The Ballykillduff Time Papers
The Day That Borrowed Tomorrow
No one in the village noticed the first mistake.
It was small. A kettle boiled before it had been filled.
Mrs Calder stood in her kitchen, staring at the steam rising from an empty kettle, her hand still resting on the cold tap. She frowned, turned the kettle off, and muttered something about age and forgetfulness. By the time she mentioned it later, it sounded ridiculous even to her.
But that was the first place the timelines touched.
In Timeline A, it was Tuesday.
In Timeline B, it was Wednesday.
Neither timeline knew the other existed. They had grown like twin trees from the same seed, branching so subtly apart that only time itself could tell the difference. The sun rose the same way. The people said the same things. Dogs barked at the same postman.
Until Tuesday began borrowing things from Wednesday.
By midday, the baker sold out of bread that had not yet been baked.
Mr Doyle the grocer discovered a crate of apples with bruises shaped like fingers—his fingers—but he distinctly remembered not touching them yet.
The clocks disagreed next.
The church clock struck three twice. One strike was confident. The other was hesitant, as if unsure it had permission.
Children noticed first.
Children always do.
“They’re ahead of us,” said Nora Flynn, watching her reflection in a shop window blink before she did.
“Who are?” asked her brother.
“Us,” she said, uncertainly.
At exactly 4:17 p.m., the two timelines overlapped fully for one breath of existence.
It happened on the bridge.
In Timeline A, a man named Thomas Reeve crossed the river, rehearsing the apology he planned to make that evening—words he had delayed for years.
In Timeline B, Thomas Reeve crossed the same bridge, having already failed to make that apology the night before.
They saw each other.
Not as strangers.
As mirrors with different regrets.
They stopped, inches apart, the river murmuring beneath both versions of the moment.
“You’re late,” said Timeline B Thomas, quietly.
“You’re early,” said Timeline A Thomas.
They understood everything instantly. Time, it turned out, was very clear when it broke.
“Does it help?” asked the man who had already lost his chance.
“Does what?”
“Trying again.”
Timeline A Thomas hesitated.
He thought of the words waiting in his mouth, of how fragile they suddenly seemed.
“I don’t know,” he said.
That was when the overlap ended.
The consequences came softly.
In Timeline A, Thomas did speak that evening—but the words landed wrong, as if already worn out. The apology was accepted politely, but something vital had already gone missing.
In Timeline B, Thomas woke the next morning with a strange peace, as though something heavy had been lifted by someone else.
Across the village, similar trades occurred.
A woman remembered a kindness she hadn’t yet received.
A child cried for a pet that was still alive.
A man avoided an accident because he remembered being hurt.
The timelines corrected themselves by sharing damage.
By Thursday—Tuesday and Wednesday having quietly agreed to let Thursday exist—things settled.
The kettle behaved.
The clocks aligned.
Reflections blinked on time.
But the people were changed.
They became gentler with tomorrow.
More careful with words.
Less certain that time would wait patiently for them.
Some swore they could still feel it, now and then—a faint pressure, like another day leaning close, listening.
Not interfering.
Just remembering.
Part One
The Several Tuesdays of Ballykillduff
A Most Unreliable Account of How Time Misbehaved, Explained Incorrectly, and Was Nevertheless Understood
I. The Rule About Rules
The first rule in Ballykillduff was that rules only applied once they had finished being useful.
The second rule was that no one remembered agreeing to the first rule, which saved a great deal of argument.
On the morning when Tuesday arrived twice—once politely and once with its coat on backwards—Ballykillduff continued exactly as usual, which is to say, incorrectly.
The postman delivered tomorrow’s letters, apologised for the inconvenience, and promised to return yesterday’s parcels when he found them. The butcher sold three pounds of sausages that had already been eaten, and they were widely agreed to be delicious.
Only the clocks objected.
The clocks of Ballykillduff were old-fashioned, proud, and deeply suspicious of novelty. When Tuesday tried to sit beside Wednesday on the mantelpiece of time, the clocks began disagreeing with one another out of professional embarrassment.
The church clock insisted it was almost later.
The school clock maintained it was nearly before.
The pocket watch owned by Mr Seamus O’Rourke stopped entirely and refused to look at anyone.
