Under the tender guidance of Iseult, the new owners of this gulag set about making the factory and its environs as hospitable as possible.

Some started creating living quarters for everyone inside the empty broken buildings. Others gathered all the written material they could and brought them into a warehouse where Gilly led another team charged with the task of cataloging and compiling.

By the evening of the first day of their liberation, everyone was now able to find shelter and warmth inside for the first time since they had arrived at the factory.

Only Mac was unable to settle into this new-found freedom and despite each and every request, still chose to sleep outside, huddled beneath the dirty tarpaulin that he had come to call his home.

From the time that society realised that there was more to the world than the basic boundaries that limited it to the edges of the dark, it has been the need for or fear of knowledge that has driven the world to discover or deny the very facts of our existence.

At the cosmic level of this story, this thirst for facts doesn’t even register except for the wholly alien pleasure so plainly to be found in erasing all those facts already discovered and thereby preventing a whole planet from spinning any more.

But we as humans are present at a much more personal level and so once again we are confronted by the simple truth of one man who only knows one thing now; that everything he has ever known is wrong.

A simple truth indeed.

‘But that’s insane,’ said Gilly after Mac had recounted his conversation with the thugs.

‘Indeed,’ replied Mac, ‘but that is exactly how They want it.’

‘They?’ asked Iseult. ‘Who are They?’

‘Now we are at the heart of the matter,’ said Mac gravely. Mac sat down and the others joined him.

‘In the course of my life’s work I uncovered what I believed to be a cosmic plot intent on destroying the world.’

‘A cosmic plot?’ repeated Iseult. ‘Whatever can you mean?’

‘Exactly that,’ said Mac. ‘And nothing more.’

‘Now clear off back to your friends and leave us alone,’ said the thug and he kicked Mac in the shins.

‘We will be going in five minutes and then you lot are on your own.’

‘Our own?’ winced Mac. ‘What do you mean?’

‘What I said,’ replied the thug. ‘On your own. We don’t need any of you anymore so you can all stay here. There will be no more food so you can all sit on your silly, useless asses and die slowly together.’ All the thugs laughed.

‘Thanks for everything and have a nice life!’

‘All this was the easy stuff,’ said the thug who had forced Mac into the portable toilet. ‘The hard stuff is about to start.’

‘The hard stuff?’ repeated Mac, still stunned. ‘What hard stuff?’

‘What hard stuff?’ scoffed the thug. ‘Why Phase Two of Operation TurnBack, of course!’

‘Phase Two?’ echoed Mac again, still unable to follow the thug.

‘FOR ALL YOUR SO-CALLED LEARNING YOU ARE HAVING A HARD TIME UNDERSTANDING ANYTHING I’M SAYING,’ screamed the thug. ‘Phase Two involves the demolition and destruction of every landmark and civic building in existence.’

The thug laughed.

‘You old people were reserved for the easy stuff. It is going to take everyone in the country to make sure that Phase Two is a success.’

Mac stood still, stunned. The thugs all started laughing.

‘Look at him,’ they jeered. ‘Professor Reading-Lots-of-Stuff hasn’t got anything left to read.’

‘But that’s insane …,’ started Mac before another thug interrupted him.

‘That’s nothing, old man. This camp was only responsible for books. Other camps elsewhere were responsible for destroying many other things; paintings, pottery, ceramics, furniture, and musical instruments. You name it and there is a camp somewhere filled with idiots like yourself being forced to destroy anything with any cultural value.’

As Mac’s eyes grew accustomed to the light he could see activity by the guardhouse. A group of boiler suits were standing around smoking and smirking. One or two of them were laughing at something that someone else had said and before he knew what he was doing Mac had stood up and wobbled over to them.

‘What’s happening?’ he asked in a broken voice. The group stopped talking and for a split second it looked like they were going to take turns beating Mac to death. He stood as tall as he could in his ragged pinstripe suit and broken brogues.

‘Nothing, Grandpa,’ said one of the thugs. ‘That’s what we are laughing about. It is all over.’

Mac didn’t understood.

‘What’s all over?’ he asked. The thug leaned close to Mac and spoke very slowly.

‘Congratulations,’ he sneered. ‘Thanks to you and all of your learned friends there is now not a single, solitary book of any description left in the country.’

A Christmas table groaning beneath the weight of the biggest turkey you have ever seen. All the trimmings as well. Someone singing something happy in the kitchen. The doorbell rings. The loveliest tree sits proudly in the corner bedecked in ribbons and balls. And the smell. Like everything wonderful all together. Happy faces on everyone here. Beery hugs and the rip of paper fills the air. Neighbours visiting and then everyone sits down to eat. All around the table. Mum and Dad. Aunties and Uncles. Sons. Daughters. Cousins. Pulling crackers and laughing. The doorbell rings once more. The front door opens. Footsteps in the hallway.

A small child with a broken nose stands in the doorway screaming.

When we are confronted by an insect, our natural reaction is to use our hands to wipe and swipe and flick and push away and squash the thing annoying you. Or hit it with a rolled-up newspaper. At the very least we would wave something in a bid to get the insect to go and bother someone else.

A single fly, perhaps?

A cloud of midges?

An ant in your lunchbox?

A wasp attracted to your fizzy drink?

A descending ocean of cockroaches?

Bara Cailín Chapter 4

Advanced Examination Paper

Instructions for Candidates

Write your answers to the following questions in the space provided.

All questions carry equal marks.

1. What would it feel like to have a billion billion cockroaches the size of pebbles fall from the ceiling of a cave beneath a mountain and land upon your head?

2. What would it sound like?

3. How would you feel if it happened to you?

4. Where are the words?