What They Tell You
by Maggie · 18 June 2026 · Short Stories
In 30 years Maggie has heard: affairs, wills, business plans, opinions about priests for the bishops. People think they're talking to the mirror. They're talking to her. She repeats nothing — not discretion, self-preservation.
In thirty years behind this chair I have heard: four confessions of affairs, one of which was the husband of a woman sitting in the next chair at that exact moment — I was very busy that morning — at least twelve business plans that never happened, two that did, several detailed medical symptoms that doctors had dismissed, the full text of a will before it was signed, a number of opinions about priests that would have been interesting to the relevant bishops, and the real reason the butcher on Rathmines Road closed in 2011, which has nothing to do with what people think.
People think they're talking to the mirror. They're not. They're talking to me.
I don't repeat any of it. This isn't discretion so much as self-preservation — if it got out that I passed things on, the information would stop, and the information is the best part of the job. Also most of it is not mine to pass on. People tell me things they need to tell someone. I happen to be there with the scissors.
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