The Floozie In The Jacuzi emerges from a jacuzzi covered in seaweed on New Year's Eve to go clubbing with other statues. At the club, she dances and socializes but grows lonely, hoping to find love. She meets a handsome man in a straw hat and they kiss passionately. They leave the club to make love by the canal as dawn approaches. She must return to her jacuzi before turning fully human at sunrise.

1. The Floozie In The Jacuzi
It is the eve of the millenium. I am sitting in the heart of Dublin City in a jacuzzi on O' Connel
Street, covered in seaweed. The seaweed is dark and slimy and clings to the cold contours of my
body. No man has ever touched me. I fantasise about passing men, and dare to believe that I will be
seduced tonight.
Myself and my friend the tart with the cart and all the other statues are going to hit Dublin's
night clubs tonight. The tart with the cart used to be a fish hawker and a prostitute. I hope to find a
lover, hope to be seduced. I have a nice body actually – firm breasts, even if they're green, and I'm
slender and well proportioned.
Slowly I come alive and stretch my rusty limbs which clank as I move about and give myself a
good scrub with some sea weed. I flex my arms and legs with relief. I manage to stand up and of
course I'm eight feet tall so I probably look a bit strange. However, I try to look graceful and elegant
as I emerge from the jacuzzi, splashing water over myself, my long hair scattering wetly over my
shoulders.
Myself and the other statues gather outside the Screen Cinema and start chatting, delighted to be
able to talk. We carouse up the road towards Lillie's Bordello, waving at passersby. Two bouncers
admit us and we swagger up to the bar and order white wine. A man comes up to me and asks me
what I do.
“I'm a super-model,” I reply.
“I'd walk miles to meet a woman like you,” he says.
“Off you go so,” I reply and he rambles away.
We strut out onth the dance floor where men in waistcoats with dyed hair dance around us,
vibrating under flickering lights. Girls in fluorescent tops wave their bare arms and gyrate their
boyish hips. The tart with the cart is surrounded by men and has her cart in the middle of the dance
floor. There's a great stink of fish. She is strutting about and flinging her head from side to side with

2. wild abandon. The hags with the bags, two statues from Liffey Street, have their bags on the floor
and are doing an energetic disco routine.
A man with spiked orange hair wanders up to me and asks me would I like a drink.
“No thanks,” I reply.
“How about a boiled egg?” he asks.
Girls in silver jackets sit in alcoves with attentive young men. I notice a girl who has her hair
plaited in a tiara around her head, and she looks unreal – like something from a grotto at the bottom
of the sea. I imagine that if you touched her, your hand would pass right through her. The night-club
is decorated in neo-classical style, with giant urns everywhere and neo-classical sculpture.
The talent is sparse enough. The men look vain and narcisstic, and the women are dancing
provocatively, feigning indifference to the bloodshot, prowling eyes of predatory men. Most of the
men are the worse for drink, slurring their words and weaving their way towards half naked women
who repel them, and they slither back into the shadows of the nightclub.
I want a man to approach me – not some pot-bellied old fart with fat hands and sour, drink-
soden breath. I want the man of my dreams to approach me and lead me wordlessly onto the dance
floor and gaze into my eyes so that I fall over the precipice of desire and am lost. I've been lying in
that jacuzzi for years now and I'm lonely. I'm wearing a long dress to hide my body as I've gone a
bit green, and there's mould under my arm pits but I'm sure an ardent lover wouldn't notice. I did
my best to wash myself, but I'm still oozing with slime.
A man with thick lips and a sensuous face smiles at me, and walks over. He is a tall, handsome
man, and we go to the bar and order drinks but I will not allow him pay for mine. Despite the noise
we manage to converse, and he tells me he is an artist. He doesn't look like a starving artist in a
garret and is wearing a silk shirt. There is something decadent about him and I am wary of him.
“Are you dominant or submissive?” he asks and suddenly I see the cruelty in his face.
“Neither,” I reply, and escape.
The hags with the bags are crashing and banging into each other. The tart with the cart is

3. causing a considerable commotion – her voluptuous and semi-exposed breasts are attracting a lot of
attention. She is very beautiful and dresssed in a long, crushed velvet dress which clings to her
curvaceous body. Men flock around her, gazing fixedly into her cleavage, but she keeps bashing
them with her cart which she insists on bringing onto the dance floor and quite a few men are
clutching therr shins.
Another man dances towards me – dressed entirely in black, and quotes the lines, “Beauty is
truth, truth beauty – that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know,” which he attributes to
Shelley.
“Keats,” I say.
“Oh, is that your name?” he says, introducing me to his friends.
“This is Keats.”
“His wife and kids are at home you know,” says one of his friends.
I excuse myself from the merry makers and wander onto the dance floor.
Suddenly I see a man in the shadows. He is long and thin and bony and beautiful and is wearing
shorts, a honey coloured tee-shirt, and a straw hat. He is the sexiest thing I have ever seen. I walk
towards him, mesmerised.
“Hi,” I say and he reclines languidly against the wall and I am lost.
He takes my face in his hands and bends towards me and I can almost feel my clothes sliding
from my body. We walk onto the dance floor and I put my arms around him and he pulls me
towards him and his body comes in contact with mine. He whispers some words in my ear – words
of love, and tells me that I am beautiful.
Suddenly I see one of the hags is disgracing herself in a corner, spewing up a vile green
concoction, clutching her stomach and gasping. I excuse myself to the man in the straw hat and go
over towards her.
“C'mon,” I say, dragging her into the loo.
“Have you no sense woman?” I ask.

