If you want to read from the start -> Coming of age, 2484
Dervlah kicks the exit doors open of the casino, catching the doorman a nasty blow to the shin. Striding down the big, town hall looking steps, Punice scampers behind her like a scared puppy.
“Just keep walking” sidles out the corner of her mouth. The Wile E Coyote theory of dealing with shit; If you don’t look down, you won’t fall.
Inside her head panic roars, but she must keep that stuffed in there. ‘Shhh quiet now my panicky mind’. Outside Dervlah’s head; she strides powerfully into a small alleyway just off to the left. She then starts running. Punice also starts running, they not having a fucking iota what is happening.
Into quiet looking pub called Shambo’s. Quickly two more drinks to keep the buzz. Dervlah looks at Punice’s creased and concerned face. Punice looks back. Giggles erupt from the pair of them like drunken kittens.
Some drinks later, “So you’re a messenger? Well, I was not expecting that.” Dervlah doesn’t look up at them. She has her notebook out and is writing. She is writing to think, to calm and centre (It is a doodle of a kitten drinking). Punice seems, for once, to notice she needs a moment, and just waits. Finally, her words creep out; “Well, I’m a messenger now, I suppose. That was my first job. So yes, that makes me…A messenger”
Punice’s drink drains down their throat, their eye’s soften; “Shit Dervlah, you, you’re like an angel, sent from God to deliver tidings”. Dervlah, now thoroughly hammered, leans back, head bent against the dark wood panel behind the bench seat. Eyes half closed. “Yea, I guess I fucking am.”
Punice musters “What’s next then Angel Dervalhalla?”
“Next emm…”, squints at phone, kinda closes one eye to stop it moving so much “next is we are making a delivery to someone called…” “Yes, oh holy one?” “Well, we are going to see someone called… Rodger Ruby Cock”
Continued in part 9: Coming of age, 2484 (9).