Table of Contents
Inside
My Imaginary Friends
Let Me Introduce Myself
Parental Advice
Out of Place, Out of Time
Save Me from Myself
That Was Then
Polite Introductions and Such
Rattled
Boy Alone on a Park Bench
Testing One Two Three
Rude Awakening
Vega
And Now You Get to Meet My Mom
Introducing My Dad
On the Bus
Upside-Down Universe
Help
Clues
Research
Boy on a Mission
Not Just a Pile of Rocks
Uncle Seamus Remembered
The Phone Call
And Then Something Strange Happened
The Story So Far
My Parents’ Ireland
My Irish Blood
Eight Things Not to Do in Ireland
One Thing To Do in Ireland
Girl in My Bedroom
Travel
Loneliness Squared
English Class
Help me, Jonesy
Flying to Knocknarea
Report Card
Parental Battleground
A Turn of Events
A Theory for Everything
But
My Father’s List of Things to Do and Not to Do in Ireland
33,000 Feet
Like Coming Home
The Bus
The Long Way Home
First Night in Ireland
Warrior Queen
Knocknarea
After Knocknarea
Seamus Speaks
Paths to Nowhere
Saved by a Horse
The Lonely Man
Hauntings
Belief
Beaches
The Coasts of Sligo
Call from Home
Down and Out in Ballyconnell
Streedagh
The Sand, the Sea, the Sky
The Cove
Night
Morning
Rebecca
The Past
Time
Rebecca’s Tale
Belief
Liam
Life at Streedagh
Rebecca Speaks
What I Know
Words
Uncle Seamus
Introductions
Seamus Speaks
Time to Leave
Return to Streedagh
A Fire of Peat
Never-Ending
Sad Days in Heaven
Time
Drink of Darkness
Unfolding Story
The Arrival
History
The Dreamer Awakes
Return to Knocknarea
Inside
When you are young
you have
imaginary friends
right?
You
make them up and
hang out with them
have adventures you can
never have
with real people.
I had a whole crowd
of friends who
didn’t exist
outside of my head.
Real people were
well
boring.
Adults were the worst.
They say How are you?
And I usually say nothing
because I know they can’t handle
the truth.
Some askWhat do you want to be
when you grow up?
And sometimes I answer
I want to live in my own kingdom
an island filled with amazing beings
only I can imagine.
My Imaginary Friends
They
spoke to me
and told me stories
urged me to do crazy things
like
make parachutes out of sheets
and jump from
the shed roof.
to juggle knives
and study the nature of
fire.
They told me where to look for
ghosts
and demons
and sometimes they
were not lying
although sometimes
they just wanted trouble.
(My father said he had a plan
to destroy
my imaginary friends.
That made them very angry.
But I said
I would never let that happen.)
Mostly
late at night
they spoke to me
of amazing places
that could not possibly
exist.
The voices were always clear
and
sounded like me.
I guess they were really
just me
or parts of me.
Let Me Introduce Myself
My parents named me
Declan Lynch
Names are important
but
it’s also important to
remember
that someoneusually your parents
just made up your name.
You were not born with it.
Think about that.
You
were justyou
when you came into this world.
My mom and dad were the Lynches
living on an average streetMaple Terrace
like the tree
with the little helicopter seeds.
The Lynches had their first and only kid
me
and said I looked like my great-grandfather
whose name wasDeclan Timothy Lynch.
I only saw pictures of my great-grandfather
much later
when I could focus my eyes.
I didn’t look anything like him
but
the name stuck.
Declan
or Deck sometimes
or Declan Patrick Lynch
when I was bad
which was often.
Just jumping from shed roofs
getting lost in malls
hiking deep into the tangled forest
behind my house
always determined to not come home on time
chasing ghosts and demons
and listening for the next bit of advice
from the voices in my head.
Parental Advice
My mother told my father
it was just a phase
I was going through
a very long phase
and I would grow out
of it.
(But she secretly told me
that she understood the voices
and that I should learn the difference
between the good voices
and bad ones.)
My father
was a sworn enemy
of my imaginary friends.
Your imagination
he said
plays tricks on you
dirty tricks.
When I asked him what he meant
he tried to explain
but grew frustrated
and stomped away.
I heard him say to my mother in the kitchen
Sometimes, Fiona
Sometimes I think
that boy is not our son
at all.
Maybe they made a mistake
at the hospital
and gave us
the wrong
child.
Out of Place, Out of Time
I think I might have been about twelve
when
one of my imaginary friends
Garth
told me I didn’t belong here.
Wrong time
wrong place
was his way of explaining it.
Garth looked like a cartoon character
except he was real
well, he felt real
and talked real
(with a voice that sounded just like me)
but seemed much wiser than I was.
Declan
he told me
have you noticed you are different
from everyone else?
Yes
I said.
But there’s not much I can do about it.
That’s true
he said.
But I think someone or something
goofed
a long time ago
or a long time in the future.
Definitely not
here and now.
Which could explain why I never felt like
part of the crowd
like other kids.
Never felt
truly at ease at school
comfortable in groups
or even at home
in my own skin.