4. “Go easy on the champers.”
She mops her brow, and stares, bleary-eyed at her reflection. The nightclub is hot and smoky.
We are not used to cigarette smoke, although we are well used to the fumes of passing traffic. My
cheeks are flushed and my pupils are dilated. I apply some mascara and drag the hag out of the loo.
“Some oul fella was sticking his tongue down my gob,” says the hag.
I prop her up against the wall and give her a lecture on the evils of alcohol, and she gazes at me
out of unfocused eyes and slumps sideways. I look around for the man in the straw hat. I see him
and walk towards him – he looks like a movie star. Suddenly I see the statue with the golden
goolies strolling by, causing modest maidens to blush and look away.
The prick with the stick is standing in a corner, tapping out a ballad with his stick, and regarding
the assembled throng. He sings softly -
“Good-bye now, good-bye now,
Take down all I said,
Tell Tom, Dick and Harry
I rose from the dead.”
There is a sudden commotion and I see two bouncers walk up to the tart with the cart and catch
her by the arm, ushering her towards the door. She starts to screech and belts one of them over the
head with a fish, and soon the dance floor is covered in fish flickering under the disco lights, and
the tart with the cart is involved in a scrum with the two bouners.
“Gentlemen,” I say politely. “What appears to be the matter?”
“The young lady is soliciting,” says the bouncer. There is nothing I can do as they usher her
wriggling velvet form towards the door and eject her with her barrrel of fish.
I walk back to the dance floor. The man with the straw hat is standing in the shadows and I
walk towards him. He takes my hand and leads me onto the flashing dance floor and I kiss him and
my soul takes flight.
“Come with me,” he says, and we leave the smoky nighclub and walk outside into the night

5. through the streets thronged with late night pleasure seekers. Couples walk by hand in hand, and
gangs of youths pass by, drinking cans of lager. Young girls with bare bellies wearing bikini tops
brave the cold night air, their navels studded with jewels. Young men in bright shirts pass by,
weaving in and out of the shadows. Men dressed as women, wearing sequined dresses, walk down
the street attracting the attention of other men. Groups of people are singing and dancing and there
is madness in the air. Everybody is carousing and there are fireworks displays at every street corner,
brilliant colours exploding against the night sky. I watch the dazzling patterns and the man in the
straw hat puts his arms around me and I stand very still.
We walk out of town towards the canal bank and stretch out on the grass and the man in the
straw hat takes me in his arms and kisses me. I pull him towards me. I know that I am mad because
I have to be back in the jacuzzi before dawn. I have to be in position for the commencement of the
next millenium. The time in the slime is ticking away, but I am lonely in the jacuzzi, and cold, and
longing for a lover.
Afterwards he picks me a bunch of flowers the colour of wine and kisses me again. We go back
through the night to O Connell Street and I shudder for it is nearly dawn.
We stop for one last moment and look at the River Liffey. I stand motionless as the dawn breaks
and the river lightens to the colour of Cappucino. I kiss the mouth of this man that I love and we
freeze, green gold in the morning light. As the sun rises I begin to melt into human form.

6. through the streets thronged with late night pleasure seekers. Couples walk by hand in hand, and
gangs of youths pass by, drinking cans of lager. Young girls with bare bellies wearing bikini tops
brave the cold night air, their navels studded with jewels. Young men in bright shirts pass by,
weaving in and out of the shadows. Men dressed as women, wearing sequined dresses, walk down
the street attracting the attention of other men. Groups of people are singing and dancing and there
is madness in the air. Everybody is carousing and there are fireworks displays at every street corner,
brilliant colours exploding against the night sky. I watch the dazzling patterns and the man in the
straw hat puts his arms around me and I stand very still.
We walk out of town towards the canal bank and stretch out on the grass and the man in the
straw hat takes me in his arms and kisses me. I pull him towards me. I know that I am mad because
I have to be back in the jacuzzi before dawn. I have to be in position for the commencement of the
next millenium. The time in the slime is ticking away, but I am lonely in the jacuzzi, and cold, and
longing for a lover.
Afterwards he picks me a bunch of flowers the colour of wine and kisses me again. We go back
through the night to O Connell Street and I shudder for it is nearly dawn.
We stop for one last moment and look at the River Liffey. I stand motionless as the dawn breaks
and the river lightens to the colour of Cappucino. I kiss the mouth of this man that I love and we
freeze, green gold in the morning light. As the sun rises I begin to melt into human form.