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As a child, my worst fears were the classics; the dark, monsters, slugs. Most of them faded away with time, but some have stuck around into adolescence. One of the biggest was a fear of water. Specifically deep water that I couldn't see the bottom of. I didn't like the idea that something could grab my leg and pull me under. It would be a silent attack, the water suffocating any kind of noise. They would rule it as a drowning and my skeleton would lay among weeds and rubbish, if there was even a skeleton left. We haven't even discovered the whole ocean yet, is it so outlandish to think that there may be some creature like that out there?

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I decided to take part in the F1 in Schools. Its a competition where we have to design and manufacture a car, market our brand and gain sponsorships to fund our team. Its a massive project that will take up a lot of time in this year, and if we do well a lot of time next year. Years above us have done very well in it, so we want to carry this achievement across to the next years. The other people who are interested are Cathal, Ethan, Michael, Scott, Max and Abbi. That's seven people, but the maximum people on a team is six, so we have to decided together what to do.

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I was at my scouts den a while ago, waiting for my mom to pick me up. It was dark, because it finishes at 9:30pm, and I was standing outside. The other girls were chatting with their friends, but I hadn’t managed to make any strong bonds with anyone yet. I felt so alone, on that pier, that I wanted to cry. The wind was warm, blowing my hair back. I could see the city lights reflected on the water, small and blurry. I walked further down the pier, the gentle waves lapping below. The sounds behind me faded away. I couldn’t see very far out to sea, but I could make out the shape of the small swells. I felt a pull from the ocean, lightly tugging on my heart. I wanted to slip away into it and swim away. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.

The sea threw out another rope and took hold of my brain. It was too dark for anyone to see me, and if I was quiet about it they would never notice me get in. It was starting to make sense. Why couldn’t I? Any reasons drifted away. There was absolutely nothing on earth stopping me right now. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be cold. The wind kissed my face. The ropes tightened, but it wasn’t aggressive, more like a hand guiding me where I needed to go. I could sit on the end of the pier and dip my feet in. The water would seep into my shoes and make my trousers stick to my legs. I would just slip off then. My jumper would float up a bit for a moment, and then slightly weigh me down. There would barely be any noise. The water coaxed me further and further till I was standing right on the edge. I could swim away, towards something I didn’t yet know. Nothing after that would matter.

Would I be complete? Would something click and the emptiness filled?

But I turned around and walked away. It hurt. I wanted to turn around and stay forever with the sea. But I kept going, step by step, loosening the ropes till they were gone.

And on the way home, with my head against the glass window of the car, I couldn’t get a thought out of my head. Sirens. I had heard old stories of sailors drawn to their deaths, following their hearts to the water. Why had I wanted to go into the ocean so badly? Where would I be now if I had? Washed up on a beach somewhere?

Or just gone?

But most of all, as the car crossed the wooden bridge and I watched the sea below, I wondered;

What if?

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A bit of a weird tune. Definitely off the beaten path. What I see when I listen to this song is travelling. I guess that's why its called “Bon Voyage”. I imagine a motorbike going through a dusty desert, lush forest and up a mountain road. I don’t think there's a destination, just travelling for the sake of change.

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A strange song. I think it would play during a zombie apocalypse. I think it sounds quite lonely. What I imagine while listening to this song is being the last person alive on earth. I can walk around and look at the remnants of my old life and wonder why the small things mattered so much.

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Baked eggplant

Whoever decided to even grow this abomination of an organism deserves to be euthanized. What an awful plant. I can handle a bad taste, but paired with a mushy but also chewy texture and I start to gag. Literally. When I go over to a certain friend’s house, we like to play a game where one of us closes their eyes and the other makes a mystery mixture of ingredients in the kitchen that they have to taste. One time she gave me a baked eggplant with a pile of salt on top of it. Big mistake. My friend started laughing at the sight of me gagging, but she wasn’t laughing when I threw up all over her sink and kitchen(it wasn’t the first time. Last time I had spat out a bit more than the pickle covered in peanut butter she had given me).

