Today, Forty or More years ago.

The Midnight.........

There’s a town somewhere on the West coast of Ireland about forty years ago, maybe more. 

There’s a young man walking up a hill on the edge of the town approaching the centre; the street and houses are grey, unusual for this part of the world. As he comes up over the mount, music reaches him; it is coming from a small record shop standing alone in a residential street. The street is grey but the music is as colourful as anything the young man has ever heard so he stops and listens.

Later, earlier – this is not clear – the young man is standing in a wooded lane waiting for cars to pass; he his hoping for a lift to take him further along where his friends may be waiting. A young woman walks through the forest and sits on a rock to watch him. The young man smiles, the young woman smiles back and a car pulls up. The young man doesn’t want to leave the smile but he does; years later he will not have forgetten that smile which is still there, forty or more years ago.

There is a bridge, it is also forty or so years ago old at least but is there right now. The young man is walking over this bridge, one that separates The West from the far West?

There is a stream under the bridge, and rats. It is the first time the young man has seen rats; he hurries along.

“Are you going to The Fair?” The person talking is driving, the young man has no idea what the driver means so he asks:

“What Fair?”

The driver looks at him as if he can’t believe what he has just heard and then explains.

So the young man goes to the Fair.

There are horses in the street and gypsies in the fields. One of the gypsies, a young woman is dancing in the village square; she has red hair and blue eyes that pierce the young man when she looks at him. He is never the same again. The gypsy is still dancing today, forty or more years ago.

formerly published in The Archives.