The Signal

Far in the Killarney countryside, tucked away from the town, Paddy O'Sullivan sat hunched in his dainty, barren kitchen. His hands were glued to the tiny wooden table, his mind deep in concentration, tentatively listening in to the ramblings of his 'friends' from county Cork, Limerick and Clare on the transistor radio, which sat fuming at the table's edge.

Paddy scoffed, fingering the cracked dial, exhausted of hearing Mr. McInnerney complain about his sciatica to the grocer. He bit his tongue, carefully twisting the broken dial till he zoned into Mrs. Doyle; Paddy's favourite friend, a widowed baker who valued the plague more than a secret.

"...from what I hear, Eleanor doesn't... can you... well..." Paddy slapped the radio across the speaker, agitatedly fidgeting with the dial as it growled and buzzed furiously with static. He bashed it on his thigh, then gave it a little rattle. "...no, no, no of course not Rose! Now just remember dear—"

"You didn't hear it from me!" Paddy overlapped Mrs. Doyle, mimicking her with alarming ease. "Oh no I did not hear it from you Mrs. Doyle, whatever it was."

BEEP BEEP... Paddy threw the radio across the room as the alarm burned into his eardrum. He grasped his chest, hammering his heart, covering his ear as the alarm droned louder from beside the bin. Breathless, Paddy glanced up at the clock, it was seven, just in time for dinner.

He got up from the table and hushed the alarm, carefully setting the gutted radio on the hob. He leaned in coming face-to-face with the machine, "I'm sorry John, but that was awfully rude." Paddy apologised to the radio, giving the speaker a loving pat. He went into the small fridge and took out a gritty platter of aged baked beans, with a stained spoon already imbedded in the dark murky sauce.

He sat back down at the table and poked at the beans; staring out the window into the rolling green hills and dawning blue sky. Wondering what it must be like to be loved. To share your table with laughter and comfort, not isolation and desperation with friends who were too scared to come out of their plastic casing.

Though he'd been alone for most of his life, these were the times when loneliness dug deep in his heart. Paddy had no family. They'd thrown him around from home to home, treating him like a wandering stranger because he was different. He wasn't loud and talkative like the others. Never faniced living in pubs or chasing after girls with the cutest skirts.

His fragile mind had been mended at a young age to never trust others. That's why he liked his friends that lived in the radio. They spoke to him with respect, made him laugh—sometimes cry, made him scratch his head sometimes or shout in frustration. But when he turned off the radio and they went about their lives, Paddy had no one.

Paddy forcefully swallowed the last of the baked beans, washing away the stale taste with this morning's cold tea. He threw the plate into the sink, taking the radio in his palm and rounded the corner into his bedroom. Paddy slipped into his pyjamas; ratty old things from his third mother Orla, and wiggled under the covers of his cot.

Paddy flicked on the radio and twisted the dial to 98 FM aka Odhran Walsh, a bookshop owner from Cork who always read to his daughter Siobhan at 7:30 p.m.. Paddy set the radio on the nightstand beside the cot, closing his eyes as Odhran's voice echoed through the speakers.

"...Aoife had been the only girl in all of Donegal to wear the crown. She was envied by all the children in the land..."

Paddy perched up—first apologising to Odhran—and silenced the fairytale. Something was wrong. He stood from the cot, puzzled, listening to the mysterious noise. It sounded almost angelic like, like cherubs singing down from heaven. But in this case, up from the closet.

Paddy fell to his knees and swung open the closet door, throwing the clothing from the hamper over his shoulder as the angels sung heavenly praise louder and louder. When he reached the bottom he saw it; his first transistor radio gifted to him by father two. He stared down at it, humming a celestial rapture in his hands wondering how it could be possible. The radio had stopped working when he'd been twelve, when his 'sister' had thrown it at his head.

Was it God? Twisting his divine fingers in the belly of his late radio to deliver him a message? All those nights that Paddy had spent, knelt crying at the foot of the bed, locked in his bedroom, praying, no, begging for someone to love him and a real family. God had finally answered him.

Paddy rose from the floor and walked back to the kitchen, setting the radio on the table and painstakingly gazed at it for an hour. As 9:00 p.m. rolled by he felt a little guilty. Right now he should've been enjoying tea with Cara Murphy and her husband, who rudely refused to tell Paddy his name. But while Paddy stretched the knot in his back, the angel's voice faded into a traditional Irish ballad and shortly into static silence.

He snatched the radio from the table, wildly spinning the dial till he tore the casing off its poor spinner too. Where his ears betraying him? Had he done something wrong to anger God? After what felt like hours and two sore fingers, Paddy gave in to the house's poor reception, and trotted out the door into the crisp night as a low voice gurgled through the same station. "Missing, he's missing... the wren, the wren, the king of all birds... missing, please..."

Who was missing? The wren? Surely not.

The signal kept repeating and flickering in the form of what Paddy felt like was an elderly woman. She had no name, no land or essence. She preferred to be kept a stranger; which Paddy thoroughly understood. Paddy named her Mrs. Missing Wren, as her signal kept fading and resurged through cheerful trad ballads; till he was left with only the silence of the sea.

