Chapter 194: Gathering storms
In the blink of an eye, a year had passed.
In a fleeting instant, the year 2004 had arrived.
Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, was its largest seaport. At its high latitude, summers were cool, with gulls wheeling overhead, while the Gulf Stream made winters mild and pleasant.
The port facing the Atlantic Ocean often offered blue seas, clear skies, and white sails standing tall. The city's most important river wound like a ribbon past ruined castles that seemed to tell stories of the past and green meadows where grass grew and orioles flew. It flowed slowly past children releasing balloons in the municipal park and couples embracing tightly on the lawns, as though time itself might stand still.
County Antrim was part of Belfast-strictly speaking, Antrim District. But the old county residents still considered it County Antrim, not merely a district long since absorbed and assimilated by a modern industrial city. They still loved this land with deep affection.
Along the bay in the county's northeast, seaside cottages spread beneath the setting sun. Many locals still made their living fishing and catching shrimp. During the day, wives prepared breakfast and dinner, while children rode yellow school buses to secondary schools in the district. In the evening, the men brought the shrimping company's boats back into port, their vessels cutting ripples through the harbor currents. Sailors took off their blue company caps and waved to the people waiting onshore.
At this hour, warm lights often came on in the cottages of that residential neighborhood. The evening sky displayed vast rippled clouds stretching thousands of miles, their edges gilded in dark gold. It was magnificent.
At night, faint firelight glowed in cottage after cottage, flickering warmly through the windows, as though bringing the whole world into