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My footsteps echoed on the wooden boards. The wind darted past me, dancing with my hair and brushing my clothes on its way by. The waves below rippled. A thousand twinkling stars glittered around me, half real and half fake, but all beautiful. I looked out at Dublin. From this pier, late in the evening, off the coast of Bull Island, everything seemed perfect. The cars and people moved in sync, their scripts memorised from the moment they were born to the second they died.

The planks creaked as I reached the end of the walkway. The water between me and everything else swayed effortlessly, yet it was flawless. How? How was it able to sway to the rhythm of the world without falling out of tune?

A teardrop fell into the sea, wrinkling it for a second and then absorbed into the creases.

Weak. Weak weak weak. I didn’t have the right to cry. But my eyes didn’t listen. Sobs shook my shoulders, trying to escape the cage in my chest. My hands shook as I tried to calm down, to push all these feelings away. The different versions of me were flickering and overlapping, and I didn’t know what was real anymore. If I was even a whole person anymo-

I blinked.

Something was wrong with my reflection. Slowly, ever so slowly, her mouth had cracked into a smile.

I wasn't smiling. My smiles were plastered on every morning and peeled off every night, like a second skin. This one was warm and gentle and beautiful. My reflection’s eyes were flowing with tears, but she looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She reached a hand out to me, and I imitated her movements. I would give anything to become her, to live her life, for that smile on my face. My fingers stretched towards my perfect reflection, and I leaned dangerously over the edge of the pier. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

I fell.

Gravity was reversed. I was flying, flying toward something better, flying up up up and away from it all. The tips of our fingers touched and a hand grabbed mine. It guided me towards the water. The glass surface cracked and splintered, and the swell engulfed me.

I felt the sea embracing me, brushing my tears away and smoothing my hair. My skin cracked and fell away, revealing something golden. I left my shame abandoned on that pier, discarded for someone else to discover. The gentle waves kissed my face, and I could sense it's sadness. I knew that the sea was crying with me, crying for me. I didn’t know why.

I smiled as I drifted further and further down, the surface dissolving like bubbles.

Drowned Girl found this morning

The body of a 16-year-old girl was spotted beside the coast road on the beach by a passerby in the early hours of this morning. There were no signs of a struggle, and it is clear that she passed away from water intake. The girl has not yet been identified, and the gardaí are urging anyone with information to come forward.

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I sandwiched him between two bikes and stood on him while he screamed when we went to Phoenix Park. Good times.

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Has a really nice laugh. I first saw her drawings in First Year and thought she was really talented. Also has a great taste in food.

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Politeness to the max. Apologies if he bumps into me, which must be some French custom the Irish haven’t figured out yet.

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Pretty funny on the off occasion he isn’t arguing with someone. He’s gonna get his nose broken by saying the wrong thing one day.

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A good person. Asked me if I needed help with my bike when it broke down. Granted I did, but I couldn’t swallow my pride to accept it.

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Very sweet. Could probably commit a murder in front of everyone and would not even be a suspect. I would probably be arrested instead.

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A great person to talk about books with. I feel like she would be the protagonist in a zombie apocalypse movie.

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Friendly from morning to midnight, till it kills you. It's so nice to hear her talk about things she is passionate about.

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Made my day when I saw him shivering in the corner of the classroom because he wasn’t used to the Irish weather.

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Has an outgoing vibe to her. I feel like if she ran for president she would be elected no matter what she did.

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Is good at staring contests, but still can’t beat me, which is not surprising. A cool name though. Its memorable.

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Has a contained wild vibe to her, like she wrestles bears in her spare time. Which I definitely applaud and support.

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Has a very “smart person” energy. I feel like if I brought him a dead body to hide he’d call the police on me.

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Passed me on a bike during quarantine and was cursed with seeing Grumpy Emily™, but still said hi, which is admirable.

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Keeps telling me how much slower than him I am at cycling to school. One day I’m gonna kick his bike over as he passes.

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A god-awful F1 in schools team leader, but other than that is sometimes funny. Only sometimes. Like 10% of the time.

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A cool person to be around. Has a kind of labrador energy. Although I’m getting kind of sick of destroying him in online chess.

