2026 Student Literary Awards

I didn’t know how they’d feel if they found me hangin, it’s not that I didn’t want to think about em but me mind was too full of other stuff. I didn’t stop to think what I would look like either. I suppose you might find it hard to understand but all I knew was the pain and thinkin about how to get out of it. I didn’t know there was another way so I wasn’t lookin for one. That’s the thing when something’s eatin you up inside, it takes over and everything you knew before vanishes into thin air. Shite thoughts go round and round in your head and no matter what you do to shut em up, you can’t seem to manage it. Well that’s the way it was for me anyway. So now you know. You’re probably wonderin by now how I would do it and what I would be thinkin about before it. First of all I wouldn’t think it would be the end if I jumped into the air and swung, that thought would never likely cross me mind.

It all came to a head on the last day of school when I was finally gettin out. The white glare of the sun stung me eyes and I couldn’t see the white board. Jayden Boylan sat opposite me at the other side of the table with a picture of the world atlas behind his head. His mouth looked crooked when he smiled and wouldn’t make you want to smile back at him. He started sendin me text messages ages ago, I even got used to some em. But others I wanted to forget forever but couldn’t cos me head wouldn’t let me. I tried to ignore em and I did for a while but they didn’t stop. Then he put a lump of shit in me lunch box, squished beside me ham sandwich. The stink stayed in the room for hours even after all the windows were opened and Glade air freshener sprayed everywhere. The teacher’s eyes looked all around the room, like an owl he was with his head spinin until he landed on Boylan. He had his hands slapped over his mouth thinking Mr. Wickham wouldn’t notice but then his shoulders startin shakin, goin up and down like he was havin a fit. Then he was titterin and snortin like a pig does when he’s havin a good feed. After that he started sendin me tic-tock videos, I didn’t know what some of em meant but they seemed dirty and I felt like the same shite he had put in me lunch box. When I thought it couldn’t get any worse, he cable tied me to a seat in the playground. Mr. The thick black hard plastic ties off with pliers and when they snapped free they left a red band sittin on me wrists like a girls bracelet except they had dug deep leavin a channel you could run water through if you wanted to. When I walked me back to the classroom, everyone looked up but no one asked what had happened. We took out our maths copies, Jayden got all the answers right. I only ever got some of em right but mostly I kept quiet. Mr. Wickham usually seemed happy and nodded his head every time he got the maths right but he didn’t today, he didn’t even look at Jayden. The orange and grey hairs in Mr. Wickham’s beard were uneven, he sometimes pinched together them with his thumb and his finger like he was thinkin a bit more about something.

My best friend, Paddy Brady, wasn’t in my class. I met him at break and we walked home together after school. Jayden Boylan’s Ma smiled a happy smile at me and Paddy. Most people don’t smile at me at all, mostly they don’t even look or if they do, they look into the distance away from me. That’s another thing I don’t get.

When I got home, I kicked me school bag under the stairs. I never wanted to see it again. Da and Auld Da said I didn’t have to go back if I didn’t want to, they said I was okay the way I was. In the spring the bank of the Boro River was covered in yellow. I’d pick so many daffodils for Ma me hands wouldn’t be able to close, they were all gone by the summer when Me and Paddy played there. It ran down the back of the house and raced over the stones like it was in an awful hurry. I didn’t mind the stones but sometimes the moss got thick on em and I’d slip on me arse and land in the water. Paddy would burst out laughin but I’d get back later to square things up. Two giant chestnut trees sat on the side of the bank and dipped into the water. We made a swing from the thickest branch and dangle from our legs and flop into the river. Paddy said he saw Boylan kicking his Ma. I only ever saw him throwing his school bag at her once when his face was red but she still bought him new runners cos his always looked whiter than everyone else’s. I never saw his Da. Auld Da bought me me first pony and I rode her bare back when I was four, or so Ma says. Auld Da said saddles were for softies. So I learned to get hard. The only time I wasn’t hard was when the messages from Boylan came in on me phone. You have to find a way to stop lookin at em, the voice in me head kep sayin but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. When they started again I didn’t go outside either. Ma told Paddy I was sick cos me belly felt full to burstin with nothin in it. She said you have to be full or empty there is no in between. All I knew was I was full without eatin. I kep the curtains closed, only a slit of sun came in, down the middle where the two halves met. Turnin off me phone didn’t work cos I was always itchin to turn it back on. Every time I did another message or video sat waitin for me. After two days of eatin nothin I still felt full. I played the X Box with Paddy instead and only eat a bit of toast when Ma screamed like the dog the day he got hit with the van.

