It was an early summer’s morning and as the sun crept over distant mountains illuminating the rolling hills and parcelled fields that she called home Mariah looked west, deep out into the Atlantic where she would soon plough through weeks of fair and foul sea to start a new life.

Her house sat close to the road, on one corner of the village crossroads, opposite the blacksmith’s forge that sat across the quay road that led to the sea. The gable ends of both buildings faced away from the sea and towards the road that led out of the village, towards Dromgallagh hill rising in the distance, it stretched north to south almost separating the village from the outside world. Claggan village felt insulated, and safe, and it was home to Mariah for the first 18 years of her life. Today she would leave forever.

As she peered out of the cracked glass of the bedroom she shared with her siblings, chin resting on her hands, she should see a distant silhouette walking through swirling dust clouds kicked up by summer sea breezes from dirt roads baked in the hot summer sun. It could be her Uncle, or a friend, perhaps her teacher or even their land agent coming to bid farewell to another departure for today she would leave forever.

In the stillness of that moment her eyes drifted, connecting with the unseen entities of her surroundings, the things she would probably never see again and it filled her heart with sorrow. The diagonal crack in the corner of her bedroom window whose angle changed as she grew taller, the chipped paint on the window frame that formed patterns only she could see, the shadows cast by trees that danced in the wind and continually changed as they grew and the seasons changed, the sleepy cat stretching in the morning sun, the distant chatter of livestock in their fields, the warmth of family and a home that she took for granted would soon be distant memories for today she would leave forever.

Her mother called from the kitchen downstairs. The smell of freshly made porridge and tea wafted up the narrow stairway the led from the kitchen to the two small bedrooms upstairs. Mariah turned to look at the collection blankets scattered around the room that entombed her sleeping siblings. Stepping gingerly between the folds she left the room and descended the old wooden staircase and entered the kitchen. Her mother had covered the heavy oak table a clean sheet and laid out the few pieces of cutlery and crockery she had. She was busy cooking on the open fire as Mariah stepped onto the well-worn stone kitchen floor. She stood there for a moment, looking past her mother and out through the open door that led to the yard where her father was returning from the outhouses with an urn full of fresh milk and eggs for breakfast. The morning sun now hung low in the sky, the same sun she would see rising from a different home on a different continent for today she would leave forever.

© Andrew Tully, 2014