Chapter 1 :: Page 1

   Scarlet orange and red broke like thin ribbons of blood over the black blue seas cutting deeply through the blackness of cloudy night and frigid air, light bringing to life dreamers from deep sleep and nightmare alike. The sky was full of thick clouds and the whisperings of cosmic legend and myth, for each day anew brought with it the past of history and the allure of forever forgetting.
   I pulled back the off colored white drapes that hung over the wood framed window. Houses lined up behind Mrs. O'Malley's home, towards the sea. A thick and dark gray sky hung immovable over Dalkey Bay. Distant sunlight, as it matured, soothed over its own illusionary wound, becoming a lighter shadow, dull behind the clouds.
   I was content with the scene, for I had brought myself here under my own direction and it had become familiar. The sky blended with the blue black of the cold water and where the two met was a point outside of perception, back in history. It had been like this for a fortnight, the sun perhaps breaking through dusk then being quickly swallowed up. Several gray gulls blinked in and out of vision between the houses. The black deep sea of Dalkey Bay. I would hate to die by water.
   I turned to the pages of writing that were scattered on my bed. This was a story without beginning or end. There was only middle. It was a love story, a sad love story where the lovers never really spoke to one another. I looked out the window again. Maybe it wasn't a story at all. They were personal notes, personal vignettes, or part of a diary, part of something I wasn't sure.
   They weren't mine. I laid them carefully back down.
    I looked over the pages, but didn't see the words as to their meaning. They were written by a woman's hand, in a woman's script. I could imagine hearing the pencil lead upon the paper because they spoke to me of something I couldn't articulate and because they spoke to me of a family's history I had been adopted into.
   There wasn't enough light to see the pages clearly, and my gaze returned to the window, between the opening of the drapes. It would be cold and sunny, dry and raining today. There were certain comforts in the knowing of things regulated by habit and cycle. Habit was understandable. The origins of it were mysterious, but the action of habit was comfortable. It was one day like many before.
   I slid on my pants and shoes and stood up, accidentally kicking over a pile of crumbled papers, my own notes for a story not yet thought out and not begun. I looked blankly at the pencil lines.
   I listened for people moving downstairs in Mrs. O'Malley's boarding house. Mrs. O'Malley was awake. I could hear her downstairs in the kitchen quietly manipulating the dishes, meticulously, with strong and exact fingers....