Then me jeans started slippin down off me sides, Ma pulled a belt through the loops and tied it tight. She rang the doctor the day me legs wouldn’t move on their own. The doctor put a huge dab stick on me tongue and a cold yoke on me chest, she had me breathing in and out for ages. She never looked at me legs. She said I needed fresh air, Ma nodded and gave her sixty euro after pullin at her fingers one hand at a time.  When I still wouldn’t go out outside she took me X Box away and I didn’t see Paddy after that. Then I took the pull ring off the coke can and dug it into me arm the way Boylan dug the cable tie into me before. A bit a blood dribbled down me arm. I felt a bit better and worse at the same time and I missed me pony Flossie, missed her head bumpin me, missed the smell of her and the feel of her mane in me hand and the heat off her. I texted paddy but he didn’t answer any of me messages.

 A few weeks after Auld Da said he’d take me to the shed and I could watch him work. He gave me twenty euro a week to keep him company even though he didn’t seem that lonely. I startin savin and made a right few bob over the weeks. His shed was more like a barn than a work shed. Bits of blue sky came through the roof and the beams were massive. They belonged to the old bacon factory where the pigs squealed when they killed em and their guts turned the water in the river red, but only in some places. The worst part was the smell, stinkin it was or so Auld Da said. On Saturdays he’d bring me into town on the trap for a treat. He’d let me hold the reins, loose through me fingers but tight enough if I needed to pull up sudden like. He loved when the cars piled up behind us and laughed harder when they blew their horns. The whole world’s in a big hurry son, he’d say and chew his tobacco, His Teeth were brown and a greeny black colour in the gap. I never saw his toothbrush. I loved the breeze in me face when I was in the trap and I forgot for a while about Paddy until the day I saw him swannin around with Jayden. I couldn’t believe he’d do that to me and him knowin what he did.

Ma was always cleanin even though there was no dirt. The whole house smelled sweet and sticky. It was rottin. I heard her tell Da she saw Paddy and that I liked Jayden’s mammy. I don’t remember ever sayin that I liked his Ma but she did always smile at me and she seemed nice. Ma said no more. I went back eatin once a day so she would feel better and it seemed to work. You have to eat the voice in me head kep tellin me like it knew I had to, I hated the voice cos I didn’t feel like eatin at all. Ma talked a bit more too and some days she even laughed. I did like to see Ma laugh, she was funnier than Da. He never said much at all about anything. For the rest of the summer I sat and watched Auld Da plane timber. He looked like he knew what he was doin but he never put em all together.  I picked up some of the tools just to feel em, maybe I’ll be a carpenter. He kep em on a shelf that used to be the back door before Flossie kicked it in. The floor of the shed was full of wet patches but none of his tools were rusty. Auld Da wore braces that held up a trouser you could fit another person into if you wanted to, he worked with his boot laces open cos his bunions were killin him, whatever they were. I couldn’t stop thinkin about Paddy and the good time he was havin with Boylan. I went back to diggin the ring of the coke can into me arm again. I don’t know how Ma knew but she started screaming again so I had to stop. I didn’t know what else to do then.