This was the first sign that two timelines were now living in the village and pretending not to notice each other, which is considered extremely rude in Ballykillduff.
II. The Rule of Forward Memories
The third rule appeared without explanation:
You may remember tomorrow, but only by accident.
This rule took effect immediately.
Mrs Bridget Keane remembered having already burnt the scones she had not yet baked, and therefore watched them very carefully until they burned anyway. The schoolchildren sat an exam they were certain they had failed last week, only to discover they had already passed it next Thursday.
Alice—who was visiting Ballykillduff at the time and had become used to this sort of thing—noticed that people were apologising before bumping into one another.
“Something is leaning,” she said thoughtfully.
“Leaning where?” asked the shopkeeper.
“Against later,” Alice replied. “It’s pressing its elbow into now.”
No one argued with Alice, because arguing with Alice in Ballykillduff had a habit of becoming permanent.
III. The Two Tuesdays
It was eventually agreed (by everyone separately, which counted) that the village now contained:
- Tuesday A – slightly hopeful, prone to second chances
- Tuesday B – mildly disappointed, but better organised
They did not occur one after the other. That would have been sensible.
Instead, they occurred on top of each other, like two transparencies that refused to line up.
On Tuesday A, the milk turned sour too early.
On Tuesday B, it turned sour too late.
Anyone who drank it tasted regret, which was not unpleasant, merely instructive.
A sign appeared outside the pub:
OPEN YESTERDAY
CLOSED LATER
Business was excellent.
IV. The Bridge That Explained Nothing
Every timeline problem in Ballykillduff eventually arrived at the bridge, because bridges were where things admitted they were halfway something else.
Thomas Reeve crossed it on Tuesday A, rehearsing words he meant to say but had postponed until they felt safer.
On Tuesday B, Thomas Reeve crossed the same bridge, having already failed to make that apology the night before.
They met precisely in the middle, where the planks creaked in two different tenses.
“You don’t look surprised,” said Tuesday A Thomas.
“I already was,” said Tuesday B Thomas. “Yesterday.”
They examined one another like mismatched shoes.
“Does it help,” asked the later Thomas, “saying it in time?”
The earlier Thomas opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“I think,” he said slowly, “it helps someone. I’m just not sure which of us.”
That answer satisfied the bridge, which promptly forgot them both.
V. The Rule of Consequences
The fourth rule announced itself by knocking three times and entering anyway:
When timelines touch, consequences must be shared fairly.
No one knew what fairly meant, so Ballykillduff interpreted it creatively.
If someone avoided a mistake in Tuesday A, they would experience the embarrassment in Tuesday B. If a kindness was given twice, it would be remembered once. Lost things were found by people who had not misplaced them.
The village adjusted.
People became careful with promises.
They stopped saving words for better days.
They learned that later was not a location but a rumour.
Children used the overlap for games. They raced themselves. They hid things where they would already have looked. They waved at reflections that waved first.
Adults pretended not to notice and noticed very hard.
VI. Alice and the Final Rule
Alice sat on the low wall near the bridge and listened to the timelines whisper.
“They’re tired,” she said.
“Tired of what?” asked Thomas, now carefully standing only in one day at a time.
“Tired of being useful,” Alice replied. “They want to be ordinary again.”
“Can they?”
Alice considered this.
“Only if everyone stops trying to fix them.”
This became the final rule, though it was never written down:
Things mend themselves once you stop rearranging them.
So Ballykillduff stopped asking which day it was.
They lived it instead.
VII. Thursday Arrives (Eventually)
When Thursday finally came—having waited patiently until it was no longer required—it arrived alone.
The extra Tuesday folded itself neatly into memory. The borrowed Wednesday returned with thanks. The clocks resumed their sulking but agreed on the hour.
The village felt quieter.
Not emptier.
Just… steadier.
People spoke sooner.
Listened longer.
Forgave earlier.
And sometimes, when the light slanted oddly or a kettle boiled too fast, someone would smile and say,
“Ah. Another Tuesday passing through.”
Which, in Ballykillduff, was as close to an explanation as anyone needed.
Part Two
The Day Ballykillduff Leaked into the Rest of Ireland
Being an Officially Unofficial Report on What Happens When a Small Village Forgets to Stay Put
I. The Very First Leak (Which Was Politely Ignored)
Ballykillduff did not intend to spread.
