Evenings and Weekends

by Oisín McKenna

He’d been happy before, but only became aware of it after the happiness was already gone. Finally, his happiness is vivid and big. He can’t help but notice it.

She has always imagined that if she had five minutes left on earth, she’d call the person she loved most and tell them all the things she needed them to know. But most goodbyes are small. They take place in the middle of stations and shopping centres, where there’s too much going on to really focus on the goodbye at

but surely that’s what a global catastrophe means for anyone: it’s not the loss of the world at large you mourn, it’s the loss of your world, your life, your boyfriend’s gorgeous little smile in the morning, the way he says mwah mwah mwah mwah while planting big slobbery kisses all over your forearm.

The priest says that love isn’t a feeling. It’s not the butterflies in your tummy you get in the giddy early days of a relationship. The butterflies don’t last, he says. Love is something you deliberately decide to do through repeated actions of care. Love is something you make.