win them, but now Emma will be by my side. Maybe I should thank that sassenach, Cathy.
And I did, kinda, sorta...
...did I tell you about when I met the sassenach again?