It simply failed to notice where it ended.
This happened at 9:42 on a Thursday that had already been Tuesday twice and was feeling self-conscious about it. A hedgerow on the eastern edge of the village leaned a little too far forward, and when it straightened again, it had moved three feet into the next county.
No one panicked.
Ballykillduff had always been generous with geography.
The hedgerow apologised to a startled sheep, the sheep forgave it, and the matter should have ended there. Unfortunately, the hedge brought Tuesday with it, folded under one branch like a forgotten letter.
By lunchtime, a farmer outside the village was remembering milking cows he had not yet owned.
By teatime, a bus driver in the next town arrived before he departed.
Ireland, it turned out, was about to experience Ballykillduff in small but definite quantities.
II. The Rule That Caused the Trouble
The fifth rule appeared on the noticeboard sometime between notices:
Anything that happens twice becomes portable.
No one remembered pinning it up, which meant it was undoubtedly true.
In Ballykillduff, things had been happening twice all week.
- Tuesdays
- Apologies
- Missed chances
- Cups of tea made but not drunk
These things began to wander.
A regret crossed a field and settled in a post office.
A second chance took the wrong road and ended up in a hairdresser’s.
A perfectly good “I meant to say” drifted into a pub in Cork and was immediately put to use.
Ireland noticed.
III. Reports from Elsewhere (Which Were Filed Incorrectly)
Across the country, mild disturbances occurred and were recorded in notebooks that would later be misplaced.
In Galway, a woman waved at her neighbour, who waved back before she lifted her hand. They agreed never to mention it, which they did repeatedly.
In Dublin, a man missed a train and arrived anyway, slightly annoyed but on time.
In Donegal, a boy fell out of a tree he had not yet climbed and decided, sensibly, not to.
Radio programmes stuttered.
Newsreaders announced tomorrow’s weather and then apologised when it arrived early and rainy.
Experts were consulted. They explained nothing very confidently.
Meanwhile, Ballykillduff continued leaking, not maliciously, but with the distracted air of a teapot that believed the cup would keep up.
IV. Alice Explains It Incorrectly (Which Helps)
Alice was sitting on the low wall again, because walls were good listeners.
“They’re catching it,” she said.
“What?” asked Thomas Reeve, who had learned not to stand in the middle of bridges anymore.
“The habit,” Alice replied. “Ballykillduff’s habit of not finishing days properly.”
“You mean time’s breaking again?”
“No,” Alice said gently. “It’s relaxing.”
She explained that Ballykillduff had stopped insisting on tidy sequences.
First this, then that, then consequences.
Instead, the village allowed:
- Before to visit After
- Later to borrow from Now
- People to arrive at themselves from odd angles
Ireland, long accustomed to patience and postponed certainty, found this disturbingly familiar.
The country did not resist.
That was the real problem.
V. The Department Notices (Eventually)
It was three days before anyone official noticed, and even then it was by accident.
A form was filled out before the incident occurred, which was suspicious but neatly stapled.
The Department of Chronological Integrity (Temporary) convened, adjourned, reconvened yesterday, and sent a man with a briefcase that ticked faintly when ignored.
He arrived in Ballykillduff on a bus that left tomorrow.
“I’m here about the leak,” he announced.
“Which one?” asked the postman.
The man hesitated.
“The… national one?”
“Oh,” said the postman. “That’ll settle itself.”
This was not the answer the Department had prepared for.
VI. The Rule Ireland Adds (Without Asking)
Ireland, which had been quietly watching, introduced its own rule:
If it feels like it should have happened, it probably did.
This rule spread faster than Ballykillduff.
People stopped waiting for perfect moments.
They made phone calls they had been postponing since childhood.
They forgave arguments that had not yet occurred.
They arrived early and stayed late and occasionally both.
The Department attempted containment.
They set up barriers that people walked around before they were built.
They issued statements that were remembered as comforting but could not be located.
They tried to roll time back and found it had already gone to the shop.
The ticking briefcase stopped ticking.
No one wound it again.
VII. The Moment of Maximum Overlap (Which Was Very Quiet)
At precisely 11:11 (all of them), Ballykillduff overlapped with the rest of Ireland in the smallest possible way.