I could see the chestnut trees changing on the bank, Ma must have noticed too cos she axed to see me uniform. I knew what was comin, even though it didn’t seem that long since I got me holidays. The uniform must have fallen off the hanger and was in a ball in the bottom of the wardrobe. It wouldn’t stay up on me and looked stupid with the belt so she had to buy me another one. I didn’t want to go back to that school or any other school. I couldn’t bear to see Paddy and Boylan together but she said I didn’t have a choice and I was lucky to be able to go to school. I racked me brains tryin to remember who Boylan walked around with on break but I couldn’t and then it came to me, no one. He was always on his own, nobody wanted him and when the teacher made us play with him we only did it for a few minutes and then we ran off on him. Ma always said that no one likes a smart arse and that was Boylan all over, he knew everything and everyone hated him cos he did. I suppose that’s why he took Paddy on me, he wanted him for himself all along. And paddy the big egit didn’t see it. I couldn’t go back to school without Paddy, I just couldn’t. Me and Paddy started school together, we did everything together. They called us the two musketeers. 

Every night I watched me school uniform hangin on the outside of the wardrobe door, like a nightmare it was, reminding me all the time of what was comin. One week left of the summer holidays, me stomach started to get full again with nothin in it and me heart was beatin that fast I thought I was gettin a heart attack.  The Care Doc said there was nothin wrong with me and Ma took me home. In a fit of a temper I cut the uniform in ribbons, all of it, the shirt, jumper and trousers. Ma screamed like the dog again the day he got hit with the van. Now I didn’t have to go to school cos they don’t let you in without a uniform. The next day I parked the trap in the yard and left me boots outside the back door, when I got to the bottom of the stairs I could already see another bloody blue jumper hanging on the knob of the wardrobe door. The bus went by the gate every morning, I watched through the gap in the curtain and was thinkin about what Paddy would be doin on break. I could have gone to school if Boylan wasn’t there, It’d be easy to go then.

Somewhere in me head I heard ‘easy isn’t the only answer’ it was for me and I was goin nowhere. I had enough. I started lookin round Auld Da’s shed, I didn’t even know what I was lookin for. I seen the rope he used to train Flossie. It was orange and frayed a bit but thick and strong enough still. Auld Da walked in behind me and I let it slip out of me hand and grabbed a lump of timber instead.  I turned on the sander for him and we sanded the planed timber but it still didn’t look like you could make anything out of it. I liked the smell of it though and the feel of the shavins under me feet. They crunched the same as the leaves when we went pickin conkers on the way home from school, me and paddy.  He’s probably pickin conkers with Boylan now. I thought Boylan had it all now and I had notin. There was no fairness in that.

You have to find a way, a better way to get what you want and to get Paddy back.  If you don’t go back to school, You’ll never get him back. I hated the voices in me head that made sense. Da bought me a new phone and said to give no one me number, not even Paddy. He promised to get me me own trap if I did what Ma wanted so she bought a new trousers and shirt and I had a full uniform again but I couldn’t get the jumpiness inside me to stop. I goggled it but it said to breathe but I was already breathing all the time. I robbed a drop of Auld Dad’s whiskey and the jumpin stopped for a while. That trap would be lovely but I still couldn’t go back and I couldn’t tell her why. Two days after that Mr. Wickham came over to see Ma and said if I liked I could back two days a week but I wouldn’t go. I was too afraid of what Boylan would do next.  He said I had a new teacher and she would keep an eye on me but no one saw before. Then they were all actin strange at home, watchin me like there was somethin wrong with me, except Ma wasn’t screamin as much. I whistled once and then Ma said I was too happy. So I went in for one day to give it a try and reminded Da about the Trap. The new teacher Ms. Fairchild was alright. I walked around the yard on me own, when Paddy seen me his face got as red as the paint on the school gate but he kep goin. Boylan wasn’t in that day. I started writing down everything that he done to me. The list was longer than I thought and I kep remembering more things. I tore it up just as quick in case anyone found it.

