The Butcher Boy

Oh now now he says that's all over you must forget all about that next week your solitary finishes how about that hmm? I felt like laughing in his face: How can your solitary finish? That's the best laugh yet.

All the beautiful things in this world are lies. They count for nothing in the end.

I don`t know if he was English but he spoke like it. He said good afternoon when everybody else said hardy weather or she looks like rain.

I wanted to stop talking about the whole thing. I wanted to talk about the hide and the old days and hacking at the ice and whose turn it was to toss the marble and all that, that was what I wanted to talk about. They were the best days, you could see through them days, as clear as polished glass. But Joe didn't want to.

All of a sudden I looked at him with his rosy cheeks and the two silver snots at his nose and what did I want to do I wanted to kiss him. Not the way Tiddly did it any of that but just because all of a sudden everything seemed so good. I said to myself: Just being here is so good I could stand here for ever.

Ah I see, says Father Dom with his two thumbs like dwarfs doing an old-time waltz in and out of his little black buttons.

Mary had the same face as ma used to have sitting staring into the ashes it was funny that face it slowly grew over the other one until one day you looked and the person you knew was gone. And instead there was a half-ghost sitting there who had only one thing to say: All the beautiful things of this world are lies. They count for nothing in the end.