In my long career of non-writer I have started and not finished many books. Many I have even forgotten. But, I am anything if not perseverant, so, here we go again!

I am starting yet another book. It is a book that I have started and dropped a few times in the past, but, now, it is time for a new beginning.

How will this time be different than all the others?

Well, for one, I will divide the work in small, manageable tasks I will perform each day. I have a full time brain consuming job, so I often find my mind just freezes when I want to write. I also lack self-confidence, and every little thing becomes a distraction just so I avoid facing my perceived inability.

Plus I find it difficult to start things so they need to be so easy to start that it is impossible for me to find any excuse to not do them.

So, my master plan is to have a task to do every day linked to the book, of course, structured and organized, not chaotic, so it all makes sense in the end when I finish my first draft.

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What have I learnt in my long career of non-writer:

• every little bit helps

• if you think it is bad it does not mean others will think the same

• although you complain so much, actually writing brings you joy and a singular feeling of fulfillment

• books, stories, are not born perfect, you work at them after the first draft

• you need to find something that works for you

• there will always be people that do not like what you write and that is ok

• most people won’t care about what you write and that is fine also

• you find your voice by writing and not by trying to please others

• be true to yourself because fashions come and go but you are the constant in your life

• do things that make you happy (and don’t hurt others of course)

• read what you like

• don’t let other people tell you who you are or how you should be

• time passes no matter what you do so best do what makes you happy

• your attention is priceless so use it wisely

This list is already too long! I had not realized I had learned so much!

I don’t know if this book will happen but what I do know is that now, right now, I am willing to put in the work, in my style, to make it happen.

And if I manage you will be the first to know! Till then I will continue to write my little stories and I will keep you updated on how I get on!

Now, for those of you who have already written a book, what were the things that most supported you during the process? Any tips and tricks to an old beginner?

Here I go again!

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He was walking through the dense forest, hands in his pockets, wondering where it had all gone wrong. He reviewed in his mind’s eye all the events, and it proved impossible for him to identify what he could have done differently to change the outcome.

He had no esprit d’escalier, no esprit de nothing. He had done what he had done thinking, then and now, that it was the thing to do. The only thing that had given him a faint idea that something was up was this vague shift in mood, barely perceptible, like the flutter of tiny wings just moving the air in a gentle way, but enough to make the intimate candles lighting the table flicker, changing the atmosphere.

Was it fair though? Was it fair for him to be struck out of the group for something that he did not even know he had done? He felt the goalposts were being moved all the time, while he never got the chance to fully grasp what was happening.

He remembered the last dinner well. They were all sitting around the big oval table, chatting as you do with the people sat closest to you, it was always a lottery where you ended up. The hot topic at the time was games of power and manipulation. It was all generic and noncommittal, until he heard himself say out of the blue:

‘Even here, for us, it feels like a testosterone contest!’, and he chuckled. He did not read the ensuing silence, but he thought they did not hear him well, so he said it again, a bit louder, to make sure they all heard him. ‘Yeah, even with us it feels like an ongoing testosterone contest!’, he was very pleased with himself and did not notice how his comment was glossed over, followed by sideways glances from his male and female fellow diners.

He let out a big sigh and replaced the heavy air in his lungs with fresh, woody-smelling air. If only he could take it back, not say anything, just sit there enjoying the place, the people, the food, the event. He was so frustrated with himself!

He reviewed all sorts of scenarios in which he could make things better and get accepted back into the group, but he did not find any that was fit for purpose. What was done, was done, he just had to learn from it and deal with it.

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‘Move on!’, he told himself while walking on the soft, leafy ground.

It felt strange to regret something he was complaining about before. Maybe that is what he had done, he had self-sabotaged because he was not enjoying the dinners. But he was … in a strange, difficult to explain way, he would have rather been there and be able to complain, than not be there at all.

Without paying any attention to his environment, he now woke up like from a dream and found he was in a part of the forest he had never been in before. The trees were so high that when he looked up, he was not able to see the sky or the sun. Fintan took out his phone and was surprised to see he had no signal. That was impossible, he could not remember the last time he had no signal. He always had a signal. His breathing got a bit erratic, and he felt anxiety rising in him.

He should go back. But where was back? He had gone in circles with his phone high up towards the sky, trying to find a signal and, now he was unsure where he had come from. All directions looked the same into the fading light.

‘Where do I go from here?’, he felt like crying but as he was all alone and there was nobody to take over or comfort him, he didn’t, he could not afford the meltdown. He needed to make a decision and stick with it.

‘I am strong! I can do this!’, he whispered to the fear taking hold of him and randomly chose a direction, walking very fast so he could not hear the strange noises the wood made.

It took him close to thirty minutes of fast, determined walking until he felt his phone vibrate in his hand with notifications. He could not focus on reading anything but the map with instructions on how to get out to the parking lot.

When Fintan finally saw his car it was the most beautiful sight he had seen in years. He quickly got in, locked the doors, and was able to relax at last with tears of relief silently going down his cheeks. The longest thirty minutes of his life… so far.

The phone kept on buzzing faintly in his hand. When he checked what was happening, Fintan was surprised to see that there were messages on the group chat about an upcoming dinner, and he was being asked to join.

His tears flowed even more generously. Tears of joy and double relief. They wanted him there, too! He was so happy! He made a promise to himself to keep his big mouth shut!

Of course, except for the bit where he would tell them how he got himself lost … in the woods.

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Frieda opened the door of her little, red cottage and stared at the hot sun.

Another scorcher!, she thought to herself while brining up her long, grayish pony tail to make up a high bun.

With her flowy gauze blouse and the wide legged trousers she had the air of a woman beamed down from the Victorian era. Her trousers were so wide that it was difficult to be sure they were not a full skirt. Frieda looked down on her neighbor prancing about in short shorts.

‘I would walk naked if I could!’, she used to share when they crossed paths on the sidewalk. Frieda would nod and smile, wondering if maybe the heat had messed up the other woman’s brains.

With John away on business Frieda found that she was not sure what to do with herself. She did not need to cook, she had a way about her of living in the house that it needed minimal cleaning, and she had already did all the things you are supposed to do in retirement.

Gardening- tick, knitting- tick, try to write her memoir- tick, she had cleaned and sorted out the house a few times, she did not like the gym, the women’s committee, the church group … so, not many other options left.

Sometimes she would go into town and drive past her old office. She had been a public servant for more than forty years moving between departments and roles, Frieda now had a better understanding of the inner working of the government and public system than most active ministers.

‘Bye gone is bye gone!’, she would sigh muttering to herself.

Frieda went back in the house. The heat made it unpleasant to go out so, she decided she will spend her day at home doing … not sure what she was going to do, but anything was better than being suffocated by the hot sun.

They had moved in the red cottage about twenty years before. The city had gotten too busy, too hectic for them, and both their careers allowed them to work partially from home. Weren’t they happy they had moved when Covid came?!? They were ecstatic! They had been so lucky! She shuddered only at the thought of spending all those lockdowns in their small, stuffed and stuffy, balcony-less apartment in Dublin.

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Frieda sat at the kitchen table with her coffee and her small journal. She had never kept a journal when she was young, but now, as time moved on without her being ready for its passing, she felt the need to leave a trace of herself. People that had children did not have this issue, they left bits of themselves in actual humans, but her and John never had children. It had never been a good time, and when they finally started to talk about it they were so settled in their ways, had so many things to do, that they just did not do it.

Frieda knew though why she hadn’t had children. She had been too afraid. Afraid of losing herself in another person, afraid of not being capable and able to be a good mother. Plus, it was such a great responsibility, caring for another human being, for their development, their well-being! No, Frieda had been too afraid knowing that if anything had happened to a potential child of hers, her life would be finished, she would never survive the pain.

Frieda shook her head to chase away the painful prospect. No, much better here with her beautiful notebook, only she had nothing to write. Nothing had happened in her day worth mentioning.

‘Today is so hot! Yesterday it was hot too…’, she put down her pen in frustration. Before she could start to berate herself a knock on the door made her jump. She looked at the clock as if that would tell her if she should open the door or not. She did not get any clarification, so she went to the door when a new knock, a bit more forceful could be heard.

‘Hello?’, Freida asked timidly.

‘Frieda! It’s me Jane! Open please!’

With a sigh of relief Frieda went and opened the door to her often bothersome neighbor. Frieda almost screamed when she saw the other woman. She was wearing a big towel bathrobe, had no shoes on and her usual thick make up was smudged across her face.

‘My God Jane, what happened to you! Are you ok?’

Without replying the woman grabbed her hand and dragged Frieda towards her house.

‘You have to help me Frieda! There is nobody else!’, it was clear Jane was in a heightened state of distress.

‘Of course, anything you need!’, when she found out what the help needed was Frieda was to reconsider her offer.

‘Come!’

Although well in her sixties Jane climbed the stairs effortlessly. Frieda followed slowly wondering if maybe going to the gym was a much better idea than she thought.

Frieda followed Jane in a large, bright bedroom and stopped short when she saw a young man lying there, naked, on the bed.

Jane was standing at the side of the bed sobbing.

‘He is dead!’, she sounded a bit out of her mind, and who would blame her!

‘What?’, Frieda was seeing everything with her own eyes, but still had difficulties understanding it.

‘Why?’

‘How should I know why? We were … at it … and he just stopped, sighed and … that was it. It was hard to get out from under him. It took me more than ten minutes! I was under a dead man for all that time!’, and she started crying even harder.

‘I need to call the Guards!’, Frieda pulled out her phone, but Jane hit it out of her hands.

‘What are you doing???’, Frieda looked at the woman in disbelief.

‘No, not yet! You need to help me!’

‘With what?!?’, Frieda was starting to doubt the reality of all this. For sure she will wake up shortly.

‘Him!’, and her chin pointed to the naked man on the bed.

Frieda was looking at her with her mouth open … she must have gone mad! She was telling herself.

‘Gerry cannot know, the world cannot know! You need to help me get him dressed and take him down in the Gym! He was here giving me private lessons, so nobody will suspect anything if they find him there …’

‘Jane this is mad, we can’t move him!’

‘Yes we can with Gerry’s stair lift! You have to help me Frieda, he is already dead, we are not doing any harm!’

About half an hour later the Guards were swarming the house taking over the home gym on the ground floor while Frieda was in Jane’s kitchen consoling her.

It all went without a hitch, and the next few days the local papers were full of articles about the effects of performance enhancement drugs on gym goers and athletes. Jane wore long skirts and puffy blouses walking slowly, and hid her hair under a strange old lady straw hat. She was consoled by all the town and when Gerry came back from his fishing trip decided he will stay home for a bit to keep her company and postponed his golfing meet for a week.