I didn’t know what to do next but I kep thinkin about the rope in the shed all the time. Paddy was actin weird as well, lookin at the ground any time he saw me, he even bumped in to me cos he was wasn’t lookin where he was goin and we burst out laughin. He shook hands with me and the two musketeers were back. It wasn’t the same as before though, nothin was the same as before. I still didn’t give him me number. It rained nonstop for the next week and I only saw Paddy at school the one day, he said Boylan had seen me outside Auld Da’s shed. I didn’t want to know where he’d seen me or what he thought. I just wanted to get him out of me head for good. Ms. Fairchild started givin me an extra maths sheets for when I was at home, they seemed a bit easier and I got the answers quicker. Thinkin about the rope in the shed gave me a different jumpiness I never had before, it was a good jumpiness, a happy jumpiness.  Auld Da taught me to whittle and then Paddy tauld me that Boylan went missin. When he went to his house, he saw Boylan screamin at his Ma and she sayin notin only lookin like she was sad and sick at the same time and grabbin the arm of the chair like she couldn’t stay stadin any longer. He said his Da wasn’t there . His Ma was at the school gate another day and she only had half a happy smile this time. I couldn’t see her teeth like I did before. She axed me if I seen him. I said I didn’t and she wanted to know where he’d hide and I said I didn’t know that either. 

That night I waited until I could hear em snorin and crept out to the shed. I could see the light through a crack in the door and heard Flossie blowin inside. Auld Da never left the light on. When I squeze open the shed door there was Boylan with me orange rope already dangling from the beam, his head in the noose and him on his tippy toes. The big eejet didn’t measure the rope right at all and he the best at maths in our class. Me foot started making its way back out of the shed. A bit of me wanted to keep goin but then I got flustered when I seen him again and me legs wouldn’t move for a minute. Then I grabbed the bits of planed timber and shoved em under his feet to keep him up like. I tapped Flossie on the neck light as I could to calm the blowin and climbed up to cut the rope. She stood there like she was mindin someone real important and wouldn’t budge. I said nothin to him. He was shakin like a leaf he was and as white as a ghost when he flopped back on the ground. He turned quick as he could and puked in the shavins and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his black hoodie. He still said nothin and neither did I. It got a bit awkward then so I said your Ma was lookin for you, he still didn’t speak. I kicked a few more shavins on top of the puke so no one would notice. He took the rope off his neck and gave it to me, I walked a bit of the road with him and threw it in the ditch. When he was gone I thought of all the things I could have done to him. I could have walked back out of the shed and never let on I was there at all. I could have done a million things that would have tormented me again but I had enough torment and I didn’t need any more shite goin round in me head. I took back the note I’d left for Ma tellin her I loved her and that it wasn’t her fault. I didn’t leave one for Da or Auld Da, that’d be too soft and they don’t do soft. If Da knew what happened he would have probably said to lave him hangin if he’d whiskey in him, if he hadn’t he’d say nothin, not Auld Da, he would say the past is done and you can’t change it.

Jasus, then I though that could’ve been me only he bet me to it. I suppose that means he saved me without knowin it. I got back in the bed, it was still a bit warm and I was glad I was still alive. I never really wanted to die at all but I didn’t know that then. Maybe he didn’t either. I kept me mouth shut. He never told his Ma what happened and I didn’t either. He was different when he came back to school, the crooked smile was gone but he still got all the answers right but that was alright cos I was gettin a good few right meself. Me, him and Paddy walked around the yard together, he didn’t seem as big a smart arse now. There was no shakin like he was havin a fit and no snortin like a pig havin a good feed so I could like him a bit better. He was alright most of the time and he liked fishin, he lent me a rod so the three of us went fishin for trout. When Paddy went off to get the maggots Boylan’s feet startin rubbin off one another and makin a whole in the muck like he was tryin to say somethin but couldn’t. I didn’t help him either. After a few minutes he startin talkin and said he didn’t mean it. I axed him what he didn’t mean and he said the shit n all the other stuff. His face was stuck in his hands so I couldn’t see it and then it sounded like he was sniffin, not snortin like before, just sniffin like. Paddy came back with the maggots and he said no more. When we caught the trout we didn’t catch and throw back like the sign said cos Ma loved trout. I’m glad I didn’t die or I’d never have got to go fishin and bring Ma home the trout. And I don’t have to know what it feels like to swing from the end of a rope, I only have to look at the mark the rope left on Boylan’s neck and he wasn’t even swingin.

