[Opening:] ‘When I was a young lad twenty or thirty or forty years ago I lived in a small town where they were all after me on account of what I done to Mrs. Nugent. I was hiding out by the river in a hole under a tangle of briars. It was a hide me and Joe made. Death to all dogs who enter here, we said. Except us of course. You could see plenty from the inside but no one could see you. Weeds and driftwood and everything floating downstream under the dark archway of the bridge. Sailing away to Timbuctoo. Good luck now weeds, I said. Then I stuck my nose out to see what was going on. Plink - rain if you don’t mind. But I wasn’t complaining. I like rain. […] Take your time drop, I said - we’ve got all the time we want now. We’ve got all the time in the world.’ (p.1.)

‘I went down to the river it was bulging nearly ready to burst its banks you could be eyeball to eyeball with the fish. I was shivering with the cold and the wet. I pulled at the grass along the edge of the bank and counted all the people that were gone on me now.

1. Da 2. Ma 3. Alo 4. Joe.

When I said Joe’s name all of a sudden I burst out laughing. For fuck’s sake! I said, Joe gone! How the fuck would Joe be gone! / That was the best yet.’ (p.163.)

[...]

‘Nugent it was you caused all the trouble if you hadn’t poked your nose in everything would have been alright.’ (p.2.) Further: ‘You did two bad things Mrs Nugent. You made me turn my back on my ma and you took Joe away from me. Why did you do that Mrs Nugent? She didn’t answer I didn’t want to hear any answer I smacked her against the wall a few times there was a smear of blood at the corner of her mouth and her hand was reaching out trying to touch me when I cocked the captive bolt. I lifted her off the floor with one hand and shot the bolt right into her head thlok was the sound it made, like a goldfish dropping in a bowl. It you ask anyone how you kill a pig they will tell you cut its throat across but you don’t you do it longways. Then she just lay there with her chin sticking up and I opened her up then I stuck my hand in her stomach and wrote PIGS all over the walls of the upstairs room.’ (p.195.)

‘That was all a long time ago. Twenty or thirty or forty years ago. I don’t know. I was on my own for a long time I did nothing only read the Beano and look out at the grass. Then they said to me[:] There’s no sense in you being stuck up in that wing all on your own. I don’t think you’re going to take the humane killer to any of our patients are you?
 Humane killer! I don’t think Mrs Nugent would be too pleased to hear you call it that, doc, I said. Oh now now he says that’s all over you must forget all about that next week your solitary finishes how about that hmm? I felt like laughing in his face: How can your solitary finish? That’s the best laugh yet.’ (p.214; [...] End.)