Rickie O’Neill is a 35 year old writer, actor, director and musician originally from Claremorris, Mayo, currently residing in Galway. For the past 13 years, Rickie has been a session musician and full-time drummer for the Irish band The Saw Doctors. In 2015 he changed his course slightly and began writing, starting off with short film scripts and poetry (which he still enjoys writing very much to this day). In 2017 he took a keen interest in the short story form and was particularly impacted by how powerful a short story can be as opposed to a long-drawn-out novel. Plus, you finish them quicker. Rickie’s writing influences include Anton Checkov, Roald Dahl, George Saunders, Lafcadio Hearn, Chuck Palahniuk, Anthony Bourdain, Mike McCormack & Donal Ryan. Last December, Rickie released his first self published novella called Little Sickos, under the pseudonym Fionnain J McKeon, and in March 2026 he released his first anthology under the same name titled ALIVE ALL NIGHT, which can be purchased from Rickie/Fionnain directly by emailing saltedstrings@gmail.com.

THE LOST EFFECT

By Rickie O’Neill

  Carla thought she was being cute that afternoon.

  That wet afternoon.

  During those few hours, yeah, between 3 and 6, she thought she had it sussed, real fucking sussed. There she stood, the little bitch, among friends, enablers and criminals, thinking she was totally indestructible on this final day of a four-day session of misery.

  Or celebration.

  This doomed little princess.

  Here she was, at seventeen, sailing through the final few hours of an addicted commitment thinking it was gusto, just gusto, and nothing else.

  Then, that wee push at her back.

  “Hey You.”

  And right then the steel cuffs came down hard.

  Hard around her wrists.

  These two cold snakes.

  “Ye Fuckers,” she said. “Ye Fuckers. Ye Fuckers.”

  The girl was bent over now, almost to the ground and screaming like a child with a scalded hand.

  “Ye are nothing but a gang’a crooks,” she said. “The whole bloody lot’a ye.”

  All this abuse happenin while the lads working (every single one of them) laughed at her jiggly fat legs stumble over the cobblestones like she were an Aldi version of Michael Flately.

  All those big farming men and local boys, lads she once knew and refused were in uniform now.

  Here they were, ten of them at least, taking her away, when they probably should’ve just left her there to hell because there’s just no point in rotting at home, is there?

  “We’re taking you away, sweetheart,” they said. “It’s into the clink with you.”

  These strapping young lads who, all of a sudden, on this day, became her only friends in this world, only because her other friends, “the real ones,” ran away to jump a ditch or scale the length of a high wall.

  Out of fear.

  Like anyone else, they didn’t want to fight.

  Or cause a fuss.

  Snookered now she was,

  Carla.

  Snookered totally.

  But a’course the men, they got her up in one piece.

  A’course they did.

  And right on time too, before anyone else could touch her.

  Or claim her.

  Any other man like.

  That way, you see, she wouldn’t have to ruin her life by blacking out.

  Or kill anyone else.

  And whenever the screaming finally stopped they tossed her like a dead weight into the back of the van, closed the doors and drove away into the darkness.

  Back to the station.

  “Not again!” said the super when she arrived in through the big main door. “I thought I told you to go home the last day. Your mother, God love her, is worried sick.”

  And then someone said, laughing, “You won’t become a vet at this rate, luv. Not a damn hope.”

  And she didn’t like that, Carla.

  Not one bit.

  And so she kicked and she screamed and she flailed once more, until she grew tired.

 And the normal, local boys, well. . . they had to beat her down hard in the end.

 For spitting.

  Spitting and biting.

  And they did that job right until she bled.

  Like she wasn’t the Bossman’s daughter at all.