No Today, no Tomorrow, only Yesterdays - Excerpt from In The Wicker Wood.

Patsy softly closed the door to the day-room behind him. He had carried out his duty as promised. He had delivered Sonny into the Home without incident. He put his keys back into his overall pocket and pointed, “There he said, in the chair by the window. That’s him.”

O’Neill went forward and squatted by the chair. He reached forward and touched his Grandfather's elbow. A face he did not know, with eyes blank, staring and dead, turned towards him.

“Daideo,” he began in Gaelic, “It’s Sonny.”

Daideo turned blankly, not seeing, struggling to make the mental links that would make him see. His mouth moved. O’Neill leaned closer.

“Mind her. Mind your mother.” His head dropped down again and he examined the floor. “The sins of the fathers,” he muttered. “She came back, full of the sin of that father, but I never blamed her, or the boy.”

Patsy crept forward. “Make it short Sonny. Time is ticking on Boy.”

O’Neill waved a dismissive hand. “Quiet!  I can’t make out what he is saying. Daideo.” He said again, louder, “I’m here! It’s me Sonny. Daideo!”

Daideo reached out and grabbed his arm. “Sonny? Is it you?”

“Yes Daideo. It’s me Sonny, I’m here.”

“She never wanted to tell you. I did. She kept a tin: a Billy-Can, to show you, to tell you. Then she threw it away: into the flax-hole. I marked the spot and got it out. I dried them in the sun. I hid them: below the third stone on the mountain, the Druid’s Stone. The hay will be good this year. I’ll turn it with the rake and bring it home on the bogie. Mind them children there! Who owns them?”

He sat muttering, and sobbing softly in the midst of some inconsolable memory, distraught, his mind lost in the past and destined to remain there. For him there was no today, no tomorrow only yesterdays.