Alloa, Armageddon and Admani

Granted the power to intervene in the ways of puny man, we of the Cognos live a life of hard choices.

Take over the workings of this sad and flawed universe when it is threatened by dark forces, we will reap a reward of seeing the erstwhile pleading face of evolution gone sadly wrong,  once more beaming in contentment.

But misjudge the threat and stick our noses and fingers in where they are neither needed nor wanted and we will  not only suffer the loss of our super powers forever, but may also be cast into the pit of snakes.

And all to be done under the monastic vow of eternal silence  known as ‘keepitshut’.

“So” I know you are thinking “How come you are telling this now? Surely you are breaking with that vow and the pit of snakes beckons!”

Let me tell you this now.

Because of the events of Wednesday night I have been given special dispensation. Because of the existential threat to civilisation in general everyone must understand what they face.

What follows will explain all.

SPREAD THE MESSAGE!

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As shot after header, pass after chip, as if touched or guided by some unseen hand or force field deflected  over bar, around post or looped unthreateningly into the arms of the Alloa goalkeeper the crowd’s initial disappointment transmuted to amazement, disbelief and finally black humour.

But let this be clear – It came as no surprise to me!

All day my little silver and garnet manly ear-ring in my left lug lobe had been bothering me, and ever since I had got to my seat the slightly irritating sting had started to sear like a welders torch. Trust me,  whenever that happens it is a bit like Spider Man’s sixth sense, you can be sure trouble lies ahead. So I was already on high priority alert for anything that seemed abnormal or in any way outré!

I prepared thoroughly going through the secret ‘sock sequence’ and ‘pint drinking’ routines. This after all was going to be no ordinary 90 mins, no normal battle of two teams of supremely honed athletes giving every bead of sweat in a match of skill, muscle, grit, imagination and inspiration. I sniggered at the expectations across the known football world, that Glasgow’s coliseum was about to witness little unsuspecting Alloan Christians being ripped in an orgy of gristle, ligament, blood and bone by the lions of Lisboa .

This sort of knowledge can be a burden, but as I may have mentioned before I am the first son of a third son from Appin and the offspring of his love of an itinerant woman of Irish blood. This allows us spiritual membership of the ‘Cognos’ and the gift of one super-power (to be used in the cause of protecting humanity). Through the magic of the ear-ring, potential threats are conducted to my psyche. But only I can judge if my power to alter the space time continuum should be used.

Anyway, my ear-ring was rarely wrong and I was expecting the football, the teams, and the cup to become irrelevant; a mere sideshow in the wider and potentially cataclysmic confrontation that lent the air a telepathic crackle and tang only apparent to me and the other initiates in the society of Cognos.

The thing was…..till the dénouement, till the bitter end I would not know  whether I was right or wrong. Would I have judged the threat correctly and restore life’s boat to an even keel, or would I hear the jangle of the jailers keys and the squeak of the gates to the serpentine pit?

My ear-ring wasn’t wrong? But was my judgement correct? Was it really possible that Celtic versus Alloa was to be the opening salvo in the end of days, the final war, Armageddon? And just who was my protagonist?

How could I get this insight? How could I decide to use my super powers ? Under threat of a pit-like existence consorting with snakes and serpents , how could I be sure that the death strewn path to the green rolling hills of Megiddo had really opened and the trumpet had blasted its signal to attack?

It is a burden not lightly borne, but one that Cognos and souls such as I willingly accept.

And so I sat there pretending successfully to be a mere human,  each passing tick of the clock straining the valves on my personal frustration-ometer and each missed attempt or stray pass burning into my earlobe like a cow’s arse under a branding iron.

But the scales of intervention still tipped towards ‘NO’.

I scanned those around me undergoing their own trials.

For some  the approaching menace of extra time, penalties or even worse a cataclysmic winner for Alloa, had triggered a hypnotic trance where they had obviously returned to a previous life in a land called Despair.  Others, spitting, eyes bulging and heads spinning exorcism-like, screamed, chanted and pleaded in that tongue of the damned, the language of Angst.  Still more lost coordinated control of their limbs as they leapt, bent swayed and contorted like tifo puppets caught in a vortex.

And then see-saw of decision tipped.

Sinclair is through, clear target in sight, ball leaves foot homing in on bottom corner….ffs! Off it goes like a boomerang chasing a kangaroo and almost massacre the weans gathered at the corner flag; Broonie clear header, he rises, he connects, ball heading for top right of bag….WTF..someone has just broken the bricky’s record for erecting an invisible and impenetrable wall; Tom Rogic into box, past the last player, screamer lined up…….aw naw!  tripped by the unseen cloven foot of evil.