Not a collision.
A sympathy.
For one breath, everyone felt:
- A chance they nearly took
- A word they almost said
- A kindness that could still be done
There were no visions.
No thunder.
Just a national pause, as if the country had put its finger between pages to mark a place.
Then it passed.
VIII. The Leak Stops (Mostly)
Ballykillduff did not retreat.
It simply stopped spreading.
The hedgerow returned, embarrassed.
Tuesday folded itself into folklore.
The clocks resumed disagreeing only in acceptable ways.
The Department dissolved quietly, having already done so last week.
Ireland remained changed.
Slightly out of step.
Gently forgiving.
Unreasonably patient with time.
People began saying things like:
“Ah sure, it’ll happen when it’s meant to.”
And meaning it.
Alice left the wall at last.
“It won’t do that again, will it?” asked Thomas.
Alice smiled.
“Not like that,” she said. “Next time it’ll be something smaller.”
“Smaller than a country?”
“Yes,” Alice replied. “Larger than a moment.”
And somewhere, just beyond notice, a kettle boiled a little too soon.
Which, after all, was how it always began.
Part Three
The Day Ballykillduff Realised It Wasn’t the Source
Being a Thorough Explanation Offered in Bad Faith, Corrected by Events, and Endorsed Reluctantly by a Hedge
I. The Apology That Arrived First
The morning it began, Ballykillduff received an apology.
It was delivered in a plain envelope with no stamp, no postmark, and the faint smell of rain that hadn’t fallen yet. The postman—who in Ballykillduff was called Paddy Half-Note because he whistled tunes that never finished—held it between two fingers as though it might tick.
“It’s for the village,” he announced, as if villages routinely received private correspondence.
“From who?” asked Bridget Keane, leaning over the counter in the shop.
Paddy turned the envelope over.
“It says, From Later.”
“Later who?” said Seamus O’Rourke.
Paddy shrugged. “Just Later.”
He opened it with the careful air of a man who had once opened a bill and found a wasp.
Inside was a single sheet of paper, blank except for one line written in very tidy handwriting:
SORRY ABOUT THE CONFUSION.
YOU WERE NOT THE BEGINNING.
No signature. No date.
And on the back, as if whoever wrote it had only remembered at the last moment to be helpful:
PLEASE STOP TAKING CREDIT.
Bridget Keane read it twice. The first time she frowned. The second time she laughed, which alarmed everyone because Bridget’s laughter usually meant someone had slipped on a wet floor and deserved it.
“Well,” she said, folding the paper. “That settles it.”
“It settles what?” said Seamus.
“That we were never the problem,” Bridget replied, with the satisfied tone of a person who had long suspected this and was pleased to have it confirmed by mysterious stationery.
II. The Hedge That Refused to Behave
The hedgerow at the edge of Ballykillduff had been acting guilty for days.
It wasn’t a dramatic hedge. It didn’t sprout roses or spell insults in ivy. It was a normal, respectable Irish hedgerow—thorny, reliable, full of small birds with opinions.
But lately it had been doing two suspicious things:
- Leaning, as if listening to a conversation in the next field.
- Returning, as if it had changed its mind and wanted nobody to notice.
That morning, Alice stood in front of it with her hands behind her back, like an inspector of nonsense.
Alice was visiting Ballykillduff again, as she often did when places began misbehaving. Some people claimed she attracted oddness; others insisted she was simply the first to speak to it politely.
“You’ve been moving,” Alice said to the hedge.
The hedge rustled.
“That’s not an answer,” Alice added.
A blackbird hopped out onto a branch and looked at her with the stern expression of someone who had never forgiven clocks.
“It’s not moving,” the blackbird said, which in Ballykillduff was not especially shocking because birds frequently gave their opinions, though usually in smaller words.
“It is,” said Alice.
“It isn’t,” said the blackbird. “It’s remembering.”
Alice blinked.
“Remembering what?”
The blackbird gave a little shudder, as if a cold thought had passed through its feathers.
“The boundary,” it said. “It keeps forgetting where it ends. And then it remembers. And then it forgets again. It’s very tiring.”
Alice glanced along the hedge. It looked exactly like a hedge. That was how such things got away with it.
