ENGLISH GOLD MEDAL ESSAY WINNERS

PRIZEGIVING - TUESDAY, 20TH MAY 2008

"One Hour a Week"
By Kilian Butler

The IV drip continued its monotonous journey to my body. Drip! Drip! Drip! It had stopped bothering me after the first week or so. It wasn’t as if I had a choice. In this lonely, dark cell I have the pleasure now of calling home I don’t have a lot of choice. The calling from another nearby room quickly turned to wailing as it went ignored. The sound of china bumping together as the tea tray exited the lift.
This was my life now, lying and listening. Not much ever changed around here and visitors were kept to a minimum…by choice, unfortunately. The roar of traffic, mere yards outside my window served just to remind me what I had had. What I had lost.

What day was it? Tuesday? No, Tuesday was the day the guitarist came in to play for the others. And I hear nothing. It was Wednesday, my favourite day of the week. I heard a car rolling over the gravel outside. I hoped that it was them, wishing I could look out the window. The wailing seemed to fade into the background as hope soared to the fore. I waited a minute, maybe two, listening.

I remembered the sound of the car rolling back out onto the road between the grand stone pillars from my entrance to this bleak world.

As the car’s singular sound blended into the free world of the others outside I heard her coming down the corridor, briskly as usual, and then stopping right before the door, as if questioning entering. The same every week. But that was it, every week. I could count on her to be there.

Her mother never came with her. She dropped her off and picked her up from this place. It seemed she tried to deny I was here, put it out of her head. She had come once. A few days after I was stable enough to be moved here. Brain dead, she supposed. When she touched my face I could see she had stopped wearing her ring, and then she went back to holding his hand, after he emerged from the shadows under the clock as they left.

It was a Tuesday. The guitar man strummed from down the hall. It was a lot of Tuesdays before they let Aoife visit. The best day of my life in this cell.
It seemed she had worked up the courage to come in as my door slid open. A dull orange glow from the hallway penetrated into the relative darkness of my room, interrupted only by the dark outline of her small figure. She walked quickly into the room, leaving the door to glide to its frame. Across to the window out of my sight. Placing the small pot onto the windowsill. Stepping back, glancing from me to the pot.  She stood forward again and slid the pot to the end of the window where it entered just into my eye line. She was good like that.

I grew it myself, in school.
Glancing around my room and into the pristine bathroom I couldn’t use, she looked for something to fix or change. But, like always, there was no change except the constant ticking of the wall mounted clock, as if counting down the moment until I left this room, this life forever.

Sometimes I wondered what was after. Mostly I just longed for Wednesdays. Finding nothing but a small plastic spoon the ground, which she promptly binned, she pulled the bit chair beside the bed and sat quietly. Occasionally she got the nerve to grab my hand and hold it for a few seconds. I couldn’t feel it but knowing it was there was a comforting thought. The first week she came I could see her pinching at my little finger, as if trying to wake me from this terrible dream. I wish she had.
She had been there too. I heard her murmuring it to him the day she had been here. Two nights in hospital but a quick recovery. She was probably on crutches because she still appeared to limp a bit that first Wednesday. She stayed by my side, not even glancing through the window to look out at the world, at what she was giving up to be here.
I was her world for that one hour.

One of the carers shuffled in with a tray of tea and some cups and biscuits. She offered her some, but she declined graciously. On her way out the carer left a packet of biscuits on the stand. Just in case.
Aoife smiled at her and turned back to me. I didn’t know why she still came, but I was thankful for it. We hadn’t gotten on before. She always said she wished things had been different. I think she blamed me for me and her mum. None of that mattered now.

She worked up the nerve, pulling up my sheets and then holding my hand. She knew she’d have to leave soon. Another minute of living my life was all I got. The car rolled back in, killing me for another week.

She held my hand, stood up, leaned and kissed me on my cheek.
-Bye Dad.

She put the chair back and left, not looking back as she passed out into the hall.

The hour every week that keeps me alive.

"A Date with Disaster"
By Niall Deegan

I’m waiting at the street corner of the restaurant. It’s absolutely freezing out here! “I knew she’d be late.” I whispered. There I was with my arms folded, my knees banging together to create warmth and blowing warm air out to the cold to make it look like I was smoking.

I shouldn’t have let Dave set me up with a blind date, you can never trust them. I was wondering if Dave was just winding me up. He really likes to annoy people, especially me! I zipped up my Abercrombie top that I only wore on special occasions and got ready to leave, accepting that my date hadn’t shown. Dave told me she had long, gorgeous blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. I thought it was too good to be true. As if a girl like that would be stuck for a date. I was told her name was Alison and that she went to Our Lady’s across the road. I now realised she definitely wasn’t coming, seeing that she was a good half an hour late. I took a long, deep breath and started walking away from the restaurant.

Half way through my journey down the road I was stopped by a beautiful girl and she said, “Excuse me. Are you Niall?” I looked at her and said, “Yes”. She chuckled and apologized for being late and announced that she, in fact, was Alison. We gave each other a polite handshake and made our way to the restaurant. 