Frieda struggled a lot with the urge to write in her diary about it, but years of public service had taught her that certain things are best not put on paper.

She did start going to the gym though, and was shocked to see that even her old, squishy body reacted well to weights and training. Jane had become a friend and would often amuse Frieda to no end with stories from her younger years. Jane had always been just as she was, a fun loving, boundary pushing, messer.

Frieda was content now in her retirement and would sometimes spare a thought for the young man, dead way too soon, and she was grateful for her life, the one that had passed and the one she was still leading.

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Orla had been working for the Corporation for about three years now. She liked it, she liked feeling part of something so big, with so much influence, despite herself being just a lowly PA. She was part of it, she had access to that building, she met those people, and although often enough she did not understand what they were talking about, she nodded her head and smiled pleasantly.

The Corporation was well hated. Too big, too rich, too far reaching. They all were concerned with the size of the Corporation, but nobody gave a thought to the small army of little people that were benefiting from their work there. Should their existence make the Corporation a more benign entity? Orla did not know and did not think about it, she just moved quickly crossing the large corridors, always wanting to prove her usefulness.

The job at the Corporation had given her access to a world that she never thought she could be a part of, and she was intent on keeping it for as long as it was humanly possible.

Orla’s boss was a woman she barely got to see, she was flying all over the world on Corporation business and Orla would sometimes day dream that, in the future, she herself might be in a similar role and fly from place to place, meeting people that were deferential and polite, who would listen to her every word and value her opinions. Those people, they would not correct her every word and would not dispute her every opinion, they would agree and would be amazed by the wonderfully creative solutions she provided to their very difficult problems.

In her twenty-ninth year Orla felt she was where she belonged and knew what she wanted. To belong.

Sometimes, when the Receptionist was busy or needed to do something, Orla would stand in reception enjoying directing people and answering questions. She was this bobblehead of welcome and pleasantries.

On one of these occasions a courier arrived to deliver something in a large, heavy box. He had all the paper work so she signed it in, and when the Receptionist came back she said she will take it upstairs as it was for the PA of all PAs, the CEO’s PA and Orla knew how particular she was.

With the heavy box on a trolley, Orla made her way to the fourth floor and went looking for Lorna, the woman all the other PAs aspired to be like some day.

A in her late fifties Lorna did not look a day over forty. Dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, with her hair exquisitely done, you would have been tempted to think she was one of the execs and not a PA. Orla had rehearsed her words, and forced herself to talk slowly and breathe between sentences. She hated it when she got all flustered and sounded like she was having a stroke.

‘Hello!’

Lorna looked up and waited without saying a word.

‘I was in reception downstairs … of course downstairs … there is no upstairs reception … I am sorry.’ Orla felt her face burning.

‘A parcel came???’, Lorna jumped up from her chair and came round her desk.

‘Well yes!’, Orla was puzzled by the unexpected reaction.

‘Oh thank you so much! You saved me! Come, come! The meeting will start in ten minutes!’, Lorna started to walk in impossible high and slim heels. You could see she was a different generation, nobody wore that kind of shoes anymore.

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Walking faster than if she had been in trainers, Lorna hurried Orla in a large meeting room beautifully set up, ready for it’s users. Lorna took out a box cutter from her suit pocket and quickly opened the box. In it, beautifully wrapped in soft, white paper were the most amazing looking project planners.

‘You look through that make sure it is all correct. Check dates, sections, categories, randomly just to make sure they are ok. I ordered these from the end of the world and you never know if they keep to what you instruct them.’, and she shoved one of the beautiful planners in Orla’s hands while she was taking the rest out of the box and distributing them like a machine in front of each seat.

‘Well?’, she asked Orla who was lost in admiration of the wonderful object. Each section had different color pages, there was a calendar, and soft dividers that could be moved around, the outside had a soft feel, like velvet, and on the back a large pocket for whatever you would need to put in it.

‘It is wonderful!’, her voice soft and velvety, reflected her opinion.

‘Amazing!’, the briskness in the other woman’s voice made Orla snap out of her awe.

‘Can I help?’

‘No, no, all done!’, Lorna fanned her hand showing off the perfectly set table, now complete with the planners beautifully arranged.

‘Come on, we need to leave they will be coming soon! You can keep that!’, and Lorna nodded towards the planner Orla was holding. ‘And take this trolley down please! Thank you!’, and off she went on her unbelievable high heels walking as Orla would walk when she was wearing her Skechers, confident and comfortable.

Back at her desk, Orla hid her wonderful gift in the drawer, and went about her duties with her thoughts going back to it and rejoicing of the happiness of owning it.

In the evening she took it home feeling a bit like a thief although it had been given to her. Maybe it was for work … but she wanted it home, to take care of it and treasure it. When the weekend came Orla took out the planner and looked at it. The paper had this strange, milky texture, different than normal paper, and in different lights the pages seemed to change color.

On the back she read that it was stone paper, she had never seen that, she looked it up online and was amazed. For a split second she was tempted to try and see if it was indeed water proof and tear proof, but then she changed her mind, the planner was too beautiful to risk it.

Having the planner did something strange to Orla’s mind. She started to have all these plans in her head, plans that she thought about and how they would be put into action with the help of the wonderful planner, but when it came to writing in it Orla could not do it. It was just too wonderful to ruin with her scribbling and far fetched ideas.

So, the projects remained just plans in Orla’s head, until, pushed out by other pressing thoughts, they became lost memories.

To protect the wonderful object Orla wrapped it into plastic film, so now it became an inaccessible little bundle, well protected from dust and mold, and of course from touch. Because it was so well wrapped Orla would not look at it anymore, she just enjoyed secretly at the thought of possessing it.

Another day, maybe more than one year later, it was one of those rare occasions when her Boss was in the office and Orla was ready to fulfill all demands.

‘Bring me my stuff from the desk.’, the DM popped up on Orla’s phone.

Orla jumped from her desk and heard her laptop make a sound again.

‘Basement library.’

She went to the desk and picked up her Boss’s laptop and on top of it there was a planner, just like the one she had at home. Orla felt a wave of warmth sweep over her at the thought that she possessed something that her Boss also had. On the elevator ride though she noticed something very different between the two planners.

The one she was now carrying to its owner was well used, had tired corners and a scuffed cover.

‘The poor planner!’, Orla thought, and smiled to the mental image of her pristine planner, nicely wrapped in her desk at home.

The basement library was exactly what it was called, a library in the basement, but as it belonged to the Corporation it was like something from a movie set. Actual books stood in their thousands on shiny metal shelves, while comfy reading spots were sprinkled all over the place.

In the beautifully lit place Orla found her boss at a large reading table surrounded by open books.

‘Oh thank you! I needed my planner!’, she took it from Orla and opened it expertly to a section filled with notes and charts drawn by hand.

‘Nothing beats writing things down by yourself, even though I am horrible at drawing.’

It was then that Orla could see the extent of the usage of the planner. It had become thicker with additional inserts and it was like a large book itself.

‘Are you ok, Orla? You look a bit pale.’, the woman’s voice expressed concern.

‘Yes … I was just surprised to see your planner, I was sure everything is on the laptop nowadays …’

The woman laughed.

‘Well yeah, everything gets to the laptop in the end, but for the thought process, to build, I find that I do it better offline as it were … my brain seems to like writing by hand, and even my crooked drawing. I get loads done like this, in silence and solitude …’

‘Oh! Of course! Do you want some tea or anything?’, Orla got the gentle hint.

‘Not right now, no, thank you!’, and she returned to her planner.

The next few days Orla could not stop thinking about her planner and the well used one, somehow the one with actual plans it in seemed to her so much more beautiful now, and a part of her wanted to see hers the same. But, she herself, she had no plans, no projects … no prospects.

That was when Orla remembered how she had felt as a little girl, pretending to look for jobs in the newspaper. She was pretending, but she was extremely serious in her pretense.

She would do the same now. She took out the planner from its plastic cover and although she had nothing to plan she wrote in it. The first day a bit, then the more she thought about it, a bit more. Orla started to create mini projects for herself detailing the steps she needed to take to accomplish them, and she started to get creative with her tasks, with her free time, with her life.

The Project Planner became her tracker, her journal and her guide, and Orla found that she was blossoming and was more content than ever.

When the email came Orla read it in one breath and could barely contain a happy dance. Her Boss needed her on one of her trips to Japan, they would travel in two weeks.

Orla confidently took out her planner expertly starting a new project, knowing exactly what steps she needed to figure it out, or what to do to figure out the steps she needed.

So: Japan Trip! (1st of many :) )

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I have started my Substack more than two years ago. I have 256 posts written, 86 drafts, 301 subscribers, out of which one paid, thank you for your kind support over this time.

I love my substack and it has been a great motivation for me to write, as I am so easily distracted. It is always easier to do the ‘bad’ thing, than the right one, like write, exercise, eat well, not buy clothes … And while most often I can come up with a story or an idea, sometimes, like now, I draw a blank. Sometimes stories just play hard to get, so, at times I am stuck!

I still want to write something though, I don’t want my substack and my subscribers to feel abandoned, so, as this week I don’t have a story I thought to write about my substack and the experience of having my substack.

I have been writing since forever, and over the years my stories, my poems (yes, there were some of them too!), even a play, got lost in the transit of life, so one thing that my substack did was that it allowed me to keep in one place all that I have written these past few years, which is an amazing thing for me.

To have written 256 pieces of something and to have them in one place is truly great, and it enabled my wonderful better half to create a selection and actually print a short story book for me. As a birthday present, no ISBN or anything, but so wonderful to hold a book in my hands and to know it is mine. I hoped, but never truly believed that is possible.

To be able to share my writing so easily, is another amazing opportunity my substack gave me. It is such a wonderful world we live in, in which a writer can create something and then, a few minutes later, share it with their readership. Mind boggling!

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I am grateful for all the likes, dislikes and comments I received. I write because it is what comes naturally to me to do, I don’t do it for the money or the glory, I don’t do it for any other reason than that I need to write, I want to write, and, sometimes, I even enjoy it.

I like that my substack forced me to some kind of discipline to produce something, anything each week, because otherwise I know for sure my output would have been much lower, and some really great stories would not have seen the light of day.

Some of my stories are good, some are bad, all of them could be better, and writing each week for sure improved my writing, and also made me a bit more confident in my craft.

More than ten years ago I went through a phase when I was writing quite a few therapeutic stories, and recently I had the chance to read some of them. They were so good! And I was surprised, as, I remember when I was writing them, I always felt they were so bad.

I am hoping it might be the same now. I think what I write is not good, but actually it is decent.

I still have a book or two in me, and they are such wonderful hopes and dreams.

Thank you all for reading my stories and my thoughts and here is to many more to come!