“Is Ballykillduff leaking again?” Alice asked.
The blackbird made a small, offended noise.
“Ballykillduff isn’t a bucket,” it said. “Stop saying that.”
III. The Rule That Wasn’t Ballykillduff’s
Ballykillduff had always had rules.
Not written ones. Ballykillduff distrusted writing. Writing made things official, and once things were official, they expected to be obeyed. Ballykillduff preferred rules that behaved like cats: present when they felt like it, absent when you tried to show them to visitors.
Rules like:
- If you knock and no one answers, you are probably early.
- If someone offers you tea twice, accept the second one.
- If a clock insists on being right, it’s lying.
The recent trouble—Tuesdays arriving twice, memories turning inside out, people meeting their own regrets on bridges—had been blamed on Ballykillduff in a tired, national sort of way.
“Ah sure,” the rest of Ireland had said, “that’s Ballykillduff for you.”
Ballykillduff, being polite, had not corrected them.
But now—standing by a hedge that was apparently “remembering” its boundary—Alice felt something shift.
Not time. Something subtler.
Responsibility.
She walked back into the village and found Thomas Reeve by the bridge, doing what he did now: standing on land, not planks, and looking as if he’d learned something he hadn’t wanted to know.
He saw the envelope in her hand.
“Another message from Later?” he asked, wearily.
Alice held it out.
Thomas read the line—YOU WERE NOT THE BEGINNING—and his mouth tightened.
“So we didn’t cause it,” he said.
“No,” Alice replied. “We just noticed it.”
Thomas stared out at the river.
“That feels worse,” he said.
Alice nodded. “Yes.”
IV. Ireland’s First Denial (Which Was Very Irish)
The first phone call came from a radio station in Dublin.
It rang in the shop because the shop had the best phone, having been repaired three times by three different men who each insisted the others were imaginary.
Bridget answered.
“Ballykillduff,” she said.
There was a pause on the line, as if the caller had expected something else, like Hello.
“This is RTÉ,” said a nervous voice. “We’ve… had some reports.”
“Ah yes,” said Bridget, pleasantly. “The time.”
“What?”
“The time,” Bridget repeated. “It’s after behaving.”
“We’re not saying it’s time,” said the voice quickly. “We’re saying it’s… a localised—”
“It’s not localised,” Bridget interrupted.
Another pause.
“How would you know?” demanded the voice, offended.
Bridget leaned on the counter.
“Because,” she said, “we just got a letter apologising for us taking the blame.”
Silence.
Then, faintly: “Could you read the letter on air?”
“No,” Bridget said. “It’ll only encourage it.”
V. The First True Spread (Which Had Been There All Along)
By afternoon, it was undeniable.
Not the leak.
The history of the leak.
Reports came in—quiet ones, personal ones, the kind people only confessed after checking there was no one else in the room.
In Waterford, a woman admitted she had once found a loaf of bread that tasted like Thursday when it was still Monday, and she had blamed her oven.
In Limerick, a man confessed he had apologised to his brother five years ago, then remembered he hadn’t, and was no longer sure which version had healed them.
In Galway, an entire street swore their clocks had once struck thirteen, but only when the parish priest was in the bath, which made it difficult to cite.
In Donegal, an old fisherman said, “Ah, the sea’s been doing that for years,” and refused to elaborate, which was the most convincing evidence anyone had yet provided.
The pattern was becoming visible:
Ballykillduff wasn’t making it happen.
Ballykillduff was simply the first place where the weirdness stopped being shrugged off as “one of those things.”
Ireland had always been slightly out of step with itself.
It just hadn’t admitted it.
VI. The Department Arrives, Late and Confident
The Department of Chronological Integrity (Temporary) arrived on a Friday that insisted it was Tuesday.
They came in a grey car with a small antenna, as if they expected Time to broadcast its intentions on FM.
The lead inspector stepped out wearing a tie that looked as though it had been ironed by someone angry.
His name, he informed them, was Mr Quibble.
He produced a clipboard, because clipboards were the shield of the unimaginative.
“We are here,” Mr Quibble announced, “to investigate your… temporal irregularities.”
Seamus O’Rourke peered at him.
“We don’t have any,” Seamus said.
