Billy Ramsell was born in Cork in 1977 and educated at the North Monastery and UCC. Complicated Pleasures, his first collection, was published by the Dedalus Press, Dublin, in 2007.
He has been shortlisted for a Hennessy award and a Strong award. He has been invited to read his work at many festivals around the world, most recently in Shanghai and in San Francisco. He lives in Cork, where he co-runs an educational publishing company.
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What normal people do
They know. They know, believe me, and they're coming.
What you just gonna sit and wait for their iron boots out on the staircase?
You better start thinking about the window or the pillbox, charlie.
They're gonna do a right little number on you.
See they know everything mate, got it all nicely down on file,
got all the dates, data and locations circling their mainframes
like fish in a fucking barrel. It's all zeros and ones, innit?
Think you can get just shut of your entire history just like that?
Their eyes. You can't so much as back a charring cross without them knowing about it.
Oh they got a file on you long as that skinny arm you can't stop wanking with.
You just gonna sit there? You plank. You flange. You fucking child.
They're gonna pull your soul right out of your nostrils if you're lucky, me old china,
out of your eye-holes if you're not. It's waking surgery. They spread you.
They extend you. It just goes on and on. Pray they're not smiling. You don't want them smiling.
Oh my word could that be them? Yeah. They're almost silent this time as if they’re barely
touching carpet.
But is that them outside wafting up the apples? You just gonna sit there?
Can't you hear the dust start squirming, the spiders skittering across the steps to get away from
them?
Yeah you oughtta be shaking, charlie. They know. They remember everything.
I can almost feel your locks unbolting one by one to let them in.
Their eyes. It never finishes. Their blank, magnetic faces.
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