No, this couldn't be. He couldn't lose Mrs. Missing Wren. He needed to help her, he knew all too well how it felt to be helpless and treaded on like discarded rubbish and be invisible. He could finally do something good. Prove the others wrong, and show that quiet hearts often hid the largest hearts. They were just misunderstood.

Paddy ran back into the house; changed out of his pyjamas and gathered some bits of food and a canteen of water, and threw them into a torn knapsack. With the radio in tow, he locked the door, took a long shaky breath and nervously tiptoed across the grass towards the long winding road headed east, as Mrs. Missing Wren's signal carolled back through the radio's mouth.

Paddy walked through most of the night, guided by the playings of the radio. When it stalled, he fell into an exhaustive sleep in a ditch dug alongside the road near Castleisland.

He woke the following morning to the choir angels and Mrs. Missing Wren. Paddy carried his sore, blistered feet along the roadside for hours, sometimes forced to run when the signal dimmed too quickly.

At the sight of the road marker: Limerick 24 Miles, Paddy fell awash with exhaustion. How long had it been? He really did not want to know. His shoulders sagged from the knapsack, his feet oozed red with blisters and he'd been foolish with his water. He took note to not tell Cara Murphy, she'd have his head with her evening tea.

Paddy fumbled in his knapsack and pulled out a squashed piece of bread, carefully placing the trad blaring radio underneath his armpit. As he chewed he studied the road sign: Limerick. Mrs. Missing Wren had lost something so precious to her in Limerick.

But as Paddy gnawed the last of the sour crust, his heart sunk with dread and sadness and tears peppered his eyes. He knew his feet wouldn't last till Limerick. Even now just standing still, wrecked his toes stiff and bled the bones of his soles which stained his trainers red.

He gazed off down the narrow road sighing; swiping away the tears. He had to do it. For the sake of Mrs. Missing Wren, he had to keep his promise. Perhaps there was still some spec of humanity willing to spare a bit of kindness for Paddy O'Sullivan.

Paddy strode across the roadside, sticking out his quivering thumb feeling his heart drop deeper into his gut with every second. He walked for twenty minutes in a haze of foggy sprawling greenery and restless sheep, before the only car he'd seen since daybreak rolled to a stop beside him. Paddy exhaled anxiously, turning down the radio's volume then ducked down to greet the elderly woman grinning behind the wheel.

The elder woman effortlessly cranked down the window; smiling in a way that terrified Paddy. "Where to my son?" she said in an all too familiar tone.

Paddy froze. "Mrs. Doyle?" his mouth hung in shock, peering wide eyed at the elder woman.

She drew back from the window, pressing her hand against her blue shaggy cardigan. "Yes son that be my name," her brow furrowed, "have we met before?"

"Um," the words caught in his throat, his hands trembling with panic. What was he supposed to say? Nice to meet you on the other side of the speaker? All that gossip, I never heard from you? "I'm... I'm going to Limerick." He spat out, looking down nervously at his feet.

Mrs. Doyle ignored the change of subject, sensing in his nerves. "You're in luck my son, I'm going there meself." She lifted the lock of the backseat, motioning for Paddy to get in.

Paddy opened the back door, nestling into the tiny seat beside a basket of vegetables, and closed the door. Sweat clammed his hands as he faced forward in the seat, watching Mrs. Doyle's face through the rearview mirror as she shifted into first gear.

She peered over her shoulder, "Are you comfortable back there son?"

No. Paddy wanted to scream it, jump out of the car and run away. But he instead sat there and lied, knowing that Mrs. Doyle would tell every listening ear in Limerick of his cowardice. "Yes, yes I am. Thank you."

As the car moved slowly down the straight road, Paddy pressed the radio between the window and his ear, listening to Mrs. Missing Wren's plea moaning hopelessly out to him. Every now and then he could see Mrs. Doyle cheekily checking in on him. He tried to ignore her, focusing on his business. But she was up to her tricks.

"What is it that takes you to Limerick, son?" Mrs. Doyle asked, drifting her eyes up to the rearview.

Paddy scoffed pulling away from the radio then said, "Someone needs my help. There's someone missing." He tried to be as vague as possible, but this only raised her blathering brow.

"Who is this dear? Who's missing?"

"Someone told to me in confidence, Mrs. Doyle. And I for one value a bit of privacy, unlike others that I know of." He said firmly enough that Mrs. Doyle took her gaze back to the road, rendered silent. Whether the elder woman took it personally Paddy did not know, but he was sure to hear of it later. That was one form of gossip he would be happy to be a part of.

The rest of drive had been ridden in silence. Paddy clung to the repeating signal, while Mrs. Doyle sat stoned face driving towards town.

As they drove into Limerick, Paddy felt relieved when Mrs. Doyle let him out at the nearest bus station. He cranked up the radio to its loudest to drown out the city folk, and tensely followed Mrs. Missing Wren's call on still battered feet through the bustling medieval city.

