There's a scrap of waste ground near my house that masquerades as a park. One recent evening, plumb in the middle of said space, I saw a wheelchair. It was empty, writes Kilian Doyle.
As I watched, the dirty clouds split, allowing a thin sliver of sunlight to nudge its way through and engulf the wheelchair, setting its chrome a-shimmering and a-glinting. All around was darkness. It was as if a celestial spotlight was shining on it, and it alone. It was somewhat surreal. Anyone else would have been bemused. "How did it get there? Where is its owner? Am I witnessing the aftermath of a miracle?" they'd ask.
Not I. I closed the blinds and switched on The Simpsons.
You see, I've become inured to such "miracles". Over the years, I've lost count of how many people I've seen bounding energetically from cars, taxis, builder's vans and other assorted vehicles parked in Disabled Parking Only spaces, apparently wondrously cured.
It wasn't always so. When I first began to notice these thaumaturgies, I would check people's windscreens after they'd left. They all had disabled parking permits. So, my naïve brain would tell me, they were obviously all disabled. I mean, they'd hardly park there if they weren't, would they? "Don't be ridiculous," I'd say to myself. "You've a low opinion of your fellow man, but not that low."
It was baffling. All these miracles, all over the city, all the time. And I appeared to be the only person noticing them. Why wasn't it on every front page of every newspaper in the world, the top item on every TV and radio bulletin around the globe? And where were all the people who had been cured? Why weren't they proclaiming their delight from the rooftops?
I had a cunning plan. I could smell money. Lots of it. All I had to do was buy up these miraculous parking spaces and rent them out to disabled people. All they'd have to do is park there and they'd be instantly cured. Everyone wins. I could even rent them the cars. 'Twas genius.
I decided to double check, to be sure I was onto a winner before I took out the bank loans. One evening in central Dublin, I spotted a young, affluent-looking couple hopping out of a new saloon parked in a Disabled Only space. I approached.
"Excuse me," said I. "Do you realise you've parked in a disabled space?"
They looked, conspiratorially, at each other. "Yes, my boyfriend is disabled," the woman retorted, snappily. "Look, he's got a permit. Have you a problem with that?"
"No, no, of course not," I replied, somewhat taken aback by her virulence.
I had expected her to be elated after the miracle I thought I'd just witnessed. "I'm just doing a bit of research. So what, pray tell, was the exact nature of this disability?"
They looked at each other. "Err, he's dumb," she said. "He can't speak," she added quickly after he glared at her, as if to reassure him that she wasn't referring to his intelligence or lack thereof. "Oh," said I. I was a bit confused. "How does that affect one's ability to park a car?"
"Sod off," came the reply. From him.
They walked off, leaving me to digest the unsavoury truth. These "miracles" weren't miracles at all. Some people were just downright nasty, prepared to sleeveen their way through life without a care for anyone else.
I was gutted. My dreams of wealth and fame were smashed into tiny smithereens that burrowed under my fingernails and scrabbled their way deep into the depths of my soul, blackening all around as they went.
And that is how I lost my faith in miracles. And also why I wasn't surprised to see the wheelchair. Someone had obviously nicked it for a laugh and abandoned it when they bored of their prank. Society has been well and truly infiltrated by moral midgets.
(Apologies to any readers who find their hands sticky after finishing this article. Please don't be alarmed. It's just the dripping cynicism. It'll probably wash off eventually.)