Aisling and the Lough

The swallows kept diving in and out of the lough, as the evening light began to dissipate ever so gently across a sky drowned out by thick clouds. Aisling could see them graciously twirl in formation, students in congruent lines, dipping, swerving, and coming back once more. She could herself laugh out loud, smiling away sitting there on a small patch of grass just a breath away from her front door in Salrock.

She sat here often alone, watching her world pass by slower each day. Time worked differently in these areas. It had a different gait to it, compared to Clifden, that’s for sure. Big city folk had no clue, they could never live here, that’s for sure too! She could smell the grass so clearly, fresh from rains that flooded the outhouse only just last night. And the swallows! She could watch them for hours on hours with a book or other in hand, just seeing them flutter and dance with each other, such good dancers.

Maybe her pa would call to her for supper now that the light was dimming, but not to fret, she thought, I’ll stay a while longer, her fingers touching the semi-dry soil that had seen her grow tall. A gentle cool breeze would touch her bare feet and ankles, her burnt-flame hair crispily a shade lighter than the sky itself at sunset, goosebumps rippling through her spine, goosebumps always rippling.

She heard a faint whisper, her friend Marie’s voice, “would you look at that Ash, why, it’s already morning.”

The pitt-patter on the window where Aisling sat had a full view of Lettergesh beach, the sea now ferocious there far in Killary bay, but she could barely spot the white tips of the crashing waves. She could just feel it on a day like this. She sat even as the school bell rang, looking out there, out there into the distance, only hearing the raindrops hit the double-pained glass.

“Aisling Mannion, daydreaming again are ya? Come on pack up your things and off you go now, your ma will be waiting on ya outside in the rain to pick you up and she won’t be happy with me thinking I’ve kept you here longer than needed so off you go now.”

She didn’t respond, she could barely hear Ms. Joyce and the bell, as if a fine dust had been sprinkled into her ears, eyes fixated on that coast, a coast she knew like the back of her hand, every crag and rock, every small little pool.

“In ainm Dé, Marie you’re right! It is morning, for god’s sake how long have we been laying here!?”

Aisling patted her bottom as she stood up, feeling the moisture on the jeans from the grass as she got up and began walking towards the house leaving the picturesque view, an orange peel of a sky opening up. Her and Marie must have dozed off, the two cretins. Strange though, she didn’t feel hungry at all.

The first room on display in the Mannion house was the kitchen, the gas stove in the far right corner, the small magnetic strip holding the six knives they currently owned, glass bottles filled with spices and salt and medicines and all sorts of things. They were all placed neatly, maybe for others the opposite of neatly, along shelves of an open cabinet on the left wall close to the door. A small wooden table was in the middle, the smell of tea in the air, the sound of crumbling biscuits on the table’s surface. Four chairs, for the four members of the family, three of them filled.

Her sister and her Ma and Pa all immediately looked up at her, frazzled as Aisling must have looked. “Finally, you’re getting out of the cold there, don’t know how you can spend so much time looking at the lough, pudding,” her Pa said as he sipped from his mug. Ma playfully slapped his arm , “Oh leave Ash now she’s enjoying herself out in the wild and not even that far gone just there in our garden,” she smiled, “come sit with us, tell them what you told me in the car about your day at school.”

Aisling’s older sister, Margaret, could see her kin was not right. She had a confused look about her, and it seemed as if the cat had gotten hold of her tongue. Aisling’s eyes darted from place to place, person to person, quickly and she kept looking at the door, but no one was coming in.

“Right…right…I’ll have a tea yes…oh…I think I was…Marie there…ah yes, the storm there today!” Her eyes brightened, and she began recounting to her willing audience how she saw the pitt-pattering rain on the window and could barely see the white waves and Killary Bay too, and could feel the power of the storm, and wondered aloud how it must’ve been here at the house, loud as it was.

