With my most recent story done and dusted, I felt like having another go at the Shuffle Challenge. Hope you enjoy those snippets of Mick's life.

When the eleventh song came up, one of my favourite anti-war weepies, it fitted one of the other bits so well that I decided to write a "bonus track".

1. Enya: Amarantine

I was floating in the blue-green waters, allowing myself to drift slowly, watching the clouds go by lazily in the summer sky.

I had done this so often when I needed to think, to clear my head, to muse about something that was troubling me, that I found myself wondering for a moment what problem I needed to get solved this time.

A happy cry of "Daddy!" reminded me that, this time, I was simply enjoying a lovely day out with my family, and I waved hello to Annie.

2. Mazzy Star: Fade Into You

I sat in the audience, way at the back, listened to her beautiful clear voice speaking of the islands and of some adventures we had shared. It felt like ages ago and had yet been barely three years since then.

Now she was a famous published writer on a reading tour, and I was a crippled nothing, a mangled leg concealed underneath the dapper uniform I wore, a tortured soul hidden behind the brave face I kept for the world. Not quite what a successful woman would want in her life.

She was the answer to all my questions, the one and only who could fill the painful void in my heart, but of course I knew it could not be.

So I left, careful not to be seen.

3. Belle & Sebastian: Act of the Apostle

Rosie turned up the volume of the creaky gramophone that was her biggest pride and started to play the record again from the beginning. "C'mon, Mick, once more!"

I groaned, but she didn't care, and I resignedly took up my position again and let her lead me in the umpteenth quickstep of the evening. I was already soaked with sweat and ready to admit I would never learn those goddamn steps, but she wouldn't hear of it.

4. Duane Eddy: Rebel Rouser

I ran through the fields in the fresh air of an early October afternoon, whooping loudly, watching the kite Grandpa had helped me build as it soared into the cloud-dotted sky.

"Run, Mickey!" he cried to me now. "Yes, that's fine!"

I managed to keep it flying for quite a long time, something I had never accomplished before, and when it finally dropped, Grandpa squeezed my shoulder proudly. "Well done, lad!"

5. The Pogues: Streams of Whiskey

I didn't know if it was my Irish blood that made itself felt, but I had really come to love Dublin and was happy that my erratic travels around the world had brought me back.

It was a balmy night in June, and for once, I thoroughly enjoyed shore leave. The bar was seedy and dark, the music was loud and cheery, the beer was dark and tasty, and there was this pretty red-haired lass on the dancefloor who looked like a poster girl for her home country, with a supple body and nimble feet.

6. Maxime Piolot: J'appartiens à cette île

My island.

This little speck of land, way out there in the endless Pacific ocean, that had saved me from losing my mind, from drinking myself to death, from a restless life travelling the seas.

My safe haven, my home, the place I belonged. A boat, a house, a modest but comfortable income, the finest job there was in the world. What else could I expect from life?

A woman to love me. But that was asking too much, I guessed.

7. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros: Jade

I watched her drifting through the crowd, chatting with someone here, smiling at somebody there, totally at ease, totally unaware of how fabulous she looked in her simple brown shift dress between all the dolled-up women in their flashy dresses and showy jewellery, with her soft auburn waves of hair and the single large pearl at her neck.

I didn't like those receptions I sometimes had to attend with her, but I liked looking on as she moved gracefully through this world that was so alien and strange to me with its protocol and its pretences, and I couldn't help feeling considerably proud of her.

8. Kings of Convenience: Surprise Ice

It was an icy winter day, colder than they usually got hereabouts.

I was home alone, with Evelyn out for a staff meeting, and I suddenly felt melancholy and nostalgic.

I hadn't missed the place where I had been born in a very long time, not since after the war, when everything had seemed so bleak and I had wished I was a child again whose troubles can be dispelled with a hug and a kiss.

But this freezing day reminded me of my childhood up in Maine, of friends I had never heard of again, of my first love, of my wonderful grandparents who had been gone so long now, of my mother whom I had loved but who had stopped understanding me by the time I was starting school, and of my dad whom I had known only so briefly but still missed so badly sometimes.

Would he be proud of me if you saw me now?

9. Loreena McKennitt: Ancient Pines

I walked through a forest of deepest green, a lush, thick forest of mighty, leafy trees, a path of softest brown earth beneath my feet.

There were small figures between the tree trunks at a distance, dressed in colours similar to those of the woods, shades of green and brown.

When I got closer, I recognized them.

Richard, Jimmy, Joe, Leary. Danny and Henderson. Chatting animatedly.

Alive, all of them, and unhurt.

I wondered for a moment.

Then I realized I was only dreaming.

10. The Cranberries: Free To Decide

"I'm not going. There's no need to discuss. I've said a million times I'm not going, and I'm not changing my mind about this. Why do you keep nagging?"

"Dan, leave him, please." My mother's eyes were gleaming suspiciously, and I knew it was not easy for her to say that. I knew that she secretly agreed with Dan that I was throwing a bright academic future away for a silly boyish dream of romantic adventure.

"I only mean well", Dan said stiffly. "But if you insist, Mick – suit yourself." He left the room, anger speaking from every fibre of his body.

Mom followed him with her eyes helplessly, taking a deep breath.

I hated when they quarrelled because of me, it made me feel kind of guilty where there was no need to be.

I whispered, "Thank you, Mom."

She nodded quickly.

"Bonus track"

11. The Dubliners & Davey Arthur: Green Fields of France

I had another dream of my boys in a clearing of that same forest I had dreamed of before. Hazy shafts of light fell through the branches, and they were gathered in a circle around a freshly dug grave.

One of them was saying a few solemn words, for there was no priest to officiate. There was a little cross made of twigs, with a piece of smooth bark attached to it that bore a name engraved with a pen knife, and someone had picked a small bunch of forest flowers as a pathetic last greeting.

Tears were running down their faces as they tried to sing a song, voices choking miserably. I recognized the familiar strains of the "Skye Boat Song".

"He once said he loved this song", Richard whispered wretchedly. "He said his dad used to sing it for him as a lullaby."

Only then did I understand that the comrade sleeping the ultimate final sleep in that leafy grave was me.