The Shortest Day

by Colm Tóibín

We do not connect with mortals, in the same way as eternity does not wish to connect with time. Mortals

all disagreements, like all versions of time, circled each other, uncertain which was the line and which was the space through which the line was etched.

We do not want the world of time to impinge on the world we have made, we who have moved out of time.”

“Because we must all know our place in the great scheme of things. We respect mystery and silence and spirit.

But she was always aware that she lived in a place that was inhabited by the dead as much as by the living, the dead who had crossed the line many centuries before, people long forgotten.

It was not what they did in war that made them proud of their past, they said. It was what they had done in peace. It was the art they made, the homage they paid to mystery and beauty. They offered tribute to strangeness because it was strangeness that they appreciated most in the world when they were alive. They saw the world’s meaning as beyond their grasp, and they relished not understanding it. They saw each other as creatures not to be easily known.

Thus, it was the strangeness of the night sky and the seasons that they loved and missed, the strangeness of fire and water, the strangeness they noted in each other.