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Can walk into any conversation and fit in perfectly. Can also cross just one of his eyes which really freaks me out.

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Kind of weird. Will eat a chilli pepper if you give him one but will also act mature two hours later like he didn’t just do that.

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A very chill vibe. Until he gets yelled at by Mr Timmons for not doing homework and then it's a very scared vibe.

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Has a very lively personality. I feel like if she got angry it would instantly obliterate half our class.

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I’d say he’s a good person, but he picks his muffins apart with his hands to eat them so I can’t do that.

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Seems quiet but has a bubbly personality when you look closer. You can laugh about anything with her.

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Someone who can fit into lots of groups and just make everything go bananas in a  good way.

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Honestly, she's just here to make the rest of us feel short. Someone I would ask to help me hide a body.

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Has a very bright energy that attracts people. Could make you excited about going to the electric chair.

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A really fun person to hang out with. While it might not be obvious, she can make a group sparkle when she's in it.

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Easy to make laugh. A social battery power bank on legs. Boosts people's confidence without even knowing it.

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Has one of the best laughs I know. Also has a cardboard cutout of Hilary Clinton in her house that I always think is her mom.

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A fun person to mess with. Very gullible. Like, Jesus Abbi, by this point you should just be expecting it.

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Such a calm presence to be in. It feels like everything drifts away and I can lie with her in a field forever.

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You didn’t make me stronger

I made me stronger

You just made me cry

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Some people say that the best work comes from a free mind. They say if you let go of all the things that hold you back, you will reach further than you would have thought.

So that's what I'm doing now. In a literal sense, I am typing without backspacing or changing anything. I will go back after to correct the spelling mistakes, but I won't alter the words. I also have music I love in the background, so I wonder how that will affect it. I always thought it would be interesting to see what the mind could come up with when it was unhindered. We would have raw thoughts, untouched by other peoples opinions or common sense.

In the end, isn't everything made of opinions?

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I was at a car boot sale on some church grounds a few days ago, just looking around. I had been at it a few months ago, so I knew where all the stalls were. Maybe after about 1 hour of browsing, I decided to head home. I went around the back of the church and was walking out when I noticed a stall I hadn't seen. It was a bit out of the way from the others and no one seemed to have noticed it. I came up to it and greeted the man who was looking after it. Most of the things he was selling were antiques, which I wasn't very interested in. He was a really nice guy, maybe in his sixties. He pulled out a little box filled with beads and jewelry. He let me sift through it and find something I liked. The guy had some nice stuff, but nothing that really caught my eye.

Underneath a pile of jewellery I found a large ring, shaped vaguely like an  umbrella, with blue and green rhinestones embedded in it. It was pretty. Not very valuable, but liked it's charm.

It was only a few euros, so I bought it. The ring is chunky and attracts both positive and negative comments from people. Its interesting to see people's different perspectives.

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I was recently cycling through the park at around 10 pm. In hindsight, this probably wasn't the best idea as some sketchy things have happened in that park in the past. I got lucky that night.

Anyway, it was pretty dark by now, but thankfully not pitch black as it was the end of spring. There was no other person in sight. Although I was on the outskirts of the park beside a busy road, I was slightly afraid. The dark had always been a threatening place for me.

I had just come over a hill and was cycling through the grass to get back to the path. I had dismounted my bike and was walking down when I noticed a fox in front of me. I had never previously seen a one with my own eyes, so it was a surprise. The fox just stared at me and I stared back at it. There were no glowing eyes, no flash of teeth, nothing aggressive.

Today, I can't remember its face, just its eyes. They looked at me with curiosity, but with enough caution to not approach me. The fox just acknowledged my existence and kept going.

Maybe I should try doing that?

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Everything has a beginning, a middle and an end. Sometimes they are in different orders. People assume that we are born, we live and we die in the exact same way. It's not always like that. Most people just live, waiting for when they are born, for when they are truly alive. And sometimes they die like that. They die waiting for their moment to come, The end of their lives comes as they wait for the beginning.

No one wants to die like that.