“Now I return, and I watch myself as I was then. Now I stand over myself like Cassiel in Berlin, a mute guardian angel, or like a cold monument over a grave. Now I watch myself as I was then, and I know what is going to come.” The setting here in an innocuous AirBnb room above a business premises opposite a phone shop somewhere in Dublin. And the situation is framed in secrecy. O’Shea uses repetition to ram home the horror of a single moment that changes a relationship forever. This entire story is a fresco of grief. The simple technique of going back in and in and in to the layers, while seeing or revealing something new, is dizzying, unnerving. “Everything is slowly circling inwards, and I watch myself and I know I don’t realise it’s happening.” This close lens makes you feel like you’re witnessing something sacred (as well as terrible) and rather than feel embarrassed, it becomes a weird privilege. I have to confess Colm is a personal friend, but that usually means for writers: do not talk about or ask about the work! I don’t think I’ve ever told him this story makes me cry. He has a novel on the same theme, [Untitled]: A Meditation, described as a ‘work of experimental nonfiction,’ which is like spending a year inside this same story, forgetting how to come back out of it. Completely unique and immersive.

First published as part of The Stinging Fly online fiction series, September 13, 2023. You can read it here and listen to Mary O’Donoghue discuss it with Nicole Flattery here