The winter had lasted three years, or so it felt to Aisling. Not the calendar winter, but the one she carried inside—a dense, frozen knot that had taken root the day she buried her mother under a sky the colour of wet slate.
On the shortest day, she walked alone through St. Stephen’s Green. The ducks were gone. The flowers were a memory. But the bare trees were beautiful—their black branches intricate as veins, as neural pathways, as the cracks in the heart that let the light in. 4 seasons dublin
“It’s not you,” he said, on a bench in Phoenix Park, the deer watching from a distance like ancient judges. A storm was coming. The chestnut trees shook. The winter had lasted three years, or so it felt to Aisling
She met him at a gig in Whelan’s. His name was Lorcan. He played guitar with his eyes closed, as if the music was a secret he was only borrowing. They talked until the barman swept the floor around their feet. He walked her home across the Ha’penny Bridge, the river below black and glittering with reflected streetlights. Stephen’s Green