It was a confusing Tuesday of a long and hot August, when (a good four days post the application deadline) I decided to randomly send out a causal and completely unhinged application for the August 2023 Shorter Stories x unform event in Dublin.
I had just recently returned from Ireland, where I worked as an English teacher in a summer school, in Kilkenny. On my way back home - just to keep a lovely little tradition alive - I had stopped by one of Dublin's best bookstores, the Library Project and picked up a copy of Totally Dublin. Although it's free, Totally Dublin provides such a surprisingly high quality that I feel like I had declared utmost loyalty to the magazine even long before I wrote a book review for them (something I have had a chance to do since).
After returning to Hungary, I had found an article in Totally Dublin about a new organisation called unform - and with that, I think, all had been decided. Dublin is beyond expensive (yes, I had learned this lesson the hard way) - unform's aim is specifically to facilitate Dublin-based artists in a city where not only living costs drive artists away but also the lack of affordable opportunities to share (and try to sell) their art. unform is an exciting new-wave approach, they are present both on Instagram and have their own website:
Now, obviously, I am neither an artist nor a Dubliner, but that didn't stop me from contacting them from my little Hungarian wooden cabin. And I'm very happy that it did.
I have this random obsession: the other part of my double life. I like to say that postal services live from my money because the number of postcards I send around yearly (as friends of mine are scattered about everywhere) could singlehandedly keep traditional letter writing alive. (Financially speaking, at least - about quality, I can't say anything.) My favourite postcard-related activity (out of the many I do) is to write tiny postcard tales on cards and either send them to someone or just keep them in a seemingly bottomless plastic drawer - magic by IKEA. I'm fascinated with the idea of very short prose, aggressively brisk one (flash fiction, they call it, although my tales only aim to be cosy and are rather melancholic, without huge twists or turns - something flash fiction is supposed to have).
I asked unform whether I could sell handwritten postcard tales of mine at the art market they were planning to fund, and shockingly, they took me seriously - when even I knew that this was a rather unusual idea... But did I truly end up selling postcard tales? No, I did not. One must have some sense of reality after all.
I knew, however, that unform was co-organising the event with Shorter Stories (an organisation trying to give visibility to new and emerging literary souls hoping to share something tiny of theirs) founded by two Irish guys: Eoin Lynam & Sam Moorhead.
As I'm already sharing links, Shorter Stories, of course, can also be found online:
Shorter Stories has recently seemed to have moved towards live performance - something I feared and chose to willingly ignore at first upon reading about the event in Totally Dublin - after a while, however, I had to realise that my little madness of selling cards wasn't realistic, and hence, I ended up facing the terrifying truth: It was either begging Shorter Stories to let me perform a tiny tale of mine - or nothing.
Now.
Nothing is great.
Nothing is truly okay.
There's nothing wrong with nothing.
One.
Does.
Not.
Need.
To.
Constantly.
Venture.
I too knew that. But then, I'm also mad and then, there's this one thing too;
I sent out my email to Shorter Stories on that confusing Tuesday, got a reply on Wednesday and got my ticket for Friday. The event was on Sunday.
A part of me truly wished not to be answered at all - as there is a difference between not trying and not succeeding. My August was about to turn far too chaotic, too upsetting, too-too-too something. Somehow, I always make a mistake and forget how kind Irish people are. They tend to say yes. And with that and my never shutting up - I always get myself into trouble.
I'm writing these lines post-story, from a finally-somewhat-gloomy-ish October, with the determination to stay in Hungary, at least for a while, and so far, I've been going strong. Apart from thinking of Books Upstairs, every day, for a few minutes. I'm not gonna lie, my heart does bleed a bit whenever I look at the pictures I had taken before the event: strolling around Dublin for the wholeness of that summery Saturday.
My heart still bleeds a tiny bit. Look at this, look at this lovely space. Books Upstairs, in Dublin actually has books downstairs - and even in the cellar. Upstairs, they have a café. And if I die, my soul will forever and ever haunt this lovely space. (But I will do it kindly.) That day, though, they told me to put my laptop away as it was a stricktly offline Saturday. I grow roots in cafés.
I mumbled my little tale of my little cabin of the sun-washed Hungary in a loop, over and over again, for an hour - as practice. And drank my tea and ate my cake.
A tale of this little house with that enormous garden:
And now, I'm enclosing that glowing Saturday of Dublin with my sunwashed Hungarian heart in this one little post. To have it as a written memory.
The performance ('performance' is such a grand word; all I did was read aloud) was a succes, I'd say. I didn't faint and three sweethearts of mine even came came from Kilkenny to cheer for me.
But before bringing this writing to an end, I wanted to add the text of my little cabin.
And this is me, post-performance. Freezing (a gloomy Sunday after that summery Saturday.)
I climb in and out of stories.
Liffey. Don't forget me.
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