Hindsight
If I had known what was ahead of me I would have prepared differently. Might have taken a witness or a Go-Pro for the battle and the chase. Dog dammit, I might even have changed my underwear. But that’s the thing about unexpected events, they’re unexpected.

Invisible Guiding Hands
Some might attribute my presence in the woods on that day (of all celestial days) and at that time (of all momentous times) to some all-powerful invisible hand. But more likely it was the repulsive force of seven baskets of clothes to be washed as well as four beds to be changed. Then there was the mountain of paperwork in my home office that seemed to be growing a lumpen tumour. Basically none of that shit was inviting on a hot day. I needed to be outside.

Just an Ordinary Day
So I loaded up the van (with zero help from invisible hands) and headed for the woods. It was an ordinary day. There was nothing exceptional except Chewy the older of our two dogs giving me his death stare as I drove off without him. For the record it was 8th May and I’d been putting this wee job off since Storm Eowyn in January when all manner of objects (trees included) were blown over in every corner of Ireland. So off I went, sad to be leaving my loved ones behind.

Foolhardy words spoken to Herself before leaving
It’s only a wee job I’ve been putting off.
I’ll be quick enough.
I’ll do the washing and the beds when I get back.

Shit-Show in the Woods
The issue to be sorted was a small but manageable shit-show of tangled trees lying either side of the gate into the woods. First I whipped out the chainsaw and cut a small gap through the barricade, just enough to allow me to walk through and check for other wind blow further up in the woods.

Further up
It turns out that’s exactly where the real shit show was horizontally hanging out, like drunks at a music festival. The shit-show had started to enjoy the new position by budding into full leaf and even telling jokes. ‘Fuck you shit show’, I said out loud and thereby interrupting a joke about an impatient man waiting for a talking centipede*. I had heard that joke before.

Things to do when on a chainsaw massacre (in a woods)
Stop procrastinating.
Regret not wearing your proper anti-rip chainsaw overalls (anti-rip in the anti-‘Rest in Peace’ sense of the abbreviation).
Sweat.
Take pictures for posterity and as an excuse to take a break.
Try not to think how many more trees are left to cut.
Try not to be the one who gets massacred.
Walk back to the van for water. Remember how Buddha said ‘chop wood, carry water’ and smile about how apt that is but then realise Buddha never mentioned taking breaks or safety gear.
Chop wood. Drag wood.
Finish the water. Curse. Chop. Drag. Repeat.
Stop and listen to birds. Breath deeply and repeat. Then realise this ain’t getting shit done.
Dehydrate. Chop. Drag.
Avoid getting hit by trees that spring back up into a standing position once the weight of the top half has been chopped off. Springing trees is a common cause of sudden and acute headaches among chainsaw operatives. Helmets offer little meaningful resistance. Anti-rip clothing doesn’t do much either.

More things to do
Chop wood. Move fallen branches and logs. Add more fuel and oil. Change blades.
Ruminate about how close you came to getting your face smashed by the springing tree and wonder if it’s an omen.
Keep sweating.
Get to the point of the story.
Notice the likeness of ‘faces’ in the cut stumps which clearly reflects tiredness and dehydration and that the mind has started to adopt a looser interpretation of time and space. And faces.

The Point of the Story
Then, just as I had rolled the biggest oak stump back off the road I saw His face in the rings. Totally unmistakeable. Incredible detailing. I immediately recognised Him from an article but couldn’t remember His name. But it was Him. Luckily I took a photo of the stump as evidence. Clever was’n’it?

The Thing with the Evidence
When I checked my phone later the evidence was gone which is explained in no small part by what happened next. So just believe me when I say that the face I saw in the stump belonged to none other than Pope Leo XIV. No shit. Except that He hadn’t been declared Pope at that stage. And that I was in the woods in Ireland and the conclave were still voting in Rome. Mind blown. But wait. My mind gets blownier.