Her audience, as always, laughed, how imaginative they thought and began to speak amongst themselves of work and labor and politics and what food to have for supper and how many candles they still had and that they should definitely get more candles for the night, because Ash and Margaret do love their candles. How the fall was just starting up now, and how there’s a chill in the air, and they asked Ash how the chill was there when she was outside, and she responded that it wasn’t so bad, and on it went. Like every other day.

Aisling hadn’t yet realized that time had slightly changed for her. A mist had settled in her mind as soft as moss covered floors and bogs, as if you couldn't see through the forest there, branches too thick and trunks too dense.

“A gorgeous day out Aisling, wouldn’t you want to be coming with us to Glassilaun later and we can have a picnic there on the beach, on account it’s a Friday and all?”

Marie and Joe kept taking bites out of their pre-packed sandwiches, on one the benches just outside the school on the green, and they were right, the sun was shining and it was almost too warm if it hadn’t been for the October wind. A perfect day for the beach.

Their friend didn’t seem to pay much attention to her best friend and her crush, sweet Joe, but rather kept staring up at the clouds, thinking to herself she was sure to have missed much of the night and the morning. She couldn’t for the life of her remember what she had had for breakfast, something she never skipped on, it being the most important meal and all. “You know, I could’ve sworn it was raining…,” and it came almost like a mutter to herself.

Her two friends, as she stood up and wandered off, looked at each other with worried expressions on their faces. “Let’s hope it’s a short one this time around ey Marie?”

The flaming haired teen as she wandered watched the school of swallows twirl and dance, such good dancers that they were. Maybe one day she could dance like that, that free and wild and care-free, but she was still growing, or at least that’s what Dr. Moore kept telling her. “Still growing you are Aisling!” was what he always said. The grass felt wet again, she had a notebook in hand and she must have been drawing something or other, Lough Musk keeping her company, and she was sure she didn’t have school today, that it must’ve been the weekend, maybe Sunday.

“Ash, darling, would you let me speak to you about something on my mind?” Margaret asked from behind. She took off her shoes, joining the barefoot Aisling on the patch of green shore there close to their home, their shoulders gently touching.

“Hiya Margaret, I tell you… I’ve been having the strangest time these past couple days I tell you.”

“Well you just seemed a bit ditsy the other day and I had no knowing and I want to know of course, so talk to me.” The swallows kept dancing and the sky kept its colors.

“Oh I don’t know, it's just…like the days are joining together and time is losing along you know?” Aisling shifted her feet uncomfortably, all the while staring into the surface of the water that seemed far too peaceful. “It’s like there’s this fog you know? And it’s not going away, and there’s flashes or something similar and I end up in places, but all normal like, nothing out of picture…if that makes sense, but even as I mention it… can’t say it makes much sense to me.”

The breeze had calmed, and there was a smell of morning in the air, even if it was evening, even if it hadn’t been either. Margaret, stayed silent.

“I don’t know just feeling all confused, maybe it was that wretched storm the other day that’s put all my thoughts in a twist.”

Margaret had been looking ahead, but now she turned to her younger sister, her innocent beauty striking, and her insides hurt, sinking deep into her stomach.

“Darling…what storm. Weather’s been holding on just fine, good days and a little bit of dew in the mornings but… nothing like you said the other day, it hasn’t rained in weeks Ash.”

But the pretty little thing wasn’t listening again, she didn’t clock that it was true that the last few days she’d never sat down on wet grass or mud, surely left by a storm of that kind. She was too focused on those green hills rolling over and over into carpets as they stood up reaching for them beautiful swallows, and morning came and went, and she was there again sitting having tea, talking about the hills rolling over into carpets and how pretty the swallows dance, and the rain that came, and Ma and Pa were laughing, how imaginative their daughter, and Marie laughed too, and Joe had a laugh too with his doe eyes, but Margaret didn’t laugh.

Margaret knew it was the calm before the storm, the one that didn't seem to come, and they'd be at Dr. Moore's again, and her poor dreaming sister would have to rest, for god knows how long, and get back on those wretched pills that dimmed those bright eyes, and made the sky look a little less red and orange. So she didn't laugh, but she listened.