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He’d bought the shacket in a charity shop. He had loved that term and had repeated the word shacket ad nauseam, until his wife could no longer take it and snapped at him.

He did not mind, he was aware it must not be easy to hear the same word repeated a million times in different tones of voice. He loved her and she loved him, so, snapping was well within bounds.

As soon as he got home with it, she took it away and washed it, and only after that he got the chance to really inspect it. This is when he discovered the inner pocket. Oh the joy!

As David discovered, the shacket had an inner pocket, but what made it extraordinary was the fact that it was extremely large. So large actually that it seemed to be hidden because it could be confused with the lining of the garment, but it was not the lining, it was just a very large, well thought out, inner, secret pocket.

David was thrilled!

So thrilled in fact that he started to put all his bits and pieces in the large, hidden pocket, and because of the way it was sewn you could barely notice it, even when it was bulging with all David’s must have objects.

This was how the shacket became, not only the favorite piece of clothing, but also, a necessity because of all the things it contained in its pocket.

When it needed washing, which was often because it was worn so much, the wife would take all the things from the pocket and put them in a small basket, and once it was dried she would carefully put them all back, even used candy wrappers, as David was the one that needed to tidy them when needed. She was the only one that truly understood and respected his way of being.

David loved his job as a Visual Merchandiser for one of the large shopping centers, and each morning he would take the bus 122 that dropped him meters away from the employee entrance of the shopping centre.

David was very particular about symmetry and had an uncanny vision about how to arrange objects so they create an image, funny or unusual. He did it all in his head, and then with a pencil on big pieces of paper, so his team understood his vision and brought it to life. David loved his job, and was immensely proud when they created a big tomato out of tins of tomato soup, it was even featured in the local paper. A job well done!

David was very happy in his life, but had one particular trait that made it difficult at times for him. David was very anxious, very afraid, and he spotted dangers everywhere he went. Before seeing the beauty of something, David first saw its dangers, and sometimes, he would get so hung up on them that it took out all the joy of the experience.

As David got older and wiser, and with the support of his wife, he became better at containing these invasive thoughts, but sometimes, especially when he was tired, or a bit sick, or in a very new situation, they would get the better of him and he would just get overwhelmed by fear, that is when he needed the most the amazing things he carried around in his pocket.

This is how David felt one late evening, 10 pm maybe, when he was on the 122 on his way back home. It was much later than David would be out usually, but they had a huge display to finish for a new shop opening. David tried to make his bulky person as small as possible in one of the back seats of the bus, just wishing the trip away and surveying his environment.

That was when a loud bunch of people got on, quarreling about something, sounded like somebody owed money to someone else, and they wouldn’t give it back. Part of the group was siding with the borrower and it was a very noisy argument, made even louder by the confined space of the bus.

David decided he would rather walk the last two stops, than be there so he got up and rang for the next stop. At the same time the bus driver hit the brakes for some reason, and the stressed David bumped forcefully in the conversing crowd. One of them pushed him back, at the same time David reached out for his inner pocket. When David, big and untidy looking, did that, out of nowhere the man reacted and punched him squarely in the face.

The blow was so great that, it pushed David and he fell on his back in between the bus seats. For a moment he was so confused that he did not really understand what happened, but when he did, he decided he best stay down there until the storm passes.

He could hear voices in his proximity.

‘What did you do you idiot?!’

‘I thought he had a knife …’

‘Good, now you are on the bus camera hitting a bloke. God grief, I could not write this!’

The second person’s voice was heard again.

‘Gerry, I’d better not see this scene in one of your shows!!! What do we do?’

‘Check on him! Help him up! What do you mean what do we do???’

David closed his eyes quickly pretending to still be out.

‘Hey … guy … I am so sorry … are you ok?’, the man leaned over and David could smell a nice perfume. That smell in a way signaled him to open his eyes.

David accepted the offer to get up and sat on one of the many seats available to him.

By now the bus was fully stopped, the crowd was gawking, some people were filming, impromptu show … with a very unwilling star.

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‘I need to go home! Please let me pass!’

It was like a spring was activated and David was trying to find his way out through the crowd. Somehow he managed, and, when he was finally out on the sidewalk, he saw that the man that had punched him was right behind him.

‘Wait, I want to apologize!’

David walked even faster without looking back.

‘Listen!’, the man shouted. ‘I was stabbed once and ever since I have this irrational fear … I am so sorry! I really am not a violent person, and I feel so bad for having assumed …’

‘Nessie …’, David stopped and turned around.

‘What?’, the man did not expect the reaction.

David dove into his inner pocket and took out a squishy, colorful, dinosaur looking toy.

‘Nessie! I got her in Scotland! When I get anxious I squish her and it grounds me!’

The man was now beaming and his eyes teared up.

‘You should get one! I cannot give you mine, it is a memento. They sell them in the National Museum of Scotland.’

‘I think she is wonderful!’, the man was clearly touched by the advice.

‘Do you know in Edinburgh all the museums and galleries are free? You can visit all of them for free! And they all have toilets! …’

‘David, David!’, his wife came running towards him and they fell into a loving, all-encompassing hug.

‘What happened to you?’ she was looking at his face pain stricken.

The man came closer.

‘I am so sorry! I did that! I cannot explain how bad I feel!’, he truly did sound sorry. At the same time his friends joined them.

David could recognize the voice of the determined man from earlier. Now he could see he was a tall, extremely good looking man, dressed with great taste.

‘Are you all, all right?’, he more like demanded and answer than inquired for one.

They all nodded. A sense of relief and peace had fallen over the small group gathered on the sidewalk.

‘We will go home now!’, David’s wife announced and turned around.

‘Of course! Please take these tickets to our play, it is at the Gaiety for another two weeks. I would love for you to see it!’, the man, later labelled as the hitter, said.

‘Oh … ok! I love the theatre! We might actually go!’, David took the tickets and smiled broadly to his wife. ‘Won’t we?’

‘To the play of the person that punched you in the face? Sure, why not!?’

In the darkness they had not seen that the tickets were actually VIP tickets that granted them access to a reserved area for VIP guests, where there was free food and drink, and best of all, there were many celebrities that David loved from the telly.

They had a great night, and each time they were asked how they knew the director and the playwright David giddily answered:

‘Well, he punched me!’

And then he would proceed to tell the story all the way from the beginning.

‘I had bought this shacket in a charity shop…’

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‘You are a glorified sex worker!’

As soon as the words left her lips she was sorry. The other woman turned purple with rage.

‘How dare you say anything so hurtful to me?!’

Before the offender had any chance to speak up she went on.

‘I am a married woman! I have a husband!’, her voice was now reaching unusual high pitched levels.

‘Yes, a husband you do not love! You married him for money, for status … ergo…’

‘Don’t you dare ergo me! I did what every woman does. Get married, have a family, take care of them … and son on! You are jealous! Admit it!’

‘Ha!’, of she was not jealous, the offender thought, she would never stoop so low.

The wife went on.

‘You burn with jealousy that you work in the same run down bookshop as you did when we were in college! Coooolllleegggeeeee!’ How old are you now? 42??? Ha indeed!’, she took a deep breath.

‘And you know what, leave my house! I will not stand here and be insulted in my own home!’

She felt like a movie star saying those words which she accompanied by a wide arm movement pointing to the door.

She needed to go, the offender knew it was for the best, so she stifled all her anger, muted all her words, and with her coat trailing on the floor she noisily left the dreaded house.

‘Good bye!’

The reply.

‘And good riddance!’

A few short words ending a friendship lasting more than thirty years.

As the door slammed behind her tears of frustration violently ran down across her face. She had made her do it! With all her lady of the manor airs, her interminable rambling about all the charity work she was doing, with her annoying details of luxurious vacations. Not being able to take the duplicity any longer she had just burst.

That was the moment when she understood that their true friendship, the one they had shared as girls, had turned into a demon they had grown accustomed to, that had been part of their lives for so long that they just tolerated its existence.

They had stopped sharing truthful things about themselves to each other years before. They just met out of habit, made insignificant small talk and gossiped about the fewer and fewer people they both knew.

That was now gone and she felt free, she felt like a huge burden had been taken away. She had no idea she felt so strongly, so negatively about what their friendship had become.

She would always treasure the years of kindness and support they had shared, all the long nights spent studying and talking about their dreams. That would always bond them. Now thought they had become two strangers keeping up a fake friendship for the sake of a long gone one.

Her house felt that bit darker when she got in, but she knew it was just a matter of time until her mood would lift.

That evening she got a long email from her former friend. It talked about all the good times, all the sad times, and it assured her that she can reach out for anything she might need, but that in light of the recent incident and the words spoken it would be best to not see each other.

‘Duhhh! Of course!’, she muttered to herself. ‘Not in a million years!’

And then the tears started to flow again. She was sorry. She was sorry for the words she had said, for the friendship she had lost, for the hurt she knew she had caused.

She was sorry because she knew her friend had been right. She was jealous for the stability and normality the other woman seemed to have.

‘Stop being such a baby!’, she scolded herself.

‘How old are you?!?’

‘42 …’

There was once upon a time, in the rocky mountains of a fairy tale country, a cement factory. As the name indicates, humans produced cement there, and this was well before the times of air filters, so all the dust generated during the cement production process went up the huge furnaces and out in the atmosphere, sticking to and settling on every object and surface in their path.

All the plants, all the animals, everything around the cement factory was covered in a grey film of dust giving the scenery an eerie aspect of being a huge cement sculpture.

The people had gotten used to the strange appearance of the scenery around the factory, and, as their livelihoods depended on it, they did not pay attention to it. It was a small price to pay for being able to take care of their families, feed their children, support them to get an education.

The humans avoided thinking too much about the impact of the grey dust covering everything, and they never dared look up at the huge, grey clouds towering above the factory, completely obscuring the sun. The only light that managed to come through was milky and powdery, giving the entire scenery a doomed aspect.

The thick dust pushed in the atmosphere through the large furnaces had a strange effect on the clouds, it made them stuck, they could no longer float freely across they sky as they are meant to, but they became stationary above the factory absorbing more and more cement dust with every passing day.

The momma and papa clouds tried to protect their baby clouds as much as they could by sheltering them, covering them as much as possible with their own cloudy, billowing beings. However, despite their efforts, the baby clouds were also exposed to the ever-present and all-pervading cement dust, and they too became covered and clogged with the grey powder.

Years passed and the cloud family got heavier with dust while the scenery looked like it had been burnt and now ash was all that was left. The humans could not ignore the issue any longer. They could no longer pretend there were birds in the sky, animals roaming the ashen fields, or flowers blooming as they once had in the lush countryside.

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So, scientists set to work and in a short while they created air filters for the furnaces. Air filters that trapped all the grey dust and prevented it from escaping and settling on the world outside.