Save Me from Myself
Garth’s news scared me at first
because I knew
I would never fit in
and might never
be happy.
So I started trying to fit in
to be normal
have normal conversations
say things like
Hi, how are you?
and always got predictable answers
so instead I’d ask a kid at school
What is your favourite planet?
or
Where were you before you were born?
But
the harder I tried to fit in
the worse it got.
People looked at me
with scrunched-up faces.
The voices in my head got louder
angrier.
Garth said
You can’t deny who you are.
I said
But I don’t know who I am.
And I had an image of myself
unzipping the body I was in
and travelling someplace else.
A war began inside me
between the me who wanted to be normal
and the me who wanted to leave
and go somewhere else.
One day I screamed it out
in the middle of that tangled forest
Please!
I shouted.
Someone save me!
But no one did.
There was only one voice.
The voice was me
saying I was doomed
to live in a world
where I did not belong.
That Was Then
It’s a weird thing.
You find yourself
to be sixteen years old
and the voice in your head
changes.
It’s not your voice
anymore.
(Where did my voice go?)
(What the hell is happening to me?)
It’s the voice of
a girl.
Yes, a girl.
Her voice is beautiful
and she’s talking to me.
Yes
talking directly to me.
It went like this:
I was walking home from school
not thinking
about much of anything.
My mind was empty.
Relaxed.
This was a totally new thing
for me.
I was always agitated
about something.
Now this extremely weird
calm.
And then
boom. I hear her.
Declan
she says.
Declan.
I’m sorry to
barge in like this.
It didn’t seem like a voice inside.
I was sure it was someone talking.
I looked around but there were only cars and trees
and a cat
but I was sure it was not the cat
talking.
It will take a while
to explain myself
she said.
She had a soft and kind voice.
A most wonderful accent
and some kind of funny, beautiful
way of speaking.
Who are you?
I asked.
Rebecca
she said.
How do you know my name?
Well, I’m inside your head, aren’t I?
Are you real?
Yes, very real.
Then let me see you.
Close your eyes.
I closed them.
Can you see me?
Holy shit.
Is that good or bad?
You look like a normal girl.
I’m not really.
Not really what?
Normal, I mean not
normal in the normal sense.
Why?
We should get to know
each other first.
Polite Introductions and Such
I said
I have to sit down
So I found bench
sat down
and tried to remember
how to breathe.
I’ve scared you
she said.Sorry.
No.
I mean yes.
I knew this would be confusing for you.
How did you know?
I know because I know you.
I’ve known you for quite a while.
How can that be?
It will be hard to explain.
Try.
Let me start by saying
it took a long time to make this connection
this bridge.
I looked around, my mind reeling.
What bridge?
The one between me and you.
It’s how you can hear me
see me.
None of this was happening out loud.
It was all in my head.
But when I closed my eyes again
I could still see her clearly.
How do you do this?
I built the bridge
to be with you.
Why me?
And I guess I must have said that out loud because
guys from school were walking by and they
looked at me like I was crazy.
Weirdo
one said.
Nutjob
said the other.
Rattled
Yes, rattled.
I wanted the girl
the girl voice
the girl image
to leave me alone
so I could think
straight.
Do you want me to go?
she said.
No.
Yes.
Wait.
Can you read my thoughts?
Yes.
But …
I know. But it’s okay.
I know you.
But I don’t know you.
You will.
If you let me.
And then
she was gone
and the voice in my head
(my own voice)
was just me saying
What the hell is going on?
Boy Alone on a Park Bench
I’ve often felt lonely but this was worse.
This was alone alone. Exponentially alone.
And I didn’t understand why.
I felt like someone had pulled the plug
that made me me.
I needed to talk to a flesh-and-blood type human being.
So I called Jonesy.
John Jones is his real name but everyone calls him
Jonesy.
He is smart and sad; that’s his thing.
He gets an A in every class
even in math and chemistry
but he’s never happy with himself or with the world.
You look at him and wonder what he is thinking
why he seems so unhappy.
When he answers his cell phone he just says
Ullo.
Just like that.
And it’s like he’s expecting bad news.
Ullo.
Jonesy, it’s me.
Deck?
What’s wrong?
I explained about the voice in my head.
It’s really a girl’s voice?
Yeah and I can see her too.
What’s she look like?
Normal. But kind of hot.
Normal but hot. Hmm.
I think I’m losing it.
I think I’ve gone over the edge.
I know the feeling.
It passes.
What should I do?
Is she still there
in your head I mean?
No, she thinks she scared me.
So she left.
Where’d she go?
I dunno.
Think she’ll come back?
I hope so. I got a lot of questions.
Deck?
What?
You’re either mentally ill
or very lucky.
Testing One Two Three
Yes, that’s what I heard her saying
in the middle of my dream.
Is it okay to be here?
she askedin the middle of a dream.
I had been dreaming about being on a boat that was on fire.
Then you are just part of my imagination
I said.
Well yes and no.
Which is it?
I have to explain about the bridge first.
Right, the bridge.
This is an experiment.