Religiously, each year you booked the same weather-beaten lodge. Its slate roof – patched with lichen and walls streaked with damp and mould. Perched on a windswept hillside in the back arse of nowhere, it was more than a shelter; it was a fortress against the outside world. It was here that you seemed most at ease. The air  – damp with peat smoke, and the only sounds were the mournful calls of distant birdlife and the endless sighing of the wind. Miles from the nearest neighbour, it felt as if you had reached the end of the known world. A place forgotten by the messenger’s wing, where phones lay dead, and no machine could sing. You hunted the same dense, shadowy belt of forest- a tangle of ancient moss-draped trees whose twisted limbs knitted together overhead – blotting out the sky. The undergrowth – thick and tangled, a carpet of ferns and briars that muffled every footfall and clung deftly to your boots. It was your thing – hunting.

Not keen on people in general, sure, you just about tolerated me. Of this, you were never shy of reminding me, especially when things got a bit tetchy between us. You stood tall – your shins long – like a newborn foal. Your frame – broad and imposing, casting a long shadow in the half-light. A wild russet beard, thick and knotted- framed your weathered face. Your amber-flecked eyes, sharp and unblinking like a cat, glinted with feral curiosity. You carried an expression that warned others to keep their distance. Your jaw usually set and lips pressed in a silent challenge, as if daring the world to trespass in a silent challenge. Most times, you were closed like a clam, your thoughts hidden behind a veil of stoicism.  A jagged scar slashed from your eyebrow to your temple – a ropy reminder of some long-ago conflict – never spoken of.

Your gait was uneven – a rolling, awkward wobble, the legacy of a kick from an unbroken colt in your youth. You emanated a fug – a pungent earthy scent reminiscent of a damp wild animal – strong and musky.

Despite your solemn demeanour, you were well able to brandish your charm when the need arose – like a conjurer brandishing his brightly coloured scarves. There were moments, rare as hen’s teeth, when you might flash a grin or offer a sly joke, catching me off guard. Around others, you could be unexpectedly social, spinning the odd yarn, though you always retreated quickly, as if fearful that too much laughter might dissolve you altogether.

I came to help you out with the lambing. An advert in the window of the Post Office, scribbled on the back of a cigarette box –

Young one needed for lambing season. Accommodation provided. Learn on the job.

The handwriting was barely legible, the ink smudged by rain or rough handling, but something about it called to me. Maybe it was the promise of escape, or the chance to prove myself in a world so different from my own. Perhaps it was the hope of connection, or finding a place where I might not be labelled as a lost cause.

Sure, I did learn on the job. Rising in the early hours, working into and at times through the nights – plodding the meadows, endowed with my flagon of poteen, a wad of hay, a skinning knife, as sharp as regret and a hessian sack slung over my shoulder. The poteen – a tonic to revive a limp lamb, jaded from the battle of birthing. The hay to kick start the circulation – your voice echoes – ‘Give them lambs a good rubbing down now !’.

The knife to skin a dead lamb and trick a foster ewe into mothering an orphan. The sack to gather the remains.

And then there was the maggoting season – when blow flies would cause havoc on humid, sultry days.

Oh, that was an education, alright! How you ranted on me.

‘A feckin townie – that’s what you are – get your talons into that fleece and shake them maggots out, and for all that is sacred get rid of those fancy nails of yours – this is not a fashion show’.

‘Feck you and your sheep!’

I silently retorted.  

With the feasting of white maggots, the hind quarter of the ewe resembled something from a horror scene. It was a world of raw necessity, of birth and death. My hands, once soft and untested, grew rough and capable, learning the grim arithmetic of survival on the land. But it wasn’t just work. There were moments of joy too – brief golden slivers of lightness and laughter. The satisfaction of a lamb saved and  the way the fields glowed in the late afternoon. We were in our own way a team – uneven, fractious, but bound by the shared rhythms of the farm.