When the air filters were installed it was like a miracle had taken place. The air became fresher, the clouds started to clean themselves and the world beneath them with life giving rain.

The cloud family was also beyond happy, and the parents felt that they can unwrap themselves from around their children and allow them to grow and develop. What they did not expect was that the baby clouds would be carried away by the wind so quickly, before they got the chance to say good bye properly.

It was ok though, the hard part was over, they had managed to survive the horrible dust of the cement factory, now they could become their own fluffy beings.

When the wind carried away Timmy, the eldest, he was taken over by an ecstatic feeling of freedom. He could move, he could travel, he could roam the skies and discover all the world had to offer. He would miss his family of course, but he had been waiting for it for so long, that all he could think about were all the wonderous things to come.

And they did, Timmy travelled the skies far and wide, he met all sorts of other clouds, he saw all sorts of other things, but somehow, something inside him prevented him from really belonging to anywhere. Because he had been stuck for so long, he seemed incapable of building a world of his own.

As time went by, Timothy, as he was known now, longed to have his own place in the too wide and too large sky, and, as luck would have it, sometime later he found it next to Persida, a personable Cumulus Congestus cloud.

Timothy and Persida created their own cluster of clouds and would float peacefully across the sky. All was great until, from time to time, Timothy would spew out grey dust, covering everything in their peaceful world with pain and fear.

They were far, far away from the cement factory and its suffocating dust, but somehow, Timothy had internalized it so much that when the skies were blue and the ride smooth, he felt the need to shake it up, to darken and bring it down a notch.

Sometimes, in spring, when the smell of the flowers was so strong that it reached even the highest cloud, Timothy would tell stories of his difficult childhood and all the sacrifices his parents had to make. His cloudy children would shake off their fluffy sides in exasperation. ‘Not again with those stories!’

Persida understood and listened. Timothy was the cloud he was in his wholeness, the bright, airy parts, and the dusty, dark sides, it was just a pity that he did not fully realize that the darkness of the cement factory was well in the past …

When evening came, after Timothy had fallen asleep, Persida drifted silently through their little cluster. She washed the grey dust from the children’s soft white bodies with a gentle rain.

When she looked back, Timothy was sleeping peacefully, but even in his sleep, sometimes, faint, tiny wisps of grey escaped from him and dissolved into the night sky.

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He’d added her in his phone as Charlie Brown. It started as a joke, her name was Charlotte, and when they first met she was wearing a yellow dress with a black, zig-zagged patterned belt. They hit it off right away.

They were in tune. They could make fun of all the other stuffy bankers they worked with. They were the young hip ones, the ones with advanced knowledge of IT systems, and the ones that could spin up a new tool in a few hours, with minimal instructions from the slow, chubby bankers.

They were the golden children and they knew it.

At home they each had partners, he had children, the lot. He had been married for twelve years and was the proud dad of three boys. Secretly he was a bit smug that his genes had won the battle and he had three boys. He never shared it with his wife though, she would have gotten very upset, maybe a bit disappointed, if she knew he held that kind of belief.

Charlie was newly married, had just bought a house, and whenever she got the chance she gushed about her amazing husband. From her descriptions it sounded like he was the be-all and end-all. Sometimes Robert surprised himself being a bit jealous of this amazing super human husband of hers. So, when she let slip bits of dissatisfaction, or alluded to flaws her husband had, he was unexplainably in a good mood for hours on end, sometimes even days.

After a few months she jokingly called herself his work wife. Robert laughed it off, but inside, in the most hidden space of his being, he was unbelievably happy, and that was when he realized his feelings for Charlie were different than those for a co-worker should be. He had no idea how she felt, they were friends, close friends, they texted outside of work, the joked around, sometimes their banter pushed the limits of what was acceptable between two married to other people co-workers, but it never quite passed the line to inappropriate.

That was such a fine line and Robert often fantasied about breaking it, about taking his relationship with Charlie to that next level. They were intimate friends after all, she often confided in him things she confessed she had never told anyone else. Robert had become increasingly distracted, and his wife had begun to notice.

‘Nothing, just work. The economy is kicking our butts!’, his wife understood.

What she did not know was that the economy was working in their favor, other people’s crisis was the bank’s success.

The bubble burst when they were invited to visit a newly opened branch in a different city. They were a team, they went everywhere together, always sat next to each other, they were morphing in one very happy entity. They had their own jokes, they knew each other’s thoughts, a gesture told the other everything they needed to know.

The moment had come, it was the perfect time.

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‘Want to come in for a night cup?’, they were standing in the hallway of their four star hotel. His heart was beating so hard it felt like it would break out of his chest.

‘Maybe a tea … sure, I want to talk to you about something anyway…’, her voice sounded nervous and curiosity made Robert hold back.

Once they were sat in the too big room, he prodded her for details.

‘What’s going on?’

‘I have some news…’, she cleared her throat and took a sip of her tea. ‘I am pregnant!’

‘What?’, he was sure he did not hear well.

How could she be pregnant? He could never conceive that she was having sex with her husband. Robert had withdrawn from his wife for months now, he had felt that he could not be with anyone that was not Charlie, not even his wife.

‘I am pregnant! I am so happy! I cannot describe it! We have been trying for so long!’, tears of happiness rolled down her cheeks, and in that moment he could see it, she was indeed pregnant. Her face had gotten rounder, her skin glowed even in the faint light, her hands were plump around the teacup.

‘That is great news!’, he could not recognize his voice as he said the words.

‘I am so happy for you!’, he felt acid rise up in his throat. He hoped she will leave soon, he could not save face for much longer.

‘I will have to go on maternity sooner than later, I want to be really safe. I will miss you!’, and she got up to hug him.

He let her hug him stiff as a board, feeling her as a total stranger, somebody else than the woman she was just a short while before in the hallway.

When she finally left he cried, but he did not cry for her, for the loss of her, her cried for himself, for the pain he felt when he understood he had fallen in love with a person that never existed, Charlie Brown.

Robert changed the name in the phone, and mourned the death of a dream. The death of Charlie Brown.

He called in sick for two weeks, then he took the family on vacation for another two weeks, then some works to the house forced him to work remote for a month and a bit. When he finally got back to the office Charlotte was visibly pregnant, she had gained quite a bit of weight and, to him, she resembled a bopping bee walking around the office.

They spoke briefly, but there was a lot of work to be done. She invited him to dinner, but he had family commitments. He did attend her going on maternity gathering, presenting her with a baby present which, he declared, somewhat ostentatiously, that his wife had to pick for him because he was useless at things like that.

And then, she was gone, and the world turned quiet. His inner turmoil settled and soon he was able to go back to his old self, the one before the delusion.

To himself, Robert explained it as a moment of madness, the fact that it took a few good months had left him scarred and scared. He did not trust in his ability to judge or evaluate relationships.

When his phone rang and her name appeared on the caller ID he was surprised. They hadn’t spoken in months.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, is this Bob?’, a soft, anxious male voice replied.

‘Well, Robert, but yeah some people call me Bob. Who is this?’

‘I am looking for Bob the Builder.’

‘What? Is this a joke?’, Robert was amused.

‘You are in my wife’s phone, Charlotte. You might have done some work for us … We need a builder for an extension, and I saw your contact here and wanted to see if you can help... We’d pay well!’

Robert barely contained a hysteric laugh.

‘Sorry mate, I am all booked up. Best of luck!’

‘Oh, ok, thank you… Do you …?’

‘Sorry gotta go! On a job!’, and he hung up, letting out the strangest laughter that had ever past his lips.

Bob the Builder, go figure!

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They had bought the red pot quite some time before, when they were first setting up house. They did not have much so, a lot of thought and care went into selecting it, matching the size to their hob, making sure it was non stick. Of course, making sure that it had a lid, which came plastic sealed to the top of the pot.

It was perfect and they were very happy with it. The red, non stick pot symbolizing in a way the start of their life together.

When they got home and took the plastic off, they found the pot had an unusual feature, not to call it design flaw. When the lid was off, because the handle so, so heavy and the pot so light, it would fall on the side.

Unacceptable … or maybe not. Because they loved it so much and what it stood for, they found it endearing, although it meant that, every time they used it one of them had to hold the handle, while the other filled the pot with whatever, till the weight balanced and they could let go.

Their pot was a constant source of jokes and laughter, and its flaw turned into a quality.

Years passed, as they do. They changed houses, bought new pots, new hobs, changed habits and then changed them again. Life moved on. The ill balanced pot would follow them around through all these moves, although now it was no longer used, it just stayed in the pantry lost among its more capacious and stylish brethren.

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There came a time in the couple’s life when they were questioning everything.

Themselves, their choices, their status, their relationship, and although they did not officially separate, they started to do it in the day to day, in the small things that make a life together.

They would no longer eat together, watch TV together, do the shopping together. They were going through an identity crisis that made them forget who they had been for a large part of their life.

One day, rummaging through the pantry for a small pot, as he was going on a diet and decided smaller portions were called for, he stumbled over the small red pot. It was perfect! Just the size he needed for his couscous salad.

He took it out and, smiling to himself, he remembered all the times they laughed about its too chunky handle and how it was a pot to be handled by two people. He was upset with her so, he decided he did not need her, he was well able to use the pot by himself.

He boiled the water, measured the couscous, and when he was ready to pour it, in a split second of not paying attention he ended up pouring hot water on his feet with the pot spilled over.

His screams made her come running down the stairs. Without a minute to spare she covered his feet in a cold, wet towel and drove him to the emergency room.

The next few weeks she took care of him making sure he had everything he needed and that he was comfortable. The tops of his feet had been scalded by the boiling water, and were in need of constant care and attention to be protected from infection and to help them heal.

While changing his bandages she sometimes would shake her head disapprovingly and express her sadness that he did not ask her to hold the pot. It was too late though.

In the weirdest way the pot had brought them back together, and when she expressed her wish to just throw it away, he forbid it.

It was the lack of communication and openness that had got them there, not the pot. He should have trusted her, and she should have trusted him to go together through that changing phase of their life.

She smiled and nodded in agreement. She liked being persuaded by him.

The forced inactivity brought them back together. They started watching movies again, have meals together, and long chats about the world and its goings on.

They did not really use the pot now, it was a bit too dangerous, but they did display it in their kitchen as a reminder of their beginning, of their middle, and just as a reminder to make sure their end was also spent together.

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When I walk about my life, doing what people do, I get all these marvelous ideas of fantastic stories that I just know would be outstanding, if only it was a good moment to write. As it was not, most often, I tell to myself I will remember it and easily write one or two stories, just like that.

Well, well, well! Faced with the empty page my mind goes blank and I wonder why am I trying to write in the first place, if I do not have a story in the pipeline. And then, I am run over by the memory of all those stories that could have been, but weren’t because it was not their time.

