Volumne I, Issue 5: Irish Dreams

Ian O’Reilly was sitting in the living room of his apartment reading through study-abroad brochures. The next semester would be his last semester of college and he was still feeling panicked about graduating and finding a “real job.” He had a wild idea that maybe if he studied abroad his last semester, he could find a job in whatever exotic place he was studying in and just stay there the rest of his life. That was Ian’s typical fear response: run away.

So far it was between Ireland (his motherland—he and Birdie were 1st generation Irish-Americans), New Zealand (hey!—that’s where the Lord of the Rings series was filmed!) or France (lots of sexy women there—ooh lala!). So far Ireland was winning. For starters, they spoke English there. Secondly, he had some distant relatives that still lived in Dublin. He was sure he could stay with him while he was there which would cut back on the financial burden of having to pay a host family. He could also stay with them for a longer period of time should he find some sort of work while there.

His parents were against the idea. The whole reason they moved to the states was to get away from Ireland and now he wanted to go back? They were irate and couldn’t understand his persistence in wanting to travel to Dublin. It didn’t matter how many stories of hardship they told him, he wouldn’t listen. Once he had an idea in his head, it was an almost impossible task to convince him to change his mind.

He grabbed the Ireland brochure and stuffed it in his backpack along with the rest of his books. Picking up his backpack, he left his apartment to head to campus for his Shakespeare class.

The bus stop was on the very corner of the road that his apartment was. While waiting for the bus he noticed the neighbor across the street was staring at him. She was slowly smoking a cigarette and looked very comfortable on the front porch glider. He checked her out from the corner of his eye. She was cute and seemed mysterious—just his type.

The screech of the bus’s brakes pulled him from his momentary trance. He made a mental note to someday get up the courage to introduce himself to this mystery neighbor. In the meantime, he planned on fantasizing about Ireland until he got to campus.