Sensitivity Warning – shit gets unpleasant ahead.
So excitement over and divine evidence banked I tramped back to finish tiding up the first area of wind blow around the gate. Queue much more chopping and sweating and pondering if I was the chosen one and wondering what it might mean (and remembering the time the guy found Jesus’ face in the dogs butthole) and then asking myself if I should I knock down other trees to check them for faces or just check dogs buttholes and then noticing a sudden icy chill in the air and the hairs stand on my skin.
As I shivered I stopped to take a picture of the remains of a coloured butterfly that had just curiously withered to dust in mid air when I felt a pair of eyes watching me, stinging the back of my bare neck. I turned and to my horror there standing boldly (broad daylight after all) was Satan’s very own emissary on earth, the notorious Cú Sidhe, the hellhound of Irish folklore. Yes I was shocked but not surprised – the Cú Sidhe is no stranger to these parts.

The Cú Sidhe’s USP
This lecherous fiend’s Unique Selling Point is that anyone who looks directly upon him (or his photo) sees their own unique and nightmarish vision of ghoulish monster dog. I will not tarnish your screen with words to describe the beast I saw. Indeed look away now if you fear what lurks in the recesses of your own special hell and who will be visible if you look below you now.

The real miracle on the 8th May.
It’s not that a Chicagoan is now God’s infallible disciple on earth. No. Nor that I saw a likeness of the former Cardinal in the stump of an oak tree just moments before he became Pope. No, that’s not the miracle. Nor is the appearance of Satan’s lapdog, the Cú Sidhe, on the old sod just a few miles from the sleepy Irish village of Newbliss (No-bliss would be a more appropriate moniker). The real miracle on the 8th May is that I survived what happened next.

The Attack
He instantly attacked and so we fought epically. Eventually thinking him mortally wounded I granted mercy to the dying whelp but it was a wicked trick and he charged head first sending me flying over the stumps of the cut trees. To my everlasting shame I chose that moment to show my heels and I turned and ran, never looking back. I ran headlong through ditches and barbed wire and tore and ripped my self to shreds and fell umpteen times before passing out. When I came too an balding crone (the last of her kind I would hazard) was pouring a concoction of sautéd-frolicking-lambs-blood with jus-de-unwilling-morning-frog into my mouth. I felt my strength returning.

Such Luck
Few in the parish would have correctly diagnosed my ailment (the Sting of the Lecherous Claw to be precise) let alone have the wherewithal or the ingredients to whip up the cure in jig time. Yes, I will be eternally grateful for her simple country ways. She never said a word, just winked and took fifty euro from my wallet and before I could ask for a receipt her oafish husband (who spoke only the old tongue) drove me back to the scene of the foray. He looked around at where the battle had raged before turning and saying, “Aimsir mhaith don beart sin.” Fine weather for that job. He was not wrong.

I stood by the roadside mouth agape, tattered jeans clinging to my ankles, my less than fresh underwear fluttering in the wind and my pink and scratched limbs lightly bleeding. And the scene before me? It was… as if nothing had happened

As If nothing had happened
Of course lots had just happened but there was no evidence of the ‘battle’. All was silent except for the low lonely drone from the engine of my chainsaw where it lay idling, eerily pining for the strong hand of it’s master. My phone? Lying in the first ditch with a man sized hole recently burst through it. But as soon as I picked it up I noticed the screen covered in scratchy paw marks – the fiend had somehow managed to access my device and remove select miraculous pictures. Cunning beyond belief. And why did it not just destroy the phone or even remove it’s own image? I could posit several suggestions but like tattered jeans, there is little benefit in tying up every loose end. Life is rarely that simple. Onward in triumph and speak of it no more.

End Times.
So there it was. The miracle on 8th May. And little thanks or hearing did I get on my return – just ‘Daddy can you throw balls into the trampoline’ and ‘Dermy, that dog found a half eaten bagel under a load of paperwork in your office and then threw up in the corner’ and ‘the only hellhound I see is a docked bulldog with dental issues’.

Yes Reader. Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe. Blessed indeed.

* The centipede eventually shouts downstairs where the impatient man is waiting to go bowling, “I told you I’m coming! I’m just putting on me shoes first.”