I find that when I am tired my mind is so uncooperative, it does not want to work with me at all and let me spin a world out of thin air. I am rarely well rested so me coaxing my mind has become the norm. But the urge to write and create is more powerful than my human nature and I trod along doing what I can with what I have.

As I grow older I start to understand the value of joy more and more. The more you advance in your timeline, the more acutely you become aware of the things that you will miss and your joy just crystalizes somehow in you and you start to find joy in the most unexpected things and especially in the things you love.

If before you like gardening, now you have a passion for it. If when you were younger you liked to take walks, now you become an avid walker, and so on.

Maybe this is one good thing about advancing in age that you do start to find joy in your life where before you only found tasks.

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I have started taking notes on my phone when I get ideas out and about, and reading through them just now I find they lacked a bit of context to jolt my memory to what had actually given me the idea. Another thing that holds me back is that often, not always, my ideas are a bit dark and pessimistic, and I want my stories to have a positive spin somehow.

The world is too dark for me to bring any more darkness into it, I want to bring joy and hope and I want to console and encourage. It will be ok.

So I promise to take better notes of my outstanding ideas on the go and I will get better, word by word, sentence by sentence, story by story.

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Her husband never told her she looked nice, or pay her any kind of compliment. For him, she was there and that was where it was normal for her to be. So when the other man came into her life she was literally a sitting duck.

She did not stand a chance. He was kind and thoughtful in a way her husband had never been. He asked if he can help, he seemed to actually listen to her, he looked at her as if she was someone special, someone to be appreciated and adored, not merely tolerated and put in her place.

He was good looking too, in that simple human way not in the soap opera star kind of way. So, without knowing how it happened Fionnuala found herself on the verge of having an affair.

She huffed and laughed at her own ridiculousness. Women like her did not have affairs, she was too old, too provincial and too set in her ways to do anything of the sort. Her husband hadn’t noticed anything, not when they went to the pub, not when they went shopping or went to the church.

He knew the other man, of course he knew him, everybody knew everybody, in their small village, but he was so confident that his wife was his that he never even bothered to question the other man’s niceties.

Who would want her? A middle aged woman, normal, with no exceptional features or talents. Barely knew how to cook, he would laugh, she was a good mother though, he had to give her that. What he would call a mother with a talent for it, she was just amazing with the children, taking care of them, educating them, organizing everything for them.

Of course, it was easy when he provided her with everything, but still, she did well, he had to give her that.

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Three times a week, in the afternoon, Fionnuala would walk to the leisure center and swim for one hour. It was her passion and it was what kept her strong to care for all the people and things that needed to be looked after in her life.

Strong mentally and physically. Water was her element. She would often say that she should have been born a fish … the other man said ‘A mermaid most likely … a beautiful, dazzling mermaid.’

She blushed and swam away quickly. She blushed later when she revisited the memory, snuggled under the duvet and battling insomnia.

She’d known him for a long time, but they never went further than the weather. Just recently he had started to chat to her, to ask her things, show up in church or at community events.

Soon Fionnuala found herself looking out for him in the street. She was surprised how easy she found it to talk to him. He watched some of the same shows as she did, seemed to like to read and was very knowledgeable about some of the things she was interested in.

As the months passed Fionnuala developed a very inappropriate friendship with the other man. Oh no, she did not cheat on her husband, but she thought about the other man and sometimes would wonder. ‘What if?’

The phone rang. A video call from Maureen, a good friend of hers, who was so well connected in the village that she knew everything, sometimes even before it happened. She had a knack for it Maureen.

‘Are you sitting down?

Their conversations were like a continuous one, they never said ‘Hello’ or ‘Good bye’.

‘Maureen!’

The phone laughed at her.

‘Fine! You will absolutely not believe this!’

‘Hmmm …?’, Fionnuala was folding laundry in the kitchen.

‘Siobhan has run away with that pool guy, you know which, the one that swam there, Sean his name is.’ Maureen’s voice was delighted.

Fionnuala had to sit down.

‘What?’

‘They had been having an affair for some time now, it seems they were planning this escape together for months. She took all of her family’s money. Her husband is in bits. I am sure your husband will tell you everything tonight. They are best friends right?’

They chatted for a bit, Fionnuala working hard to hide her true frame of mind and blaming her absentmindedness on a cold. When the phone went silent she burst into tears.

He had been having an affair with another woman all along! She felt so stupid, so ridiculous … so lucky!

The sitting duck had dodged a bullet.

God All Mighty!

When her solid husband came home he was all shook up.

‘You will not believe what happened!’

She pretended she had no idea.

‘What?’

‘Siobhan took all her family’s money and ran away with the electrician. You must know him, he was always there at all the events and church... She just emptied the joint account and ran with him … Can you imagine?!’, it was obvious he couldn’t.

Fionnuala continued to chop vegetables working hard not to give herself away. She startled when he came very close to her and watched her intently.

‘You would never do that, would you?’, he sounded pleading and worried.

‘I mean we have a good life, we love each other, our children …’

Her heart melted and felt so lucky again.

‘Oh come on, don’t be so dramatic! I am not Siobhan! Go wash up! The food will be ready soon …’

He gave her a big hug and went upstairs to change into his house clothes and wash up.

Fionnuala said a quick prayer and felt gratitude for her normal, settled kind of life, and for her unromantic husband she could count on.

Some things are more important than others … or so she thought!

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All sorts of sayings and fragments of things she had read were swirling around in her head throughout the day, while, unconsciously, or not so much, she was evaluating her life.

The soul has started packing a little bag.

She really liked this one, although she was not sure where she had read it. She could see her soul, all dressed up in its traveling outfit, for some reason her soul had a Victorian traveling dress and a big carpet bag in which it had shoved all the things it thought it might need. Her soul was childish and pretended to be ready for an unknown journey.

The mirror cracked from side to side.

This was definitely the lovely Agatha. She could not remember off the top of her head the meaning of the mirror in the story, but for her, for her childish soul it felt like a waking up, like the shine, the light was gone and illusions were shattered.

This is the winter of our discontent.

Shakespeare of course. She did not know if it was accurate but it worked for her. She felt the chill of dissatisfaction while looking around at what she had accomplished, while going through the inventory of all the dreams she had abandoned along the way. No, not content, not content at all.

Just going through the motions.

This was another random, unidentifiable one. She was going though the motions, she was doing what she needed to do, but somehow all she felt was irritation and dissatisfaction.

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She had read in a paper about a celebrity wife, meaning, the woman was the wife of a famous man, she was not famous herself, just by association, so this woman suffered from deep depression, so much so that she got herself into one of those special clinics.

While cleaning the windows the image of the woman floated in front of her eyes. She had seen the woman countless times in the papers and on TV. She was beautiful, she had a gorgeous husband, an amazing house, all the money in the world…

And still even she had to go away for a while …

God works in mysterious ways.

She truly believed that. Many times that saying proved itself to be true. She never spoke about her beliefs, she did not want to have to defend them or explain them. They were hers, private and intimate. She had read, in another paper, about a study that showed that people that had a system of belief, whichever, had less anxiety than people that did not. Makes sense, she thought to herself while putting the vacuum away.

She went to change to go to work. Her body felt like an alien in recent times. The changes of middle age were so fast that her mind could not keep up. But oh well, we go through the motions … no other choice is there? Thank God for our health!

In the little supermarket she worked in she stacked shelves, she swept the floors, she was a cashier, she did what needed to be done. Gladly. She thrived in action, it kept her mind busy … well, of course, except the different random things popping in unexpectedly.

She’d seen this movie with a guy that took early retirement and then found it hard to cope. She imagined she would be like that, and this thought gave her renewed energy to perform her tasks.

You got this.

Sure do!

And she smiled to the unsuspecting customer she was helping with their shopping.

‘You have a good day now!’

‘Thank you you too!’, the customer replied and then on their way out pressed the green, smiling face on the customer satisfaction machine.

She saw that and was pleased beyond measure.

Job well done!

Yaba daba doooo!

Where are youuu?!

I have found you!

Sure have!

And she smiled to the next customer in line.

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How can things go so wrong so quickly? His mind still had difficulties comprehending the enormity of it all.

Just a few years ago Robert was a respectable father of two, husband to a loving wife, proud business owner, pillar of his small community.

Then feck all happened!

Corona came, hotels like his were empty, money dried out, the American wife decided (as soon as she could travel), that she and the children needed to visit her parents in San Fran, and then never came back.

Their huge house was sold, the money divided and then squandered, and now he was a well into middle age, hotel owner living in a small room in the back of his reception desk, at the center of what was now a bad area of town.

Before Covid it had been a nice and clean area, but then, with people isolating and only the unsavory characters roaming about like they were immune to the virus, it quickly became a meeting point for all sorts of people Robert would have never dreamt to interact with.

And so, day by day, he became more and more part of a dark world of dark and aggressive people. He would justify his allegiance telling himself that he needed to keep the hotel afloat, it was his only source of income, his only possession, his only hope.

It is at this point in life where we meet Robert now. He is at his Reception desk trying to make ends meet with a pen on paper, but as much as he stretches his meager takings he has to accept it will not be enough to cover the month’s bills. Nobody warned him life can be this taxing …

‘Hello!’

Robert did not look up, he was so absorbed by his own damnation that he did not hear the voice of the person greeting him, only when she got close enough to cast a shadow on his paper, did he realize somebody was standing in front of him.

Faced with the unusual appearance he was lost for words.

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‘Hello? Can you hear?’, the old woman waved a gloved hand in front of his eyes as if she was checking his sight.

‘Yes … I am sorry, can I help you?’, she was for sure lost.

‘Well, yes I hope so …’, and he saw a faint hue of pink under the very white skin.

‘It seems you have the cheapest rooms in the area and I am in need of one … for a longer period of time … I cannot pay much … but I can help around here …’, and she passed her hand through the air over the dusty furniture and not so clean carpets.

Robert almost laughed with disbelief. Didn’t she know where she was?

Didn’t she see the overgrown grass, the bikes lying around on the drive, didn’t she smell the dust and grime, wasn’t she put off by the impossible to ignore decrepitude of the hotel?

‘I am sorry’, he tried to be as nice as he could. ‘I am not sure you want to stay here, it is not a … very safe place …’, it was the best he could come up with.

‘Oh honey, let me make you a cup of tea and tell you all about it.’

Somehow she had spied where the kettle was in the little office behind him and moving a lot faster than he thought possible, in no time she was installed in a chair with a hot cup of tea and her large bags next to her.

Her name was Joanna Barry, and she was recently made homeless by the council house she was living in being taken to be upgraded … apparently …

‘And they did not give you any alternate accommodation? They must have!’, Robert was appalled on her behalf.

