The following is my entry in the WritersWeekly.com 24 Hour Short Story Contest – Winter 2010. I just received an e-mail from Angela Hoy that the time line has expired (my entry is already in for several hours), ergo I feel free to post my entry here.

A married couple sits at the table for breakfast. The man had checked his boiled egg and, after a long thought, starts complaining that the egg is overcooked.

Even though this is an excerpt from my novel, this short story is complete in itself. The scene is a pub near the town Cahersiveen in Ireland, and the story leads to the lyrics of The Boys of Barr Na Sraide as written by the Irish poet and playwright Sigerson Clifford.

Even though this is an excerpt from my novel, this short story is complete in itself. The story describes a scene in an Irish pub in a Boston neighborhood where a young man with an Uilleann pipe plays a session of three songs. These songs remind the main character of The Bleeding Hills, Finnean Whelan, of his upbringing in Ireland, and my story describes three stages of his life.

The idea for “Cemetery Polka” came after I wrote an article on the importance of a good title for an article or even a book. “Cemetery Polka” is actually a song by Tom Waits, and I used the title as an inspiration to write a short story.