He weaved aimlessly through the crowds, from Old Cork Road to Ballinacurra, past mysterious monuments and grand strongholds feeling like he was in one of Odhran Walsh's fairytales. But this world was no fairytale. It'd exiled him years ago, bringing not happiness but rather pain, but he was ready to prove them otherwise.

"Missing, he's been missing... the wren, have you, the wren..."

Paddy ducked behind the nearest newsstand, holding the radio up to his ear—ignoring the gawking eyes and pointing fingers. They didn't understand. This had been the first time that Mrs. Missing Wren had spoken more than three words. Paddy's heart smiled, but the veins in his fingers shook. "I'm coming to help Mrs. Missing Wren, I'll be there soon." He said to the speaker and continued along the harmonious path.

As Paddy crossed over Thomond Bridge sheltering the River Shannon, he began to limp from the blisters peppering his feet. He felt like giving up again; he was exhasted, hungry and dehydrated from walking in circles. If Mrs. Missing Wren was so desperate to find this missing person, why was she so hard to find?

Paddy collapsed on a bench in front of a shanty pub, closing his eyes to sneak in a few moments rest. As fatigue began to settle in, the angels soared through the radio jerking him awake. Paddy cocked his head to the strange sounding signal. First it came from the radio, but then it finished somewhere else. Somewhere close.

He looked up from the radio, to across the street at St. Mary's Cathedral. At that moment it all made sense. Paddy jumped up from the bench, feeling his heart thump fast in chest as he raced to the cathedral. He took a moment to say hello to the residents of the burial ground, then sprinted achingly around the corner and up the stone steps.

From behind the door he could hear the angels singing in unison with the radio. He pressed the OFF button, and entered through the iron casted wooden doors into the empty grand ornate nave. He paused taking in the looming brick pillars decorated with scripted cloth, beautiful stained glass windows and burning candelabras which floated by a chain from the ceiling.

Then there was a woman in black, knelt down in front of the effigy sobbing into her palms. Was it Mrs. Missing Wren?

Paddy set the radio by the door, and cautiously inched across the stone floor, past the wooden chairs and paused anxiously behind the weeping woman. Suddenly he felt scared and heartbroken for the woman. Whoever she'd lost, Paddy could feel her pain. It was the same painful loneliness he felt everyday. He couldn't help the tears from running down his cheek.

Paddy exhaled loudly, "Excuse me?"

The Weeping Woman gasped from her tears, wiping them away with her cuff before peering over her shoulder. When their eyes met; her mature wrinkled face hung in shock. A wet photograph of a young boy slipped from her fingers, swaying onto Paddy's feet. Paddy picked it up, examining the familiar boy. "Mrs. Missing Wren, I... I heard you lost someone and I've come to help you—"

Paddy paused as the Weeping Woman took his face into her wet rough palms, glittering admiration deeply into his eyes. "Patrick, Patrick O'Sullivan, is that you?" She asked, pushing the stray hairs from his eyes.

"How do you know my name?" Paddy took a step back in dismay, but the Weeping Woman held on tightly to his cheeks.

"It's me Patrick," she let go of his chin and rested her hands on his shoulders. "I'm your grandmam Eleanor. Oh God, I've been looking for you for long. Since you ran away from Mrs. Flanagan, I've been looking for you." Eleanor paused to wipe away a blissful tear. "Your grandfather said it was useless, but I knew if I came here He'd help me. I've been asking for you everyday, praying for you—"

"You sent me the signal?" Paddy interrupted, overwhelmed with tears.

Eleanor nodded. "If you'd like to call it that Patrick, than yes."

Paddy sunk to the floor, feeling like his torn apart feet were about to cave in beneath him. Eleanor sat down beside him, taking his quivering hands in hers.

Paddy gazed up at her, feeling something warm at work in his heart. "Why were you trying to find me? No one wanted me when I left—"

"Because your grandfather and I want you home, Patrick. Your parents—may God strike them down—let them take you from us. Thinking that strangers were better suitors for you than blood, because we never cared that you weren't like the rest. They thought we were making you weak, a lesser man. But they didn't see the smile that you brought to everyone's faces, and the warmth to every house you entered. They never saw you, Patrick. And we want you back, because we miss you and love you."

Paddy fell into his grandmother's arms, weakened by the array of emotions and exhaustion spiralling in his heart. As he sobbed like a child in her arms, he wondered if this is what if felt like to be loved. To have someone hold you, and tell you how much they cared for you and accepted and not judge you for who you were. Which was different.

How much more now he'd wished that he could speak back to his friends in the radio. Well not Mrs. Doyle, Paddy wished to never hear from her again. So he could tell them that he'd won, and tell little Siobhan that love was real. Not something that her father only spun for Donegal princesses.

Eleanor pulled Paddy away from her embrace, drying his face with the hem of her dark dress. "Come now Patrick, I'll take you home. I hope you still like Barry's Gold."

Eleanor smiled through tears, as she and Paddy exited St. Mary's Cathedral into the downpour of flash rain. They walked to her home, and now Paddy's home, in Moyross where Paddy decided that he'd stay.