‘Well, they did, of course they did, in Dublin! Can you imagine? Me? Who has lived all my life on the West Coast to have to move all the way to Dublin city? I would not survive a month there! Makes no sense! They did it knowing most likely I will not go … so I grabbed my bags, filled them with what I could and at seventy-five I am finding my way in the world again.’ She sounded determined but sad, and looking at her, this little Miss Marple fallen of an old story book in his dark and dirty reality made Robert feel even sorrier for her.

They drank their tea in silence.

‘I have to be honest with you … I am not sure this place here is any better than Dublin… ever since Covid my clients have become quite rough and not nice people … I mean, I would not have my mom live here if I had a choice …’

‘But I don’t have a choice do I?’, she stopped him.

‘Look I know you are a good man, give me a chance. I will earn my keep, I am a very good cleaner, I love bringing things back to their old shining self.’

Robert did not have it in his heart to turn her away. They agreed. She would get a room in the staff quarters (which were empty and damp, but at least she was safe there) not to mix with the so called customers, and she would not come out in the evenings when the lounge was taken over by the usual clientele that treated the place like it was theirs.

The first few weeks, until Joanna got used to the place, everything went ok. Better than expected even. In the mornings she would busy herself with cleaning the lounge, she even went into some of the rooms and aired them emptied the trash. She was indeed very good at cleaning and seemed to enjoy it.

One morning when Robert sat at his Reception desk he was shocked to see that it was also gleaming and smelled nice. Joanna came out with a fresh cup of tea for him. He almost felt bad for the little money he was charging her. He could get used to that. But the day passed too quickly and the mobsters, as he called them, started to gather.

They had their own table in one of the corner of the large room, where they could sit with their back to the wall and have a good view of the entrance. The were led by this large guy everybody seemed to fear.

Robert made himself small behind his desk and let them make themselves at home. It had the appearance of a night like any other until a huge row erupted all of a sudden.

The large guy had grabbed a youngster by the throat and was yelling at him something about food. It had all kicked so suddenly that Robert did not have time to react when Joanna passed him in her house coat and went straight to the fighting duo.

‘What is the meaning of this? Let him go! He is a quarter of you!’, her voice was so surprising that the large guy unsure of what was happening loosened his grip for a moment. Just one moment as, soon after, his eyes were covered again in malice and he was seemingly playing with the youngster.

‘If you are hungry I can cook for you! Just bring me what you want!’, her confidence, and mostly her offer seemed to lead to a change of heart.

‘You know how to cook?’, the large guy seemed suspicious.

Robert was watching the entire scene in disbelief.

‘I will cook you the best meal you ever had!’

He let go of the boy and pulling out a large wad of money gave him four fifty euro notes.

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‘Give him a list of what you need for Colcannon and steak. I need to run out for two hours, but I will be back mind you, so you would better deliver you old hag!’

Oh and how did she deliver!

Joanna made the best meal the large guy had had in months. He was instantly hooked and each day following that one came about asking her to make him this or that dish.

The young boy she had saved had become her official aid, and as it turned out he was very apt in the kitchen and transformed to a totally different person.

The knock out news came, when, one evening, the doors of the hotel flung open and a screaming banshee holding a small bay came in.

‘I want to see your floozy, the one that keeps you fed and away from your family!’

The large guy went all red and stuttered in front of, they all understood, was the mother of his child. She shoved the baby into his arms and put her hands on her hips commanding fear if not respect.

Joanna shuffled silently from the kitchen.

‘Oh my God, it is so nice to meet you! He never stops talking about you and how you have made him the happiest man in the world! I only serve food when they have a lot of work to do and it drags on. Why don’t you sit down dear, you look exhausted, let me take care of you! Bring back some shine to those cheeks!’

The banshee melted into Joanna’s care, the large guy, who had never mentioned his family was stunned and grateful, Robert was starting to wonder if maybe there wasn’t something uncanny about Joanna.

Things went even further. The banshee and her bairn started coming to the hotel daily. She would keep Joanna company in the kitchen, the baby was lovingly cared for by all the group, the large guy started to be nicer to everybody, and Robert’s hotel was being caringly done up. It seemed all those gangsters had other skills he never thought they might. One was a plumber, another a painter, they even had a carpenter. Trades they slowly had given up because of this or the other.

Soon, an entire community formed around the hotel and Robert found himself one morning that he had plans. At first he was surprised himself by the ideas swirling in his head, but then he just gave in, it was so nice just to have the slightest glimmer of hope.

Joanna came to join him at the desk bringing a slice of pie. He loved pie, and kindly smiled at her amazed by the difference she had made into all their lives.

‘Are you ok?’, her voice was soft and motherly.

‘I am, are you?’, he was still not used with somebody caring how he was. Loneliness can leave deep marks.

‘I am great! The boys started cleaning the back garden! Wait till you see it! An oasis!…’

And on she went chatting about this, that or the other, while Robert looked around the old hotel in disbelief.

The place still leaked when it rained, the wallpaper still peeled in places and half the chairs did not match, but for the first time in years the building sounded alive.

Cups clinked in the kitchen. Somebody laughed upstairs. A baby cried somewhere down the hall and was instantly shushed by three different voices.

Joanna kept talking happily about flowers for the back garden while while she dreamily sipped from her tea.

And Robert, who had spent years believing life only took things away, realized that sometimes it also returned them.

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He had loved in the past. He had loved and lost a stunning blonde beauty who was as beautiful when she woke up as she was when she went to bed. She was everything and he loved her to bits.

Gary did not mind that he had to work to keep the house, to pay the mortgage, to buy groceries, put petrol in the car, vacations, everything. It was all worth it just to have her be his wife, to be in her company and enjoy her airy, almost ethereal way of being.

Right after the Celtic Tiger years he’d managed to buy the house, a huge house, five bedrooms, three bathrooms, living, dining and a huge kitchen. Quietly he was preparing for that big Irish family he had always dreamed of.

Ethel loved the house, she was enthralled with the bright rooms, the high ceilings, the airy spaces. They were happy. So happy.

When coming back from work Gary would notice that the house developed little pockets of untidiness, but as the house was so big these were barely noticeable, so he ignored them and continued to enjoy his life of bliss.

As time went by, the pockets extended into whole sections of rooms that were dumping ground for all sorts of things, ranging from clothes to magazines, sometimes the odd cup or plate. Gary loved his amazing wife and was sure it was just something temporary. He started to work on the sections during the weekend trying to prevent them from taking over the space.

While Gary was busy sorting out the house, Ethel would go into town shopping, would have lunch with her friends, would complain about her boring husband that only cares about mundane things.

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It wasn’t long before Gary was exhausted, spread thin between work, the home and meeting his wife’s ever changing demands. When he asked her for help, she complained that it was all too much while dumping a fresh batch of shopping bags on the floor and slumping in an armchair.

‘All too much! I cannot cope!’, her voice sounded truthful and Gary felt like a beast for asking that of her.

Work became really busy and Gray was exhausted when he got home. His dinners consisted mostly of canned beans and butter on toast. Soon the house was overrun with objects, untidiness, and dare I say, dirt.

Gary was heartbroken and felt like a stranger in his own life. What he did not know was that his wife was feeling the same, and one harsh, cold morning he was faced with the reality of it.

‘I am moving out!’, Gary’s heart crumbled into his chest and fell out becoming part of the chaos around him. And that was it. She left with a resounding slam of the door.

Gary’s life shattered. His heart was broken and his house was full of the debris of a life too painful to think of.

Somehow he managed to continue working, he was driven by this idea of hanging on the house, the only real, tangible and reliable thing in his life. So he worked for it and this purpose kept him alive. Yes, yes, alive, because dark, predatory thoughts often clouded his mind.

One evening, when he was coming back from work, stuck in the front door he found a little flyer advertising cleaning services. The name on the flyer did not sound Irish, but when he called the number he was surprised to be greeted by a thick Eastern European accent. The woman on the phone sounded just like those very dramatic Dracula accents that gave her a strange, surreal feel. She made him smile with her business like manner.

They agreed to a trial week to see if they got along and if he was happy with her work. Gary offered her slightly more than she was asking and he could hear the surprise in her voice. He did it because he was afraid otherwise she would just run out the door when she saw the mess his house was in.

She did not run, but after taking a tour of the house, Agatha, told him in a very heavy R accent that she could not do all the house in one week, but that she committed to the kitchen as that was, in her view, the dirtiest and the most important room in the house. Ah, and one bathroom. Hygiene was very important. Hadn’t he learnt anything from Covid? And she gave him a stern stare.

Gary agreed and smiled to the determined woman in front of him. They had a deal.

As it turned out Agatha did not have other jobs so she agreed to spend the full working day in his house. It was almost like magic what she was doing. After spending some money on many cleaning products Gary never even knew existed, she got to work. In two days the kitchen gleamed. Soon after, his bedroom and the ensuite were done, and in what seemed a very short time the entire house was spotless.

Agatha had put out for him bags and bags of things that he needed to sort out through and Gary just took the decision to take them to charity. The charity chops were delighted with the countless clothes and shoes they got.

When it was all finally cleared out and Gary came home he was surprised to see how relieved he felt. Like a heavy cloud had lifted. The house was a joy to be in, to inhabit and to make use of.

Agatha informed him that now that the work was so much lighter, if he wants she can reduce her hours.

‘No! I have a better proposition for you. Please work full time for me. I am happy for you to move in and I will not charge you rent or anything, your pay stays the same. Just maybe you can also cook some food … do groceries, what is needed. I will provide budget of course.’ Gary had started to omit articles like she did.

Agatha looked at him weighing his offer.

‘No sexual services you hear! I am a strong woman!’, and she flexed her arm showing an impressive bit of muscle.

Gary almost choked with the shock of her directness.

‘No … no other services needed …’

And they shook hands on it.

That was two years ago maybe, and ever since they developed their own unusual relationship. Agatha never behaved as an employee, she was more a keeper of the house and a carer to Gary.

Gary discovered that he was coming back to himself. He had time for hobbies, for friends, for vacations. He was thriving in work as he was free of worry. It was like the world had found that very fragile balance of well being and the universe allowed Gary to enjoy it.

One Sunday afternoon, after lunch, when Gary was napping in his favorite chair in the living room, he heard a key trying to open the entrance door and when that did not work, loud banging followed. Gary jumped up confused just in time to see Agatha running in the living room from the kitchen.

‘Are you ok?’, Agatha nodded and pointed to the door.

They both went closer and Gary took out his phone to check the outside cameras to see what was happening. To his shock it was his ex wife. They had gotten a divorce which she had swiftly agreed to, as she was engaged to be married with some Baron or other, and was keen not to lose him.