Five years into our situation, you had worn me down. You loved me in a way that love has a question, but can never be answered.

 But alas, it was not an easy road with your family.

The night it all became clear, what they thought of me. That I was in their eyes- no more than the hired help.

I was nestled in between the bales of hay in the far shed. The old Suffolk ram with his sooty face and overhandled horns stood squarely between them and me. This was my space. I hid away there with my head lowered to one of my many novels. Considered to be a tremendous waste of God’s good time – this reading lark –  as the elders in your family often gibed at me.

Nearly as sinful as walking the roads –

‘Did ya see that one walking the roads, has she nothing better to be doing?’

Your mother, miserable with the ailments of old age and your sister were blaspheming me out of it.

‘He had better not have notions of marrying that young one. She is not of our people. What with her kicking with the other foot, and all that. Sure, the granny would spin in her grave, tormented by the thought of one of them laying claim to this land of ours.’

Knowledge of your ancestors would not tell me all I needed to know to see myself or in fact, anything clearly. I had no notion of what foot I kicked with or what it meant to be one of them. I was raised in a community that worshipped the rising and the setting of the sun, the blossoming of the flowers and the coming and going of the seasons. My schooling was shrouded in a veil of non-religious denomination. We were the followers of no religion, but the embracers of many. I recall broaching the subject with my mother one evening after school. ‘Mary Maddigan got 500 euros for making her Holy Communication.’ I moaned to my mother.’ Why not me ?’

‘My dear child, I think you mean Holy Communion.’

A dismissive shrug was all that was offered, and all chat died.

I had attended sombre ceremonies in the Roman Catholic church. Within those hallowed walls, incense weaved a mystic air. Stone statues and painted martyrs stood watch over me. Candlelight flickered upon the crucifix. Mesmerised, I traipsed in pursuit of my friend up to the altar, joining the queue, opened my gob, stuck out my tongue and lapped up the body of Christ.

You cajoled me into attending your aunt’s funeral shortly after I started to work for you.  ‘Sure, come on for the spin, it won’t do you any harm at all. ’

In contrast, this holy space spoke in a different tongue than the previous place of worship I attended. Stark white-walled simplicity where the light fell upon the open scripture. Nothing to assault my senses. Unadorned by sculpted form or the vibrant hue of saintly figures. The air was clear, unsmoked by incense rituals.

You ignored the prattle of your own kin. You took me under your roof and declared your love.

You told me how you fell for me the day you were out ploughing in the lower field, and I was following in your wake, picking stones. You said I held neither an air nor a grace about me.

You said you loved the slenderness of my neck and my noble head, and how I held it, proud. You ranted about the strength of my bronzed forearms and my nimble fingers and hands that were slender enough to guide lambs from the pelvises of worn-out ewes. You wooed me with freshly dug spuds, and in the Spring, you told me that I reminded you of a fresh young heifer that had been locked up in a shitty shed all winter, and had turned out into lush new grass. I knew the lie of you by then. You lived in a strangeness of your own.

Throughout our courtship, we built our world in the fleeting now, unburdened by any notions of a future together. 

I worried about how you might perceive the news. Would you see it as a burden, a disruption to the solitary existence that you clung to?

I hoped you might have sensed it – the morning you stumbled upon me doubled over, my body convulsing as I purged my insides into the stark chill of dawn.  A minute foetus of a lamb lay limp. Sleek and moist as a seal – barely visible between the tufts of spring grass. Eyes fused – this creature came into this world in darkness – journeying from one darkness to another. Purple tongue – engorged.

Cloven feet – jellied. Pointed diminutive ears slicked back. The ewe – her head hung low – tangled in a sluice of visceral afterbirth. Bewildered by the loss, deprived of her yearning to release her innate cue to lick and nudge and nourish.

