Short Story: GALLAGHER ISLAND
'You reckon the Gallagher brothers are dead?’
START
At the end of the world, in the dying days, Ellie knelt in the garden with a joint draped out the corner of her mouth. She took off a glove and wiped her face. ‘Hey Mac, you reckon the Gallagher brothers are dead?’
Mac didn’t look up from his work — he was on weeding duty. ‘I guess.’
‘You don’t think they might be holed up somewhere?’
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘It’s possible.’
‘Imagine if they’re together.’
Mac knelt there, hand in the soil, taking a long, hard breath. He was hungover. Ellie had noticed Mac often did the yard work when he was hungover.
‘Where would they be?’ she asked him.
Mac sat back, giving in. ‘I can’t see them both together. Sorry. I don’t think there’s going to be an Oasis reunion anytime soon. Can you roll me one of those?’
Ellie took out her pouch and carefully unfolded the home-cut rolling papers—thin Bible pages. ‘What book are we up to?’ Mac asked her.
She squinted at the pages. 'Jeremiah. We keep smoking like this we’ll all die before the New Testament.’ And as she dug around in the tobacco she said, ‘I have a feeling Liam Gallagher is still alive. I just feel it.’
‘Ellie, there’s no way Liam’s alive. If one of them is alive, it’s Noel. It was a miracle Liam lived through the nineties. There’s no way he fended for himself during all this.’
‘I can see him sitting in his mansion, on a throne, watching TV.’
‘Is the TV on?’
‘Yeah, of course the fucking TV’s on. He’s got the games taped.’
She gave him the joint.
‘Cheers. You know, I was in a camp with a guy for a bit and he reckoned that all the A-listers were on some island somewhere, all together. He’d heard it from some guy in the dockyards. They were running supplies out at the beginning. It was a big deal. It’s where all the orders were coming from.’
‘What happened?’
‘He didn’t know. They stopped going out there but, he didn’t know why. I like the idea of it, though. All the famous people together, sipping cocktails together, looking good, inter-breeding. Kind of like the illuminati conspiracy meets El Rey’s kingdom at the end of The Getaway.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a book. Jim Thompson? Uhm, these two bank robbers end up in this Mexican town at the end, and it’s run by this guy, El Rey. Everyone’s rich and well looked after but…
‘But what?’
‘Argh, don’t worry about it. That’s sort of how it ends. They’re bored and…I can’t remember the rest.’
‘So a bit like this then?’ said Ellie.
‘It’s a lot different from this.’
‘We’re not rich.’
‘No and…’
‘And you reckon that’s where Noel is?’ said Ellie. ‘On that island?’
‘Sure. If anyone’s there, it’s Noel Gallagher,’ he said.
END
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