Mr Quibble lifted his chin.
“Our files—”
“Your files are late,” Bridget told him.
Mr Quibble’s nostrils widened in the manner of a man smelling disrespect.
“The rest of the country is experiencing disturbances,” he said.
Alice, who had been sitting on the wall, spoke softly.
“Not disturbances,” she said. “Reminders.”
Mr Quibble’s gaze snapped to her.
“And you are?”
“Alice,” Alice replied.
Mr Quibble frowned as if that should have been sufficient explanation.
“Where are you from, Alice?”
Alice considered this seriously, as though choosing between directions.
“From a place that doesn’t pretend,” she said at last.
Mr Quibble wrote something down, which was a mistake because writing things down in Ballykillduff made them real.
His pen paused.
It began to scribble by itself.
Mr Quibble stared at his own handwriting appearing without permission:
STOP LOOKING FOR THE SOURCE.
LOOK FOR THE HABIT.
Mr Quibble swallowed.
“Who wrote that?” he demanded.
The pen underlined it twice.
No one answered.
VII. The Habit of Not Finishing Things
That evening, the village gathered in the pub, because pubs were where Ballykillduff held serious discussions, mainly to ensure they remained unserious.
Paddy Half-Note whistled a tune that looped and looped and never reached the last note, which made several people uneasy in a way they could not name.
Thomas Reeve drank tea (he had given up pints during the double-Tuesday, fearing he might wake up in the wrong choice). Alice sat by the fire, watching the flames as if they had secrets.
Mr Quibble sat stiffly with his clipboard, which now refused to stay closed.
“Well,” said Seamus, “if we weren’t the beginning, what were we?”
Bridget answered before anyone else could:
“We were the first to notice the country’s been leaving things undone.”
Silence.
Even Paddy stopped whistling halfway through half a note.
Bridget’s words hung in the air like a coat on a chair.
Alice nodded.
“That’s it,” she said. “Ireland has a habit.”
“What habit?” asked Thomas.
Alice held up a finger.
“A habit of postponement,” she said. “Of holding things in the mouth and never saying them. Of leaving doors half-shut. Of letting apologies grow old because you hope the need for them will expire.”
Mr Quibble cleared his throat.
“That’s… cultural,” he said, as if culture were a mild infection.
“No,” Alice replied. “It’s temporal.”
She leaned forward.
“When you don’t finish things,” she said gently, “time keeps them. And when time keeps too much, it starts to… bulge.”
Seamus stared.
“Time bulges?”
“It’s not flattering,” said Alice.
Mr Quibble’s clipboard flipped open and wrote:
UNFINISHED BUSINESS IS HEAVY.
HEAVY THINGS SINK THROUGH DAYS.
Thomas Reeve looked down at his tea.
He knew what that meant. Everyone did, in their own way, which is to say they pretended not to.
VIII. The Night of National Overlap (Which Was Mostly Quiet)
The overlap did not happen with fireworks.
It happened the way most important Irish things happened:
quietly, late, and with a sense that nobody wanted to draw attention to it in case it became a fuss.
At 11:11—an hour that was symmetrical enough to be trusted and suspicious enough to be respected—Ireland paused.
Not physically.
Internally.
Across the country, people felt a small pressure behind the ribs, like the beginning of tears that decided to become a laugh instead.
A woman in Cork took out her phone and called her father, and when he answered she said, “I don’t know why I’m ringing,” and he said, “I do,” and neither of them explained.
A man in Sligo stood on his doorstep and said aloud, “I’m sorry,” though no one was there to hear it, which was the point.
A teenager in Dublin wrote a message to a friend she hadn’t spoken to in months, then stared at it, then sent it, then immediately remembered she had already sent it yesterday—except she hadn’t.
A priest in Mayo, half-asleep, dreamed he was late for his own sermon and woke with the strange certainty that God was patient but Time was not.
And in Ballykillduff, the hedge trembled and then—very softly—moved back into place.
Remembering its boundary at last.
IX. Mr Quibble’s Crisis of Professional Faith
Mr Quibble returned to his hotel room in the nearby town (because he refused to sleep in Ballykillduff on principle, as one refuses to sleep beside a dog that can speak).
He opened his briefcase.
Inside were forms.
