Rain hammered the hillside like it held a grudge, slanting sideways as if the sky had grown bitter at the angle of the earth.
“Absolute bollocks,” muttered Declan, a damp and bristling sheep, hooves sinking slightly into the muck.
Beside him stood his friend, Cormac, wool the color of bad porridge and just as clumpy. “Not even proper rain. Just spiteful spit. Feckin’ sky won’t commit.”
They stood by a rusted gate, watching the mist claw its way across the valley. It was August, allegedly.
“I read somewhere—” Declan began.
“You can’t read.”
“Well, I heard somewhere,” Declan corrected, “that the Mediterranean’s got places what haven’t seen rain in three months. Imagine that.”
Cormac snorted. “I’d love to be parched. Just once. Just to know what it feels like to crack.”
They stood in silence a moment, the wind flapping their soggy ears.
Then came the clicking of soles. Tourists. Again.
Two humans in identical windbreakers trudged up the slope, holding plastic bags like they might contain something of interest. One paused, pointed a phone. “Ohhh my God,” she said, nasal and awed. “So rustic.”
Declan narrowed his eyes. “You ever notice they only call us ‘rustic’ when we look half-dead?”
Cormac huffed. “Sheep don’t get called majestic. We get called quaint. We get put on postcards next to rainbows and Jesus crosses.”
“They don’t even like us. They like the idea of us.”
The tourists snapped a photo, giggled at something on the screen, and moved on. Their smell lingered: sunscreen and granola.
“Bet they think we’re friends with leprechauns,” Declan muttered.
“Bet they think Guinness comes out the taps at the church.”
At the bottom of the slope, behind a crumbling wall, lay a man in a ditch. His face was nestled in brambles. His hand still clutched an empty can of Harp like a relic.
Cormac stared down at him. “That fella’s been there since Thursday.”
“Could be a statue,” Declan mused. “Like one of them modern art things. Y’know, ‘The Human Condition: Volume Piss’.”
Cormac tilted his head. “He moved yesterday. Coughed once. Swatted at a bee.”
“Well, at least he’s not complaining,” Declan said.
“No, he’s too busy communin’ with the worms.”
They watched the man twitch in his sleep, then fall still again.
And then came the flutter. The clatter of entitled wings.
A pigeon landed on the gate post between them.
It eyed them sidelong, neck bobbing in twitchy judgment.
Declan’s jaw clenched. “Here we go.”
Cormac shifted closer. “What’s he want? You think he knows something? You think he’s better than us?”
The pigeon cooed.
It was not a friendly coo.
“No one asked you, sky rat,” Declan said, his voice rising.
The pigeon blinked.
Cormac took a step forward. “You think you’re some symbol of peace or whatever, but you’re just a feathered gobshite with a god complex.”
The pigeon shuffled its feet, blinked again.
Cormac bared his teeth.
“Fuck off, pigeon!”
Curious how much is AI? Read the prompts here.