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By Root 880 0

told fascinating stories of heroism and tragedy but some stories got taller in the telling. Of all the people I met, two brothers, Declan and John, intrigued me the most. They shared a house on the outskirts of Killybegs and worked a small plot of land on which they had some goats and sheep. In the evenings they frequented local bars and had a pact never to be in the same bar together. According to Declan, they spent so much time “within a hand’s breadth of each other during the day,” it was unthinkable they should have to suffer one another’s company at night when “the demon drink took hold,” and besides, they were destined to “spend enough time together in eternity.” In the meantime, a recipe for harmony was to patronize different bars and if possible go home alone. As a rule, after a long, drunken walk home each was too tired to argue.

Declan was the most instantly recognizable. He wore a heavily soiled, cream-colored cap, claiming it was a gift from a famous American whose name he had long forgotten. I learned a lot about Killybegs from him, but only after I bought him pints of “the black stuff.” He claimed his love affair with Guinness began when he realized the color of the “head” on a pint resembled the color and texture of female breasts.

One evening, he asked if I had ever seen or met “a strange one” on my late night walks back to the cottage. I told him the only creature I had ever seen on the winding, two-mile journey was a badger that once crossed my path. Anyway, there were no street lights and it was impossible to see much beyond the beam of the torchlight I carried. It helped me walk a straight line to avoid falling into ditches on either side of the narrow lane to my cottage.

“So you’ve never seen The Natural?” he whispered.

Before I could ask him who The Natural was, he went off to retrieve a pint someone else had bought him. I walked outside into a cool night and strolled to the harbor to admire the fishing trawlers and enjoy the heavily scented sea air and smells of freshly gutted fish. Five minutes later, I was at the outskirts of Killybegs, walking into the dark countryside with hundreds of insects dancing in the beam of my torch. I had walked about a mile when the torch batteries died. Had it been a familiar west of Ireland night when the sky and its myriad stars were visible, I would have felt comfortable walking the rest of the way without artificial light. But this was an overcast night and I was suddenly plunged into darkness. I continued my journey at a much slower pace, hoping to stay in the center of the lane. I was confident if I did that for twenty minutes I would eventually reach the part of the lane where tarmac gave way to a stone path. At that point, I would know to veer right onto a grassy, elevated path. From there it was 150 yards to my cottage but I now kicked myself for not having the foresight to leave lights on in the cottage. My real concern was if I missed the cut I would find myself heading for cliffs overlooking the ocean.

Suddenly the eerie silence was broken by the faint sound of someone approaching from the direction of the cottage. I called out but no one answered. I began walking again and after several minutes I heard footsteps, this time coming from behind me. I swung round and the footsteps ceased. Bracing myself for an assault, I got into a fighting stance and remained like that for several minutes. Convinced the thereat had passed, I walked on a step at a time, my fists still clenched. Suddenly, I was frozen still by the sound of a person or animal rushing through undergrowth. Then something brushed me gently in what seemed like a split second. I was beginning to think I was going out of my mind when all of a sudden a face appeared several feet from me. It was a grinning face lit by a torch illuminating only the nose and eyes. The face seemed to belong to a grown man but the eyes had the wondrous expression of a child. The person staring at me was slim and about 5 feet 8 inches tall. The weird apparition lasted only seconds because the torch was switched off and