‘What’s up with you at all ?’

‘Why are you not skinning that dead lamb? There is another ewe after dropping triplets. Get the knife out now and get on with the job !’

The opportunity to tell you was like a fragile glass. I dropped it and it broke.

You succumbed to your anger when you struggled to find a way to express your wants or needs – you stumbled from one word to the next.

‘I can’t ! I can’t touch that dead lamb or the afterbirth. Please, please try to understand’

The raw, heavy ache of my mother’s lament of a baby stillborn trembled in my bones as your harsh reprimand began its chill dissection of my flaws.

She spoke of a friend who unknowingly invited misfortune by working with the pregnant ewes, while she herself was in the early stages of pregnancy. Ignorant of the knowledge that pregnant ewes play host to a pathogen that can induce premature birth in humans.

The wee soul was secreted into unconsecrated ground, on the cold, barren headland of a country graveyard.

I hoped again that somewhere deep down in your humanity, you might have dragged up a smidgen of insight or an innate connection to the seed that you had planted. I had become successful in controlling my anguish to the extent of denying that it was there at all – my protesting acceptance of things I could not change.

But no, your concern was that my malaise would not hinder your hunting trip, even though your own plans had gone awry.

You had stumbled over your own feet and belted yourself off the hood of the tractor. You were adamant – no doctoring! Sure, a cracked rib is nothing to fuss about. You grumbled, brushing my concern with a wave of your hand, as if pain were an indulgence only the weak allowed themselves. You moved about with a slower, more deliberate gait, your jaw set tighter. I watched the lines around your eyes deepen with each jolt, each climb into the battered jeep. The weight of your stubbornness – pressing in on both of us.

Headlights illuminated the low stone walls as we made our way to the lodge. Ragworth thrived on the verges of the potholed road, and the sliver of moonlight highlighted the yellowing gorse. Motionless mountain sheep meandered the rugged hill sides. A landscape that remembered everything that ever happened in it and to it.

I tossed and turned that night. The rawness of the lodge, bone-hard bunks, the rustle of creatures. The bitter wind reached through the cracked window panes, cutting the snout off of me. I found myself glancing at you, taking in your weary, brooding presence. The disappointment of not being able to tell you was stuck like a stone in my chest. It wearied me as disappointment has a way of doing. Was this an excursion into foolishness?

We drove in silence, the tyres crunching over ruts and stones, the heater blowing feebly at our feet.  Your battered double-barreled shotgun angled out the back window of the jeep. The world felt held in suspension, as if time itself waited for something to break.

When we reached the edge of the forest, you sat for a moment, your hands gripping the steering wheel. Bending down to lace your boots, you winced.

We set off into the depths of the forest, boots sinking into the spongy moss. A monoculture of tall straight pines lined up right beside each other. Bald white heads birthing their way up through the understory – fungi, enveloped in a visual mist of dampness. Senses assaulted by the pungency of rotting wood, heightened by the twang of resin. Aniseed lingering scent, a vixen fox, carried on the rising damp of the forest. Sometimes, in the blue half-light of dawn, you gazed into the distance, as if seeing something I could not, a flicker of movement, or perhaps a reflection of your own solitude. You spun yarns about ancient rites and battles that had been fought. You spoke of druids and graves.

A hollow ache from hunger wrestled with the demons of nausea as I attempted to place one foot in front of the other. You threw a warning glance over your shoulder as I cringed and cowered at the sharp crackle of dried twigs beneath my fumbling steps – trying to tread the earth as softly as I could. An innate sense that I was less important than the earth I walked upon.

I floundered over a bleached bone that was entangled in the brambles of the forest floor. Picked bare by wind and scavengers.

As we shuffled along, I thought about the years I had spent trailing after you, always a step behind – trying to read the map of your silences.

I watched your movements closely, noting the way you favoured your left side, how your breathing hitched when you clambered over a fallen tree stump.

