The old stone wall behind the pub still hums at
dusk, though no one else hears it.
She arrives in 1992 with a suitcase and a name
she’s not allowed to use.
The GAA club has changed; the priest is dead.
She finds a letter under a loose brick, dated
1916, signed with a name she once knew.
The wall answers when she speaks, but only in
fragments.
She follows the echoes to a derelict house on
the edge of the city.
Inside, a map etched into the floor shows routes
through the city that don’t exist.
A man from the village recognizes her, says she
was lost in the war.
She learns the wall is a threshold, a place
where time folds.
The police come, say she’s trespassing, but
their uniforms are wrong.
She touches the map and vanishes.
When she returns, the pub is gone.
The wall is now a brick wall, silent.
She leaves the city, but the map stays in her
pocket.
The wall never stops whispering.
She never stops listening.