The forms had changed.
Every form now bore the same stamped heading:
DEPARTMENT OF ACCEPTING THAT THIS IS NORMAL
Mr Quibble stared until his eyes watered.
He picked up the phone to call headquarters, but the dial tone sounded like laughter.
His tie loosened by itself.
His clipboard—still open—wrote one last line with the slow patience of something that had been waiting years to be believed:
BALLYKILLDUFF IS A SYMPTOM, NOT A CAUSE.
IT IS WHERE IRELAND’S UNFINISHED THINGS COME TO BREATHE.
Mr Quibble sat down hard on the bed.
Outside his window, a streetlamp flickered as though winking.
Mr Quibble did not wink back.
X. The True Explanation (Which Arrived as a Story)
The next morning, the apology letter was gone.
Bridget swore she had put it in the biscuit tin for safekeeping, which in Ballykillduff was considered the most secure location available. But the tin now contained only biscuits and a faint smell of paper.
“Time took it back,” Bridget said, unfazed. “It always does.”
Alice walked to the bridge again with Thomas.
“So what are we, then?” Thomas asked.
Alice watched the river, which carried yesterday’s reflections downstream and never brought them back, even when requested.
“We’re a place where things are allowed to happen,” Alice said.
“That’s all?”
“That’s everything,” Alice replied.
Thomas frowned.
“But why here?”
Alice smiled, and the smile was both kind and unsettling.
“Because Ballykillduff has always been slightly sideways,” she said. “Not broken. Just… not aligned with pretending.”
Thomas considered this.
“So when Ireland didn’t finish things… they drifted here?”
“Yes,” Alice said. “Unsaid words. Unmade apologies. Unchosen chances. They pooled.”
“And the Tuesdays?”
Alice nodded. “Those too. Days that didn’t get used properly. Days that were wasted or postponed or spent waiting for courage.”
Thomas’s throat tightened.
He thought of all the evenings he’d told himself, Tomorrow.
He thought of how tomorrow had finally walked into the present and said, Excuse me. You dropped this.
“So we weren’t the source,” Thomas said again, quietly.
Alice touched the bridge railing, as if comforting it.
“No,” she said. “You were the first honest mirror.”
XI. What Changed in Ireland (Which Was Not a Law)
After the overlap, Ireland did not become a different country.
It became a slightly more finished one.
Not dramatically. Not suddenly. It was not the sort of change you could announce on the news and expect applause for.
It was a private shift.
People stopped saving kindness for special occasions.
They made phone calls sooner.
They visited more.
They said small truths before they became large regrets.
And when oddness occurred—when a kettle boiled too soon, when a train arrived before it departed, when someone remembered a conversation they hadn’t yet had—people did not immediately blame Ballykillduff.
They paused.
They asked themselves:
What have I left unfinished?
This question was terrible.
It was also useful.
XII. Ballykillduff’s Final Rule (Which No One Wrote Down)
Before Alice left, she stood again by the hedge.
The blackbird was there, looking tired but pleased, as if it had won an argument against the universe and was now exhausted from being right.
“Well?” Alice asked.
The blackbird tilted its head.
“We’re not the source,” it said. “Satisfied?”
Alice nodded.
“And the rest of Ireland?” she asked.
The blackbird hopped closer.
“They’ll manage,” it said. “They’ve been doing it for centuries. Just… more quietly than they admit.”
Alice smiled.
“What’s the rule, then?” she asked.
The blackbird considered her carefully, then spoke with the solemnity of a creature about to deliver wisdom it didn’t want credit for:
“Finish what you start,” it said.
Alice raised an eyebrow.
“That’s not very Carrollian,” she teased.
The blackbird scowled.
“It’s extremely Carrollian,” it replied. “It only sounds sensible because you’re finally listening.”
Alice laughed, and this time the laughter felt like a door closing softly rather than a warning.
She turned to leave.
Behind her, the hedge—without leaning, without sneaking—settled into its proper place.
And far away, across Ireland, a thousand small things that had been waiting in the corners of days finally stepped forward and said:
Right. Are we doing this, then?
Time, relieved, stopped bulging.
For the moment.
Which was all anyone could reasonably ask.
THE END
The Crazymad Writer Writes Again 