Both Gary and Agatha were staring at the phone looking at the disheveled woman banging on the door and yelling his name.

‘Garyyyyy! I know you are in there! Let me in! I love you!’

Gary took the easy way out and hid in the kitchen with Agatha.

‘She will go away … let’s have a cuppa …’

Agatha complied. She had seen weirder things.

‘Who is she?’

‘She was the perfect wife.’

And that was all, with that short statement Gary released himself from his past and felt grateful for his present.

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The train rolled rhythmically on the tracks. So far so good.

She’d managed to wake up, get dressed, leave the house, catch the train. The hard part was done. Now she just had to go through the motions and allow the day to flow in its well known routine.

Fog filtered the orange sunrise above dark green fields. She wished she had the words to describe the beauty she saw, but she did not, so she just internalized it and let it rejoice her heart.

Sometimes the world was too beautiful, other times it was too scary, and all the time it was overwhelming.

Sandra smiled to herself slowly closing her eyes just to jolt in high alert in the next second as she felt movement on the seat in front.

In the morning, when the train wasn’t crowded, she liked to spread her things across one of the table seats. The only downside was the seat opposite.

Usually nobody sat in front, so she always expected to be alone. This morning though she was surprised to see another passenger sit in front of her although there were plenty of other empty seats.

She would have moved herself, but she already had her book out, her water, her coffee, some crackers. She would have looked like a mad woman if she had started to shove everything back in her backpack and run.

She made herself as small as possible and pulled her things closer to her side of the table to make space for the unwanted companion. It was only polite.

‘Oh, no don’t bother, I am good!’, and he smiled a perfect smile at her.

Sandra was surprised by his voice and tone, she hadn’t expected him to sound so… so… good. She smiled and withdrew in the depths of her seat, trying to hide behind her bulging backpack. With the corner of her eye she spied on him.

He was not necessarily attractive in an actor kind of way. He had slight features, looking oddly similar to a hawk.

Sandra often associated people with animals or characters from movies, and her fellow passenger felt like one of those magical creatures in the Grimm TV series. A human that turned into some strange, mythical creature and, when they turned back to being human, that was when you really saw the resemblance to their inner creature …

‘No way!’, Sandra was startled by his sudden exclamation and gave out a little squeak.

She peeked from behind her backpack and saw him holding out her book. Oh wait no, it was not her book, it was his book, just that it was the same as hers.

‘No way!’, now it was her turn to be all surprised.

What are the odds?

Slim to none!

Two people reading the same Roald Dahl short story collection.

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‘That is … unusual …’, Sandra pushed herself up and now was looking at him still holding up the book.

‘Do you love it? I love it!’, his passion for the book enchanted her.

‘I love it too!’

It felt like the most random thing, like the universe had put all its other affairs on hold just to focus on them two.

Shortly, Sandra found herself pouring her heart out to the charismatic companion she was enthralled with. Sandra found she could not contain her enthusiasm, while all the time she was just repeating in her mind ‘Don’t be weird! Don’t be weird!’, but she was, she knew she was, she just did not know how to control it. Plus, he seemed not to mind it at all!

The man smiled and nodded and approved and chuckled and made all the right noises while giving all the right signals. Sandra was on cloud nine. He might be the one.

The announcement came that in ten minutes they will reach Connolly Station. Her station. His station. The last station. She could not let him go.

‘I would love to meet you after work!’, she blushed all over, she could not believe she had uttered the words. He was meant to ask her, girls didn’t do that. How could she be so forward? For sure now he will run for the hills. She was just too intense. Sandra almost crumbled inside when she heard him speak.

‘Sure, that would be great! What time do you finish?’

Sandra felt her heart leap.

The last minutes of the train ride they made plans on where to meet and what time.

Sandra was walking on air as she walked away from him and waved good bye.

‘Malachy! What a beautiful name he had!’, Sandra thought while wishing the day away.

After he was sure he was out of sight Malachy shoved the book in his backpack and took out his phone. Forty three notifications from various dating apps and instant messaging. He crossed the street and walked into a small, bohemian cafe.

‘Morning Maire! Same as always please.’

He sat at his table in the corner and took out a big appointment book. With an ink pen he wrote in it:

Sandra, May 14th- has potential, expensive bag and phone …

He closed shut the book when he felt Maire approaching his table.

‘Here you are love!’ He nodded as he greedily eyed the large steaming coffee accompanied by a huge almond croissant.

Maire felt the day had started.

The young man would come in almost daily, have coffee and a croissant, write in his big book, spend hours on his phone or watch the train station. Maire liked him. Clean and polite, made no trouble.

If only all young people were like him …

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It was now almost twenty-five years since he had stolen it. He kept it hidden in his side of the wardrobe, covered by old, messy clothes that nobody ever bothered to sort out. They had an understanding, each of them managed their own side of the wardrobe, so Evie never looked through his things.

Sometimes, when he was alone in the house, he would not risk it when she was home, he would dig it out and look through the things in it. He knew them all so well, over time they had become like sacred objects, so much so that when he went through them he would carefully touch them so as not to damage them.

It was the bag that had changed his life. It stood as a marker of the before and after of his life. The moment that had put him on the path to become the man he was now.

For the longest time he could not think about that day, about that moment. But then, as he settled into his own life, as he became more stable he dared look back, and accept what he had done. Accept, but not forgive.

He was young, he was a stupid boy of seventeen, from a family that did not have too much time for him. During all that time spent outside, he had made some unsuitable friendships, bad people that were just too happy to take advantage of the strength and youth of an easily manipulated young man.

He was so foolish. He pretended to be strong and sophisticated, sometimes his pretense was so good that he would believe it himself, but he was just a child.

During that time he did some drugs, he beat up some boys and he stole, he stole a lot. From shops, from markets, from people. He stole so much that he had come to see himself like a sort of super hero thief, that could do what ever he wanted and he would never be caught.

One day, him and his mates wanted to go to Supermac’s, but they did not have the money for all the things they wanted. That is when he, the big man, the outstanding thief, said he will handle it. He will get the money. The others encouraged him noisily.

He watched and waited for a bit, and then, he saw her. An oldish woman coming out of the bank and wearing one of those old bags, with a very short strap that just goes to the elbow, easy to grab and run with.

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He did not need to think or plan for too long. He jumped off the bench he had climbed on, walked quickly until he was right behind her, grabbed the bag and ran. It was all so quick that nobody had a chance to even understand what had happened.

The old woman started yelling and, unexpectedly, ran after him. He found out only a few hours later what happened, when with their bellies full they strolled back into the center of town, the bag long thrown behind the wall of a derelict building.

It seems the old woman ran after him in the street and was hit by a car. It seems she did not make it, but that while breathing her last breath, there on the wet asphalt, she said that she forgave the person that had done that, that for sure they must need the money desperately. And then she died.

The tragedy of the situation became national news. Her last words were repeated on TV, on the radio, printed in all the papers. Everybody was talking about it, analyzing the situation, expressing opinions on what happened, the state of the nation, the inability of the guards to protect the citizens. It became this national feverish concern and there was nowhere he could go to escape it.

The money he had stolen were long gone, it was not even that much, and the meal he had eaten at the expense of the woman’s life was making him feel very sick. So sick that a few weeks after he had to be hospitalized.

When he felt better he thought about confessing, but he could not, he was so afraid of being locked up anywhere that he just could not.

In the hospital he met his first male nurse, a good looking, strong man and he was puzzled of his choice to do a woman’s job. The nurse explained that he would have liked to be a doctor, but he was just not smart enough, so he became a nurse and he loved it.

‘Helping people and supporting them when they need it most is a very good feeling!’, the nurse told him.

That is when he had found his career. From then on things just seemed to fall into place.

When he came out of the hospital he went and looked for the bag. Her found it where he had thrown it and took it home. A reminder of her, of the woman that gave her life for his.

Over the next twenty five years he helped hundreds, if not thousands of people. Each Christmas their letterbox overflowed with grateful cards from people he had helped over the years, but, despite all this, sadly, he could never feel the joy of fulfillment as he never really forgave himself for that stupid act that had led to her death.

Another day, during the holidays, when the number of patients was way too large for the number of staff available in the hospital to properly care for them, a woman came in to the emergency desk saying that she does not feel well, something feels wrong with her heart.

‘I am sorry to bother you … but I am all alone and did not know where to go …’

The busy receptionist shoved a form in her face and signaled to her to sit down.

That is when he was passing through and, with the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the woman’s trembling hand holding the pen, the grey skin, the shallow breathing. He went to her and without asking for permission grabbed her wrist. Her pulse was racing.

‘Come with me!’

She followed in a daze of confusion.

He sat her in one of the little cubicles set for screening and quickly connected her to a heart rate monitor. Supraventricular Tachycardia, he was sure, no time to waste. In such a fast movement, that looked to her like a magic trick, he connected her to an IV line and in a matter of seconds she went from feeling like she was dying to no pain at all.

She felt so stupid, bothering them for nothing, but as she was to find out later from the doctor, what the nurse did actually saved her life.

When he visited her later in the week she was doing well.

‘I don’t know why they don’t let me go home! At first they barely paid attention to me and now I cannot leave!’, she was genuinely annoyed.

‘We just need to monitor you for a bit. Please don’t stress yourself, that is bad for your heart.’

She smiled at him.

‘Do you know, that is what my mother used to tell me. I never listened …’, her eyes drifted to the blue sky outside.

‘Did you lose her a long time ago?’, from her sad tone he knew her mother was gone.

‘Oh yes, tis twenty five years ago now. But you know, it never goes away the pain, the emptiness, you just learn to live with it, it becomes part of you.’

‘I am so sorry …’

‘You might have read about it, it was big news then … she was run over by a car when she was chasing a thief that got her bag … she became famous then. All forgotten now. Are you ok?’

His blood ran cold into his veins. The universe does have a very dark sense of humor.

‘I am so sorry … for your loss … I …’, he did not have words.

‘You are kind! Thank you! My mom would have loved you! You saved my life!’

And she saved mine. He thought miserably to himself. That is when he felt this uncontrollable urge to confess, to tell her everything, to come clean…

‘I hope they burn in Hell, the thief I mean, that took her away from me!’

Her voice was so full of hatred that his words got stuck in his throat.

‘I am sure they will, if they haven’t already …’

The doctor came in then and he stepped out.

Maybe it was true, maybe he will burn in Hell, this meant he could live his life now, if his punishment was guaranteed anyway, and maybe, just maybe, all the good thoughts of the people he had helped, or even saved, will grant him a lesser kind of Hell.

Just maybe … somehow these thoughts gave him an unexpected feeling of lightness of being and knowing that his punishment was guaranteed allowed him to let go of his burden of guilt.

