‘A train came. It swept by, lighting the sky, burning like Moses’ bush. Figures stood out, wrapt in reverie. I saw them, the Kenneallys, merging into a far-off city, but before they went too far I could see other things. It was as though the compartments of the train grew, one by one, cubicle by cubicle, into a picture of the past, the Kenneallys, their snowdrops, their galaxy of ladybirds, their paintings, their books, their cakes, their moods and another picture growing alongside it, that of the town in which I lived, town of raving madmen, wandering beggars, the odd marigold patch and the odd festive eye of a burly country woman. I knew I was condemned to that town, seized by it…’
Desmond Hogan, Marigold Fire
Absence Club 