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The Sleeper in the Ditch (an excerpt)


                                                         
It was a cold night by the canal when Fintan Clinch, shocked and feeling like a trapped rat, settled down to sleep in a ditch. His green raincoat wrapped him and the grass was soft. But it was damn cold and ending up like this had numbed him to the core. He wondered where his family and friends had got to and agonized over what they would make of it all.

But, as sleep took hold, a dawning set in that he was far from the world of family and friends; and a great distance too from concerns like striving for that perfect job, saving for that rainy day or paying off a thirty-year mortgage. The plain fact was he was nowhere near the relentless pursuit of economic security. It had been, when he thought about it, the death of many an individual and—what was more—it was all pointless. Thinking it through, he concluded that he was not the first tenant to wind up in a ditch after a row with a landlord. There were certainly worse things that could befall a fellow—contracting a fatal contagion to name but one.

So, though lying on the grass, bereft of earthly chattels, Fintan felt no self-pity. His shock and numbness began to ebb and his mind moved to higher things. He felt connected to the vast special world and to the ground directly under him. He started to feel mildly elated and thought that that could be down to hunger, having read of such things.

Coming up the towpath earlier, swigging on the dregs of a cider bottle, he'd felt very much as an acrobat faltering unexpectedly in mid-performance...

Ó Brian Ahern 2020

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