He cut the paper into five identical rectangles. On one he drew a matchstick man; on another a broad inverted V fuzzed with grey around the apex. A room full of hooded prams floated through his mind and he drew a semi-circle perched on two smaller spheres. On the fourth rectangle he drew a spindly £ and finally, a crude pirate's flag.

Three or four times that first night, he rose to check the bolted door, stood for a moment listening to the sounds from Main Street but otherwise, he never left the table. Over and over again, he examined each rectangle; sometimes trimming the edges, sometimes darkening the lines. Occasionally he swore and crumpled one of them, then waited until it floated up the chimney like a black leaf. But mostly he just sat there, staring at nothing, thinking about his life. When he felt sleep fall upon him, he cleared the table, swept the floor, and broke the pencil into five pieces. Again he watched until the flames took every scrap away.

He picked up the five cards, closed his eyes, blessed himself and, feeling like a magician, threw them in the air. Shivering with excitement, he knelt and groped around the kitchen floor. He counted to five, opened his eyes and gazed at the flag. A grin seeped across his face as he decided on The Week of Bones.

Gathering the other cards, he stuffed them into a pillow in his bedroom. He picked up the black missal and thought about the night he stole it from Sister Carmel’s office. He opened a page at random and his lips followed the Latin in a soft phonetic crawl until he came to the last line. Pulling out the page, he tore it down the middle and continued until his chest was dotted with tiny bits of paper. He opened a second page but soon fell asleep, the missal clamped before him like a crucifix in the fingers of a corpse.

As on every morning for almost twenty years, he awoke as the sun rose above the Bernridge, devoured bacon from the pan, sopped the grease with lumps of bread, then cycled out to Cúil na Móna. Tonight, he thought, the plan begins in earnest.

* * *

First he made a list of names. A list spanning his life in the town. Girls who sniggered at the Macra Dance; children who mocked his garbled tongue; five men who, he always felt, bore some resemblance to himself. Finally neighbours at random until he was certain he'd covered every name he could remember. Over and over until the letters swam before him, he checked the scrawled columns. Suddenly recalling their funerals, he cursed under his breath and scratched out various names.

* * *

The following night, he took a bundle of The Leinster Express from the wardrobe. He dragged a metal box from underneath his bed and opened it with a key tied with twine around his neck. He stood and listened intently, then, pulling on a pair of rubber gloves, began to mutilate the headlines. He worked until the scissors hurt his fingers, then collected all the letters and locked them in the box. Everything else went carefully to the fire. He fell asleep with the missal in his hands and dreamed of a grey yard silent with shivering boys. Steam billowing from the laundry. The thick clothy smell from the workroom; rows of timid girls, their scissors a swarm of silver insects.

* * *

After Mass on Sunday, he posted the letters in five different postboxes. He spent Tuesday evening in The Hare and Hound, mooching about the bar, nodding to faces he knew, his ears alert for any sign. When he overheard “And yours came this morning too?”, the drink trembled in his hand. Before going to bed that night, he threw the cards in the air and the pram decreed The Week of Little Angels.

* * *

He dreamed of the desert. He saw an infant, its arms and legs hysterical, its mouth a crimson O howling at the sky. He tried to follow footsteps fading to infinity. He saw snakes sliding from the sand into a room of thirty sleeping children. He saw them winding through the bars of his cot: felt beads of fire lacerate the dark. He saw a man and a woman’s face pressed against the window, their gargoyle laughter shattering the night. He jerked awake, terrified that Sister Carmel might have heard him scream. The missal was warm in his hand. He clutched the twine around his neck and lay back, gazing at the ceiling until he fell asleep.

* * *

The third card decided on The Week of Being Born and for six nights – cutting, pasting, writing - he worked as feverishly as before.

* * *

Hoc est enim corpus meum....

As the host was elevated, he tested the words and tried to match them with the sounds he'd made from the missal. His eyes began to wander from the altar, above the droning Latin, the candles and the flowers. Like some illuminated manuscript, human bodies coiled together on the stained glass window. This squirming tableau - angels and saints, men and women from the town, faces long dead - gradually diminished to a single woman but, no matter how he tried, turning the image round and round in his head, he could not catch a glimpse of her face. Outside, he strolled among the crowd, but heard not a whisper of anything extraordinary. He wondered if something had gone wrong.

