helpfulhigherenglish

The Stores was amazing. Again. The fake I.D. worked just fine. You had to hold it away from the light. The sellotape and ink that took 4 hours to perfect were given a cursory glance by a steroidal side of beef in a black bomber jacket. He was too preoccupied staring at a scuffle down the hill and wishing he was there, to notice Jack didn't have much in common with the picture on the card. Inside was a car crash. Half of Jack's pals were drunk from the bus trip to town. His girlfriend spent the first half hour pulling and yanking her red dress to undo the puritanical efforts her mother had set it with. "Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!",seemed to be her default phrase. High pitched when sighting a friend in the crowd, grunted while dress-adjusting. It was already past midnight. Judging by the garish scenes unfolding in front of him, Jack knew the night had already been a roaring success. His friends danced, courted, necked shots and cavorted like only uninhibited ...

Chester knew it was wrong but was beyond caring. The old lock was weaker than him. Rusted through, it gave with one accurate knock of his walking staff. A weak stream of guilt floated down inside his brain, near the back where life's misdemeanours rested up for sleepless nights. As if helping, Chester placed the broken and useless padlock on the windowsill. As testament to bygone days the door swung inward perfectly on it's hinges. No aches and pains in eighty year-old carpentry. A dry-must breath escaped the entrance informing him there'd be a good roof over his head for the night. White mountain had lived up to it's name every year of Chester's long life. Now late in March snow had descended even on the lee-side of it's wooded slopes. Woods swamped with drifts now. He got the flock of sheep down to the lowest field he could manage and used his clasp-knife to open an abandoned old round bale to keep them going. A tiny space under a copse of trees would be ...

Mary could not make up her mind. Yes he was handsome as hell in that shirt. And that skin-fade hair was all the rage. But how many times had mistakes been made in dark parts of nightclubs? Would John be different? Blue eyes. He made her laugh out loud. Wasn't that being happy? Would he be a weed or a flower? He was coming back from the bar holding glasses high and looking through the crowd straight at her. Those blue eyes.

The Weather lady broke the news with a graveness not often seen. A storm on the horizon. Trawlers tying up, farmers battening down. Out in my Mother's garden, surrounded by adoring roses, a full and plenty apple tree sits in the last of the sunshine. Waiting for the ritual. It'll be dark in an hour. Winter dark. The ground will then go soft for the hard haul ahead. Dew, deluge and day-long-dusk are in the post. Now or never. But the tree is a true leviathan. Untamed for half a century. At top-most point sit red crab-apples as big and rosy as a teething infant's head. These apples are offerings to the Gods of Autumn. Windfalls from twenty feet up. Their last act will be breaking free in a torment of sky and leaving a real divot where they land. But of the others? Like a disaster being averted, all hands are on deck. Thick cardboard boxes (to hold a grunting weight) lie on the lawn. Our family scurry to catch fruit tapped off branches. A "Watch out!" foll...

Silence. As soon as I'd kicked in the rotted, wood-worm riddled door-panel, silence greeted me from inside. Dead silence. Then a lung-filling smell of damp. The heaviness of decay. Old mortar and pigeon droppings littered the hallway. This wasn't surprising at all, for the cottage lacked a roof. As I eased into the hall and looked up, I felt as though I'd stepped into a planetarium. Draped above what would have been thatch and roof timbers fifty years ago, were stars. Bright, clear stars. I don't know what else I expected to find. It being All Souls night, I guess I'd expected more than stars and rot. Then I switched on the flashlight. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We haven't met before, have we? I'm Conor. I know I shouldn't be kicking in old doors in rural Ireland but don't jump to the conclusion that I'm a teenage tearaway. I've found myself in this situation because I read a diary, not because I'm a delinquent. I'm us...