The crowd, was now in a Haitian voodoo frenzy. My ear was melting and in danger of running down my chin like a big snot on a bid for freedom.

There was surely no doubt now.

Somewhere in the ground an emissary of Beelzebub was at work.

I decided…action this minute…..damn the consequences!

As Ryan Christie picked up the ball on the left side of the pitch, his foot swung to meet the leather about to propel it in all likelihood somewhere into the upper reaches of the pit of snakes….sorry directors box.

Fortunately in concert with his swinging leg, I moved my right hand across to my left ear and touched my magical ear-ring while whispering  the secret incantation of Cognos.

Faster than light, the ball was now under the control of my telekinetic super power!

It swooped across field impelled on the path built from the sweep of my eyes, landing like a Jocky Wilson dart at the feet of James Forrest.

James now became the attached to my mental antennae.

He drove across the box on super charged and invisible roller skates – created in my mind’s roller  skate making facility – with ‘ball control’ attachment and then – and this was the clever bit-  at the last possible second,  I swapped his left leg for his right, and with a secret smile I told that leg to ping as it hasn’t pung before and drive that ball….”Drive that ball James” my silent scream….screamed ….and lo, that ball was thus driven…in reverse, diagonally, into the unguarded bottom right hand corner of the net.

It is fair to say that joy was unconfined.

But a sense of guilt lingered.

“Had I been right to intervene? Had I falsely convinced myself of the crooked hand of Hadean forces when it was just a coincidence of poor skills?”

My ear still burnt, and listen as I did, I heard no sound of the gates being unhinged.

And then it happened again.

One nil up, cruising and all of a sudden Celtic defence turns into a remake of Andy Pandy meets the Wooden-tops and flower pot men.

Wibbly wobbly legs become possessed by wibbly wobbly brains and I know….I KNOW….that an evil puppet master is pulling satanic strings.

“Back to the fray, Matt” I call heroically.

Power back in gear I grab that ball, get it to Moussa and ‘Yah Dancer… My ear stops burning! ….Game Over!’

As the final whistle blew, the bloke in front of me landed again from his celebratory flight to the stars and made for the vomitory.  The crowd started to thin, but a fair number stayed to applaud the team and allow the mess in their trousers to solidify.

Two lads behind me were having a furious row over whether the score should have been 12-0 or 13-0. I would have joined in but I had weightier matters on my mind.

“Who or what was the agent of darkness that had so nearly caused the rip in the dimension of justice and good?”

I looked around me again, trying to pick up clues from demeanours, conversations and auras visible only to the Cognos.

My suspicions were piqued when the fella who had left after his flight of fancy suddenly attempted re-entry, squeezing against the departing tide, his eyes darting in a panic, obviously having left something of value.

He made his way back to where he had been sitting and whispered, audible only to the Cognos..“Right you, come on, we need to get a move on”

The petit young girl of about 10 or 11 who was the target of his demand, sat immobile.

“You forgot me” she said, in a voice reminiscent of a petit young girl of 10 or 11, but with an undertone of bass baritone detectable only by the Cognos.

“I didn’t forget you. I went to the toilet”

“Naw you didn’t. You forgot me ….AGAIN!” …The beat of a hidden (but not to Cognos) threat was still there.

“I’ll tell ma maw” she continued.

“Pizza” he said.

“And a new phone cover” she bargained.

He was now fully under  the control of this mirage of a petite young girl of 10 or 11 with a timbre of doom to her delivery.

She stood, turned to pick up her programme and with a lift of her head, she stared at me.

A sudden brazier of hellish coals erupted in my ear, her eyes glared white hot with figurines of black dancing goats whistling on pans pipes.

A deep throated roar (audible again only to the Cognos) was followed by a voice from below bellowing “I am Adamni and I shall return. I shall wipe the Cognos off the face of history”.

And then they were gone, her leading the now enslaved male by the leash of triumph.

“Enjoy your Pizza” I said to the empty spaces “I’ll be waiting”.

As I made my own way back to the serenity of the Gorbals and Sharkey’s I played the events over in my mind. Then it struck me.

“Adamni…..mad min….maidan…..dim ana….I a Damn ….mid man….DAMIAN!“

The game against Kilmarnock could be interesting….be there and help me save the world.

I’m off to prepare myself with my secret Guinness routine.