* * *

One night, while he was preparing for The Week of Pounds, the local policeman sat opposite the parish priest. Strewn between them on a walnut table were the letters he had sent. Alternately, like card players, they selected pages and glanced at each other for reaction. They passed them back and forth until the priest had read the last one. The policeman asked to see them all again. The clock ticked louder as he shuffled them from hand to hand.

"Did you notice anything, Father?"

"The funny spelling? The postmarks?"

"Apart from that, look...."

With grave deliberation, he divided the sheets into three lots.

"Now...."

"These are all the same... all to do with death."

The policeman handed him another lot.

"Children. God save us, how could anyone...."

Again a grave nod and an arm extended across the table.

"Disgusting, Father. All addressed to women."

"Out and out depravity. Who could think, let alone write such filth?"

For the next hour the priest discussed the parishoners who had come to see him. Finally, the policeman glanced at the clock and said maybe it was only a prank, some sort of sick joke.

"Whatever it is, it's an abomination. The whole town is talking."

* * *

''It is, my beloved brethren, the work of the Devil himself. Satan has come amongst us and entered the soul of whoever is responsible for these terrible acts. Let us be vigilant, let no stone remain unturned until this sower of dissent, this vile perpetrator of division, this disseminator of calumny and detraction is finally brought to light...."

* * *

"Yours are all the same?"

"Identical. All to do with money.''

"Such appalling accusations ...."

"They're getting very angry... wondering what I'm doing to stop it."

"Do you think I haven't heard them too? They have a path beaten to this door. Have you nothing to go on, nothing at all?"

"Not a whisper, Father."

* * *

Coming from the factory on Friday, he bought The Leinster Express and pedalled furiously until he reached the house. His excitement mounted as he struggled with the words, his fingers trembling across the page. He cut out the article, locked it in the metal box and burned the remainder of the paper.

* * *

Throughout the fifth week, on his way to and from work, he stopped at the bridge and gazed into the river. Savouring the worst obscenities he could think of, he closed his eyes and saw a man teaching his son how to hold the rod, how to scoop a net beneath the surface. Passing the plantation, he heard them again, felt the child's squeals of laughter as his father mimicked different birds. He stared into the fire and saw the man's face change a thousand times a night. Sometimes he awoke and searched the darkness, wondering where it had gone.

* * *

This time he composed eleven letters. He posted ten as usual and, five days later, the priest's housekeeper found him on the doorstep, offering her a sheet of paper as if it were a bunch of flowers. She looked at him sideways and ushered him into the parlour.

As the priest read the letter, he could feel the eyes directed at his own. "You got them too, God help you," he thought grimly, and recalled the morning he drove the nervous teenager from Holy Angels to the factory. He remembered the times he came upon him in the empty church; his innocent confessions; the evening he met him by the Lochán, his pockets full of stones.

As if talking to himself, the priest continued:

"I can't understand it at all... the whole town in a ferment... old secrets, dead and buried for years. The most disgusting accusations. God knows where it's all going to end... people afraid to go out at night ... friends at each other's throats...."

* * *

While the town slept, he worked until his fingers bled. He mutilated every sheet of newspaper in the cottage; pasted the letters on to fifty single sheets.

* * *

His five cards were on the front page of the Leinster. His whole body trembled as he mouthed the words. It was all because of him. They were doing it for him. They were doing it because they loved him.

* * *

Early on Sunday morning, he walked to the station and waited for the next train to Dublin. He wandered the streets, dropping envelopes into every postbox he met. He arrived home too exhausted to check the metal box. He collapsed into bed and, for the first time in many years, fell asleep without the missal.

* * *

He washed and shaved, brilliantined his hair and, like a priest vesting for the altar, put on his Sunday suit. As he locked the door he could hear the voices rising from the Square. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve, to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. He stood and watched them, this huge family united by love, gathered there to greet him. They were there because they loved him. When the churchbell struck five, their prayers intensified against the darkening sky. They were calling to him, beseeching his forgiveness. He moved amongst them and felt the years dissolve like pain.

©2006 woodlawn fiction