“Oh my God! I love this restaurant! It’s animal!” Alison exclaimed. When we got in we went to the man at the main desk. I approached him and said, “I’m Niall Deegan. I made a booking for a table”. He nodded his head and showed us to our table. Alison and I sat down. “Oh my God! I love your top, it’s amazing.” she exclaimed again. This Oh my God stuff was really starting to irritate me. We were then handed our menus. Alison took one look at it and said, very slowly, “OOH MYY GOD, I LOVE CAESAR SALAD!” 

The waiter came and gave us both a glass of water. To change the subject I asked Alison about school. Once again she started the sentence with “Oh my God” and she started yak yak yaking. I realised there is a lot more to girls than looks. She had a habit of waving her arms around when she talked. Then she swung her arms and knocked my glass of water all over my lap. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.,” she said. I said to myself that if she says “Oh my God “ one more time I’m going to explode.

I now realised why I was set up with this date. Dave knew this OMG stuff would annoy me! It was a date with disaster!

"Courage"
By Éanna Morley

In the days before time began, before the first epoch, the world knew only chaos. Incomprehensible evils and beasts of pure evil roamed the barren deserts and infertile plains. During this time, the Gods met in a great hall, hewn from the very clouds it sat atop. It shone like a great golden beacon and would soon be known as the sun. In this mighty hall of gold and pure white stone, the Gods had convened and discussed the fate of their one disgrace, Earth. Soon after its creation, all the evil of the universe took hold and banished the Gods from their own home. There was much bickering and debating for the Gods are not patient beings. In due time it was decided. The creators and sustainers of the universe put their hopes into one being of mortal nature. His was not a divine soul, nor did he possess the great magic of the creators. His name was Courage.

Into this Hero the gods poured all their strength, willingness and, most of all, bravery. Proud of their creation, the gods placed their hero in the Land of the Dead, a ghostly place strewn with caverns, ravines and craters. This land became known to mortals as The Moor. It was in this land the Hero began his first trial under the watchful eyes of the creators.

A great hush descended upon the universe and a might beast rose form an endless ravine. It was Anxiety, a giant three-headed hound and guardian of the dead. Ever brave, Courage faced his opponent with seemingly idiotic confidence. The great battle ensued and Courage suffered many wounds but still faced the beast and with one sweep of his sword, lopped off the three heads in quick succession. After much writhing and screaming, the hound’s body lay motionless on the dusty white ground.

For the first time the Gods knew awe. They realised what they had created was far more powerful than even they could understand. Courage had won, but the great beast Anxiety had left its mark. From that day forward Courage carried all his fears and worries with him, no longer foolishly charging into fights he could not possibly win. However, this was no weakness. It only made Courage stronger and smarter in the face of adversity. Pleased with their mortal, the creators set him to his purpose and sent him to Earth to rid it of its evils.

Courage fought many horrible beasts on that dark land. Pain was but one beast he faced for the first time. Again, this battle only made him stronger. It would seem Courage was unstoppable and the Gods knew glee and danced as Gods do. However, it was his final battle that proved the end of the Hero.
The last creature to roam Earth was no ghostly sight. No wings, no horns, it looked no more than another mortal, just as Courage looked yet different somehow. This beast’s name was Love. Hardened and weary, Courage once more faced a creature of immeasurable power. As Courage went to swing his mighty sword, he found he could not. This feeling before him was strange. It had not faced to fight him nor repel his attacks but he still could not attack it. Courage lay down his weapon and rested.
When he awoke, Love was gone and he himself felt different. Similar to after his previous battles Courage felt stronger. The Gods knew this. Fearing their own creation, these divine beings fled the very world they had forged, never to return. Courage, with his newfound power, brought to Earth many different things. Great seas for simple creatures to swim in, vast forests with such diverse life as would amaze a common man. However, the most important of his achievements was to create mortals. Knowing how he himself had grown stronger, the Hero filled his people with courage, anxiety, pain and, most of all, love. For it is through love true strength can be.

"Finding Yourself in a Situation Outside Your Control"
By Niall O’Connell

This is a story about a young man, Jason Byrne. It begins at the end with Jason lying on a bed, cuffed to a wall, an ugly looking cut, freshly stitched over his right eye, weeping blood steadily. He is staring absentmindedly at the carnage below is barred cell window. Cars smouldering below the window cast grim shadows across the dark street. Figures occasionally appeared outside casting menacing looking shadows against the graffiti covered walls.

His head was in agony, it felt as though someone was deliberately driving a screw through it, each turn leaving him writhing in pain. He put his hand up to his face and let out a scream of horror as it came back blood strewn. Five seconds later he blacked out. He could hear the anxious shouts of a man come clattering towards him, his footsteps echoing off the concrete walls and floor.

He was too late; Jason had slipped into the void, hanging by a single thread of life in a coma.