You stopped abruptly in your tracks, raising your hand. Ahead in a patch of bracken stood a buck. Fully antlered – its slender form lilting through the maze of forest. Its dappled coat shimmered, and its flanks rose and fell with the rhythm of the forest.

You crouched and raised the rifle. Your hands quivered – the air thick with anguish, the rifle slipped from your grip. You pressed the icy weight into my palm. Your eyes held the ‘ do what is needed’ plea.

The brutal slap of the stock slammed against my shoulder, the crack of the rifle broke the stillness of the forest, echoing off the ancient trees and sending a flurry of startled birds up out of the canopy of trees.

The buck collapsed in its tracks, thrashing a little but going nowhere. The shot splintered the rib cage, tearing a jagged hole in one of the chambers of the heart.  I stood, protected by the towering pines – grappling with some reality.

A familiar melancholy gnawed at me as I scanned the raddled features of the buck. Its antlered crown contorted. Its doleful eyes – vacant, fixed on a point in the distance that no longer existed.

Sweat mingled with dirt as you laboured to manhandle our trophy. You drew with slow provocation, the bone-handled knife from your belt and plunged it into the deer’s neck – stripping the hide all the way back. Your expression was one of torture, but void of protest or emotion.

We turned for home.

It wasn’t until we drew close to the exit of the forest that we realised we were trapped. The barrier was locked. You ignored the sign, as you have done every year.

NO SHOOTING, NO HUNTING. BARRIERS DOWN AND LOCKED AT 5.00 PM

You slammed cymbal-like hands on the steering wheel – emitting a yell as a shot of pain gripped you like a vice. The cry of a wounded animal.

A shallow intake of breath, followed by a pant. Your mouth was a tight knot of panic as your breath came in shallow gasps. Each pull strained your lungs. A piercing agony seized your chest. The rib, fragile but forceful in defiance, shifted painfully and punctured your lung.

‘I will get help!’ How pathetic I sounded, not even convincing myself.

I ran ahead until I came to the end of the track. You grunted at me in a rumble that was hard to ignore. You had stalled. All I could make out was your great bulk that had fallen to the ground. I carried on, only to be held back by the sound of my name. You rarely ever called me by my name.  ‘Maise, Maiseee’ you stuttered. At that moment, I dared to imagine a cocoon of intimacy among this chaos of emotions.

Pointing, with great effort, you guided me to a snaking  stream, to the left – a log traversing it. I threw a gaze back in an attempt to keep an eye on you. Initially, you were in my line of vision. The path I was following crested a cliff. I caught sight of my shadow – a black silhouette taunting me against the darkening sky. The trees grew denser, allowing me fewer and fewer glimpses of you. I stumbled upon a big round rock. The rock that looked like it was made to sit on.

A slow rhythmic tugging in the debts of my belly forced me to rest upon the tomb cold rock.  You would not have liked me to sit down, not when I was meant to be finding help. I gathered myself , wrenching off a bough and feebly slashed my way through the undergrowth.

A ghostly cry whistled through the tall trees. The stream that I had been following widened and ran into a mire infested with the carcasses of broken limbs of sinking trees. Your voice travelled, faintly carried by the comforting wind. A familiar path reconvened as I turned back amongst the trees. The stream had disappeared.

You half fell out of the jeep, clutching and guarding your mid-riff. There you lay, sprawled across the twisted carcass of the buck. Your breath – a faint, ragged whisper.

Crimson flecked saliva seeped from the edges of your generous mouth, mingling with the bucks still warm bodily fluids. Your lips – the pallor of a blue winter’s end. The fall and rise of your chest – shallow,  broken only by a spasmodic, deathly rattle.

The coarse fabric of your clothing clung to you, stained with remnants of your earlier confrontation. The acrid scent of gunpowder lingered – indifferent to our turmoil.

Cradling your head, you offered up a smile that was nettle and dock leaf, as the fragile secret I carried was lifted – carried away by a crimson flush that trickled and mingled with the green moss of the oh so still forest.

Pieces not available for publication.