Keane

Background:

'ello. The name's Keane. I'm a member of the Montreal gargoyle clan, although things didn't start off that way for me.

I'm actually from London, back in the U-K. It's where I hatched and spent the first years of life. It was a great place to grow up. I have a lot of happy memories. London is an exciting place, and London is about the only place on the planet where gargoyles are doing anything close to what you could call “thriving” these days. Nearly two hundred in the clan there. Some true lads to be sure.

It's a real fine line gargoyles have to walk. We protect the humans when they're in trouble, but at the same time have to stay away from humans all the time before they have us hunted down and killed. People are always afraid of what's different. And while one or two humans might be sound enough to handle us, humans in large groups are idiots and easily panicked. Because of that we “tolerate” humanity more than anything.

But there is one thing that makes human awesome and worth protecting... Football! Glorious game, that. Action, strategy, beauty. The humans were really spot on with football, and I've loved it ever since I could say the word. My favourite club is Tottenham Hotspur, right here in north London. I even took my name from one of the best strikers Tottenham has ever seen... Robbie Keane. Took some flack from some in the clan for attaching a name to myself like that, but if it's a name good enough for Robbie Keane, it's good enough for me.

Of course it was football that got me in trouble back home. I spent so long following Spurs on the tele and watching their every move that I just craved that closer connection, you know what I mean? So one night I grabs me football and glided over to White Hart Lane. Was the middle of the night; not a sole around. So I flys into the grounds, and touched down on the pitch. Spent a few minutes going up and down the pitch with me ball, kicked a wicked strike into the goal, then gathered me ball and went home. Was a grand night. Too bad the groundskeeping crew noticed a few notches in the pitch from me claws. Course from there they check the security tapes and find this dark figure running around on the pitch. Kept me wings well in tight, have to when I'm running, so no issue there. CCTV is everywhere in Britain, but with no light they just assume it was some big bloke, maybe in some sort of costume to avoid detection? Left the Bobbies scratching their heads as to how the hooligan got in and out of the stadium and back home without being seen by any other cameras, but that just gave me a chuckle.

Nobody else was laughing, though. When word got back to the clan elders, they wasn't happy. Called it dangerous, stupid and careless. A bit much as far as I was concerned. I never felt freer and happier than on that field at that moment, but they didn't seem to take any of that into consideration. Final result? I was banished. Proper thing, I suppose. Told to go fend for myself, and maybe I'd be allowed back down the line once I grew up and realized just what dangers were out there in the human world for a gargoyle.

I left London and headed north, looking for any others I might be able to hang with. You know, a little company maybe? Bloody Loch Ness clan in Scotland was nowhere to be found. They're there, just not talking to me. Wankers. But circumstances weren't all bad. Really, if you have to live as a rouge gargoyle, there's no better place on earth than the British Isles to do it. Medieval castles in every direction mean a stone gargoyle can sit just about anywhere and never really look out of place. Hiding in plain sight. I went west from Loch Ness to the Mull of Kintyre, then made me way to the Antrim coast and Northern Ireland. No gargoyles that I know of left in Northern Ireland, but it was just the sort of spot I needed. Not only were there loads of castles around to hide in during the day time, but Northern Ireland's uneasy peace would pave my way back to London.

The history of the whole of Ireland is soaked in blood... nowhere more so than Ulster. Following the civil war what established the Irish Free State, Ireland's twenty-six counties were partitioned. Most became the Republic of Ireland, but the six counties in the north east corner became Northern Ireland, which was controlled by the British. Protestants were loyal to the Crown, while the Catholics were loyal to the Republic and wanted to see Ireland united. This spilled over in 1969 at the Battle of the Bogside in Londonderry, or Derry depending on your perspective, and “the Troubles” began. The conflict was a guerrilla war for nearly thirty years, and cost thousands of lives. The Irish Republican Army would bomb the loyalists, while the Ulster Volunteer Force would bomb the republicans. And there were many more groups than those doing the killing. Peace was achieved in 1997, and today both sides sit at the tables of parliament. But like any conflict, anything but outright victory isn't good enough for some. Attacks continue to this day. IRA splinter groups planted six car bombs in 2010, and succeeded in killing policemen in 2009 and this year, although the new Police Service of Northern Ireland is equally mixed with Protestants and Catholics.

Beyond the guerrillas is the former paramilitaries. You don't fight a war against the British government for thirty years then just suddenly stop being a soldier. All those former IRA men who no longer have a war to fight have formed local militias for lack of a better term which act as judge and jury. Especially in poor neighbourhoods, people still distrust the police following years of strife with the old Royal Ulster Constabulary. Instead of reporting crimes to the police, they go to these underground groups who seek out the offenders and make them pay through vigilante justice. Most often, it's a fourteen-year old joyrider who gets his kneecaps shot off. The punishment simply doesn't fit the crime. Stealing a car and driving it around for an hour shouldn't be punished with being turned into a paraplegic. So I decided to step in and help, to try and halt these armed thugs who control the back alleys. Surely protecting the innocents in Northern Ireland could get me back into the good graces of the London clan, right?

Well, you know what they say about best laid plans... I was camped out in a cave in the Sperrin Mountains in County Tyrone last year when things went off track. I though for sure I was out of the way there. I'm still not sure why anyone ever settled here to begin with. The rain never stops in County Tyrone, especially in the Sperrins. But when I awoke one evening I knew I had been found. There were beer bottles scattered about the cave, and some other trash. Looks like some teenagers had come across me during the day while looking for a place to drink away from prying eyes. Getting spotted was what caused my troubled in the first place. I wasn't about to let it happen again. Before those kids could return I headed out, knowing my time in Ireland was done. The beer would be enough to refute any tale those kids could tell about the strange stone gargoyle that appeared out of nowhere one night in a cave in the Sperrins. I made my way back to Belfast. It isn't easy to sneak onto an international ship, but I found a vessel with some stoneworks on board and tucked into the container. Belfast, Northern Ireland to Halifax, Nova Scotia. It wasn't the greatest of trips, but I made it. I stayed in the contained as it was loaded onto a truck, but slipped out at a rest stop outside Moncton, New Brunswick. From there I made my way through the woods into Quebec and to Montreal.

I knew from living in London that a clan of gargoyles was somewhere in Montreal. Within a night, they had found me, and I had a new home. It's wonderful to be amongst gargoyles again, although I miss London... and Spurs. The local football side is moving up to the top division next year though. So... go Impact? … … it's going to take some getting used to.

Trust Luke to find flying monkeys. LOL

Thanks bud. Gonna try and do one myself... until it comes out as a stick figure. Then I might use one of those.