His life flashed before him: his mother getting beaten in their small seventh story apartment; his older brother getting arrested; his dad leaving him. A well of grief and anger rose up in him so strong that he knew he would haunt the people who caused him such pain for the rest of his life. This thought flickered on, his memories racing by, pausing only ever so slightly until he reached today.

He was outside the Dáil on Kildare Street. A small congregation of about ten or twelve youths stood jeering a massive army of orange clad old men, women and youths, all proudly wearing orange blazers, flying vibrant banners and they had a determined look about them.

‘Scum’ he muttered to himself and he joined the youthful, zealous republicans in jeering them. It was something he didn’t understand. He only knew one thing he hated the ‘Bloody Brits’.

At twelve the vast columns of marchers began a journey they and we would never forget, the infamous ‘Love Ulster’ parade. They marched with joy towards the heart a republican city which had long struggled to rid itself of ‘the vermin’ called the British. People cast furtive glances as them, curious to their intentions. Their drums were like a secret signal to an underground movement of resistance.

They were flanked everywhere by angry crowds shouting obscenities and abuses at them. Held back by a pitifully small amount of Gardaí who looked as if they would have preferred to be anywhere but here. They were the last barrier between two sides who hated each other so much.

The marchers began to look at each other. Terror etched on their faces, realising what a disastrous mistake they had made. It was like walking into a lion’s den. As they grew frightened their orderly march broke. Even the drums waned at the sight of thousands of angry looking youths trying to reach them, to beat them, to teach them a lesson. Their terror could be clearly seen. They scurried forward like a cornered mouse desperate for refuge, while getting further and further into danger. Finally facing a wall of abuse they stopped and disbanded for fears of safety.

But it was too late, five minutes later all hell broke loose. Violence erupted as steamed up youths surged forward, casting aside the flimsy barriers the Gardaí had erected.

Jason was caught up in the rush. Like a piece of driftwood in a stormy sea he was flung side to side before eventually freeing himself. Anarchy had broken out, people no longer cared about the consequences of the law. Jason an impoverished youth saw this as his opportunity to strike and he and others grabbed. Vast gangs looted and plundered elegant shops, stealing all manner of good. At first Jason was joyous at his newly acquired material goods but pangs of guilt and fear quickly engulfed him. He threw them to the ground in disgust and in the blink of an eye opportunistic scavengers had whisked them away.

No matter how he tried he could not escape the rioting. Everywhere he turned groups of youths and Gardaí clashed. He couldn’t free himself, he was trapped. Everywhere he turned he was sent back by a rush of people. A charge by the Gardaí brought a sense of hope to him. ‘I’ll escape, they’ll help me’ he thought but they were indifferent to his plea.

The world seemed to slow, out of the corner of his eye a baton came crashing into view. With a sickening thud it hit him. The ground fell from under him and he collapsed in a bloody heap of the road.

When he finally woke up Jason found himself trapped once more in a six by eight concrete cell. A solitary window, barred of course, allowed streams of moonlight into his cell. He was lying on a bed cuffed to the wall. His head was throbbing and he blacked out.

Jason never woke again. He was trapped in a situation out of his control. He served a prison sentence in his coma and he never saw the light of day again.

"City Streets"
By Eoghan Regan

Gritty, cracked concrete slabs of crumbling footstones line the desolate city streets as a layer of pure mist drapes across the city. The orange buzzing glow of the street lights watch down over the empty streets. Imposing their might over the shorter poles that stand at arms with them. Chewing gum is speckled across the crumbling slabs as if it were paint, flecked from a great artist’s brush.

Although the city is alive with colour during the day the darkness has simplified the city into a faded black town with an over wash of orange. The air is thick and clammy as you breathe it in. It leaves you with a taste of vomit as you exhale. Clean, sharp blades of cold drag against your skin and the city is alive with sounds of sirens and restless dogs, which fade as their masters tend to them.

In the midst of all the excitement a sleeping bag, like an ancient palace houses the frozen body of frozen body of a prince. Prince of the streets, this boy is supreme and sublime, ruler of the orange slab footsteps, to distance noises of a city asleep. You see, in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. He clutches riches in a Styrofoam cup which he would wave by day at the peasants that pass him and, in fear of his power, pay their tithe to him.

His frozen fingers drag his blankets closer to his chest as a skeleton would close a tomb from the inside.

We know little of this man but know much of his situation. He is but another victim of god’s great plan for us all. He drew the short straw I would guess.

His eyes creak shut like a rusted blind and his pupils contract like an imploding star. They narrow then explode, release the individual colour of his eyes, the green that someone once stared into, escaped into ether. His soul swims into beyond. The prince slumps into a fairytale sleep. Asleep  forever. The city streets claim but another weary soul.

The buzzing of the city is, for an instant, silenced in honour  to their fallen prince. But then the humming returns, a brief moment of silence is over and the city lifts once more. The dogs begin to bark and the sirens sing monotonously as the street lights begin their arduous buzzing til day break.

The city will not stop nor slow for any of its inhabitants as the royal family of the street has an infinite bloodline, and soon another will take the young prince’s place as the silent ruler of the city streets.