The Habit of Hiding Pain Behind a Bit of the Craic

She threw her head back and let out a roar of a laugh that filled every dark corner of the pub, a great, rattling sound meant to keep the neighbors’ eyes off the fissures opening up inside her like dry rot in a floorboard. 

It was a grand, bellowing mirth she had, but it was a necessary one, too. For she knew that if she stopped the noise for even a second—if she let the air go still around her—you’d hear the tectonic shifting of the woman’s spirit, snapping bit by bit in the silence.

So, she carried on, wearing that laughter like a heavy wool coat in a downpour. It was soaked through and twice as heavy as any grief, but she hauled it along anyway; it was far better than letting the world see the jagged, splintered architecture of the soul beneath.