God works in mysterious ways!

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This was his second time of opening the document and just staring at the whiteness of the screen, at the little blinking line that waited for him to write something on the vast page.

His mind was as blank as the page he stared at, its emptiness reflected into his own mind.

No words would come, no ideas would form, he was nothing incapable of bringing himself to become something. To write himself into existence.

He forced himself to write something, to start an idea. Sometimes it worked, sometimes he would start jotting down disparate ideas and, somehow, like magic, they would fuse and would become a story or an article.

Other times, like now, he was so bogged down in his own self that he could not make sense of anything or string a story along.

He felt, at the same time, empty and compact, empty of ideas and meaning, compact like a big lump of coal that does not reflect light or being. He was in pain.

The pain of feeling stuck in yourself, unable to be who you want to be, who you desperately wish to be, who you need to be in order to fully live.

He took out his notebook and looked over ideas he had written down when out and about.

Snippets of images, of people, fragments of ideas that he had felt, then, would be worth developing into full blown stories.

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None spoke to him.

He was not ready to give up.

Let me understand. Let me understand myself.

He tried to listen to himself.

Silence. Just the throbbing heart of frustration. The frustration that he could not do what he most wanted to do when he wanted to do it. To write himself into existence.

He glanced at the clock. Soon he will have to go to work and he will not be able to write anymore.

He felt a pang of jealousy for all those writers he had read about that could just sit down and write, just make things up easily. He was not like them. Oh, how he wished he was!

Why was it so difficult for him to do something he desperately wanted to do? It made no sense whatsoever!

One of the shelves in his small library was overflowing with Stephen King books. More disillusionment! He was way too old now to even write half of that! Time ticked by uncaring!

Why did he still want to write if he could not?

Because, when he did manage to write something, he was so happy, so pleased, like he had meaning. Like he was alive.

Time’s up!

He shut down his laptop and got up. With a heavy sigh he knew he will try again, again and again until there was no more time to try.

Maybe tomorrow …

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Although it now caused him pain, he’d kept the clock that had saved his life. Often he would go back to that morning in his mind, analyzing every little detail, looking for meaning that just was not there.

Pól had had great difficulty getting up. He could still remember the heaviness of his limbs and the fuzziness of his head. The drinking he had done the night before had left an obvious mark.

He crawled into the bathroom, skipped the shower as it was just too much effort and went into his tiny kitchen for coffee. After the first fuzzy cup and two cigarettes his mind started to slowly turn its inflamed and imbibed cogs.

Through blood shot eyes he looked at the clock. Seven thirty. He still had time for another quick coffee and a cigarette. Pól felt like he was a straw man, and decided he definitely needed the strength that bit of extra caffeine and nicotine would give him. He had time.

He enjoyed his second cup even more than the first, he could savor this one. The first one was about survival, this one was about living.

Finally, feeling more like a functioning human being, Pól stepped out in the cold, Irish rain. The freshness of the morning felt good and it made him that bit better.

The factory Pól worked in was across the small town he lived in, occupying most of a large industrial estate. Pól biked to work, and the cold wind cutting across his face as he pedaled his old Raleigh, helped him sober up.

He was, maybe, five minutes away from the factory gate, when the loudest noise he had heard in his life made him stop short, almost falling off the bike. The noise was followed by a huge flame shooting up to the sky, and then quickly, smoke started to flood the air.

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Pól was in shock, and just stood there, pinned into place, just looking at the enormous blaze which was accompanied by loud crackling noises. Soon screams could be heard and Pól snapped out of it. He got on his bike, and rode straight into the industrial park.

Past the gates he could see that a huge fire had taken over a large section of the factory he was going to. Workers were streaming out covered in dust and soot. Some were screaming and some were obviously hurt.

‘It must be what hell looks like...’ Pól could not help the thought from forming in his mind. He got off the bike and started randomly helping people, trying to get them away from the burning building.

It took the firefighters two whole days to fully put out the fire. Many people were hurt and a few lost their lives. Pól was recognized for his help and selfishness of throwing himself right in there to support his fellow factory workers with no regard for his own safety.

Pól was seen as a hero by everybody but himself. When he got home that evening he saw that the kitchen clock was stuck to seven thirty. The battery had run out. His laziness and drunkenness had saved his life, and it was not fair. Worthy people had lost their lives in that fire, he should have been in their place. Pól sunk into a black pit of depression.

Pól stopped going into town because he could not stand seeing the admiring eyes of the people. He could not answer their niceties. Didn’t they know that he should have been there? That he had cheated death and now he was unworthy of living.

One night, it must have been a good five months after the fire, when Pól could not find any relief in sleep, he put his coat on and went walking about in the cold night, under a beautifully lit sky.

Pól walked and walked on the deserted streets until he got to a small graveyard. He knew the graveyard well, it was so old that most likely there were no more bones under the weather beaten stone crosses. The graveyard used to belong to the old parish church built in the 16th century, now itself just a bunch of ruins.

That was how Pól felt, like the ruin of a human being, and, somehow, his own perceived decrepitude, made him feel connected to the old, crumbling church.

Pól sat on a worn out stone and listened to the wind, looked at the light of the moon falling on the abandoned church, felt the air sweeping over him and for the first time in a long time he felt able to breathe properly. Tears started streaming down his cheeks, and soon, they were accompanied by loud sobs and muttered words.

‘I am not worthy, I should have been there instead of them …’

Pól’s words and sobs were carried away, and his tears dried by the wind. He did not know how long he had sat there, but with the rising of the sun Pól found that his spirits were lifting also. A small, shy voice whispered inside of him:

‘It was just not your time …’, and Pól understood that there was no meaning to be had, it was just that simple.

In the coming days Pól thought a lot about his own time, the one that he had, that he was in, and he felt overwhelmingly lucky. Pól thought a lot about his life and the things he used to enjoy before life’s drudgery had taken over and he had forgotten what joy was.

Pól was determined to make the drudgery bearable, if not even enjoyable. He did not have it in him to become a life coach, or an influencer, or a mindfulness instructor. Pól had to work for his living and that is where his change started.

Pól decided he would be really good at his job so it did not stress him out. Then he decided he would focus on it when he was in work so he would not think about it when he was off work.

When not working, he tackled boredom by taking his old Raleigh on the road and enjoying the beautiful scenery all around him.

And Pól, he would help anyone who needed it, because Pól felt he needed to repay the world for his life.

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Lucy scrolled mindlessly through the ton of beautifully bright photos, from which people of all sizes and occupations were smiling back at her, projecting their happiness and fulfillment on the things they were, obviously, selling.

‘I am not that person …’, Lucy muttered to herself while looking at them being so happy, in jobs they loved, content with their looks and satisfied with their world.

If there was one word, that Lucy would have had to choose to describe herself, that would have been dissatisfied. She put down the phone and looked back in time.

From as long as she could remember she was never happy, or not even content with what she had, the world around her, and most of all her own person. She smiled to herself. For sure there are some good pills for that! Would she want to use them though? Not so sure.

Lucy had been like this for more than forty years, she did not want to turn into somebody else, but sometimes she did wonder, what it was like to just be content with your lot, to be satisfied with life’s little pleasures and just be, without always questioning everything and assuming everything was bad or evil.

Lucy was exhausted of so much introspection. She did not even know why she was bothering with it, it was widely known that it never led to anything good. Just even more heartache. As if life was not already difficult enough!

Sitting on the living room couch, flipping through the channels trying to find something to watch, Lucy heard a little noise at the kitchen door. It was an old door, which she had kept as it looked so antiquy that it gave the kitchen a lovely feeling.

Lucy could not see a person through the little, high window of the door so she assumed it must be the wind or something…

‘It will go away …’, she told herself going back to the TV.

It did not though. The noise became louder and it actually felt like somebody tried to open the door.

In her mind, Lucy went quickly through the possibilities. Her garden was fully enclosed so it was not very likely that a thief was at the door. Lucy knew what she needed to do, go upstairs and look out through the bedroom window to spy what was going on.

Pleased with her own quick thinking, she climbed the stairs and in a heartbeat she was staring at the empty back of the house.

‘This is ridiculous!’

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There was nobody there, but she could have sworn she had heard something and she had seen the door handle move.

‘I am sure there is a pill for that …’, she amused herself while coming down the stairs.

When she turned to go in the living room, she was shocked to see that the back door was wide open and, from the outside, a very bright light was flooding the kitchen.

If she had had heart problems she was sure she would have had a heart attack, but as she did not, Lucy had no other option but to face the strangeness of the situation.

She was not sure what to do. Go back upstairs, lock herself in the bathroom and call the guards? And tell them what? There is this big light in my garden? They might fine her for calling the emergency services without reason or for trying a prank. No, she was on her own, and she was a grown up woman.

Emboldened by the certainty that there was nobody outside, Lucy grabbed a broom and slowly approached the door. With every step she took, she could see better through the light until, when she was fully outside, she saw that it was the sun reflected in a metal bowl that had been knocked over.

Lucy gave out a relieved, embarrassed chuckle.

‘For f***ks sake!’

As she went to the bowl to pick it up, a little kitten came out from behind and started meowing at her.

‘What in the world …?’

Lucy was stunned by the unexpected, tiny apparition.

The kitten was mainly black with just a few white patches on its paws and belly. It seemed so happy to see another being that it just stared at her meowing as if trying to tell her something.

Lucy deeply disliked cats, they were smelly, left hair everywhere, had fleas, ate birds, horrible little creatures. She needed to get rid of it.

‘How did you get in here?’, she asked the little cat talking back at her.

‘You must go!’, somehow Lucy thought that the cat will turn around and just leave, which of course it did not.

She decided that if she went into the house, the cat will have no other option but to go away. Bad plan. As soon as Lucy closed the door the cat positioned itself on the door mat and started meowing even louder.

You guess what happened next. Lucy picked up the cat, wearing gardening gloves of course, and went to throw it over the fence. A loud barking could be heard from the overly excited dog in the next garden.

‘Oh c***p!’, that is when Lucy heard that little voice in her head, while looking into the eyes of the little kitten whose life was literally in her hands.

‘I am not this person!’, and she knew that indeed she was not.

‘Fine, whatever!’

Lucy looked up online the closest animal shelter and, reluctantly she drove there, with the kitten temporarily named Kat.

As they got there they met a family that was looking for a young cat, of course the mother fell in love with the beautiful Kat. She really was a cat lady, she confessed to Lucy proudly.

In the quietness of the living room, while taking out her phone to enjoy a bit of mindless scrolling Lucy thought about the day. She was not one of those people, happy and content, but, with a tiny feeling of well being nestling comfortably in her chest, she realized she was not that bad either.

And she felt just that little bit content.

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