'Reverie' by Lee Sheridan came joint-second in The Letterkenny Cathedral Quarter's Flash Fiction Competition on the 19/10/24. The competition was judged by Averil Meehan. Averil writes flash fiction, poetry, and radio drama. Her collection of poetry, Until Stones Blossom, is published by Summer Palace Press. Averil’s writing has won and/or been placed in various creative writing competitions, read at festivals and events, and broadcast on RTE Radio 1.
"Very deep characterisation, excellent story." - Averil Meehan
The car backfires – its sound cracks upon your ears like a whip, slashing you in two. One half stays where you’re standing, the other is sent back to the cathedral atop the hill, to your brother’s ordination over a fortnight ago.
Peace is hard come by, but your severed soul can sense something of it in the memory of varnished pews, of stone columns, of cloven incense. Your brother was alone before the bishop, prone before the bishop, facing away from the congregation. You are proud but distant. Jealous. His vocation, your desiccation. All that’s real is what’s before you now – the noise of rally week, of the lads and their yoks, revving and riling. This is the new church, the new congregation; the forsaking of the unseen for this scene of black smoke and screams, burnt rubber and muffled bass. The splutter and crack of exhausts and the roar of engines are more real to you than what your brother has submitted to. Yet you want what he has, though you hate what he has. What he has seems unthinkable, unbelievable, and as hollow as you. Yet, the intangible must be attainable, for he has apparently attained it, and you are feeling things that are intangible. Why must the unseen sustain us? You don’t know, and you are not in the cathedral atop the hill – you are at the rally, and so you bring yourself to meld with that part of you that was ripped away, that gives itself to you like droplets to a larger mass of water.
Peace is hard come by, but it’s here if you remain still, if you listen through the noise, past the revs and shouts and whistles and laughter of the breeze, to the unwavering silence, the unconditional, unshakeable spirit.
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